Paint You Wings

Chapter Seventeen - Jakki

We let the king know of our intentions of staying somewhere else. He insisted that we let him care for us in someway, letting us still be part of the Kingdom. We gave in and he let us go.

Daryl and I walked along the road, searching for any house that wasn't burnt and in a shitty shape. We managed to find one that still had furniture and appliances all intact.

"Maybe there's a creek nearby." Daryl said as he walked through the house a third time, making sure there wasn't anything there.

"Daryl," I grabbed his arm to stop him. "There's nothing here. Stop worrying."

He looked down at me and nodded a little before lowering his crossbow. I loosened my grip but kept my hand where it was.

"Are you still scared of them coming?"

"Not really scared for me. Scared for you."

The words stung a bit, but not in a bad way. It was still weird to have someone actually care about me. To hear it was just... it left me speechless.

"Don't worry about me. We're here now. There's nothing in this house that can get us."

"Yeah. It's all outside." He looked off.

I sighed and made him look at me. "They're not going to get us. Rick will take care of them before they can, okay? We have him and everybody else looking after us."

Daryl slowly nodded and pulled my hand away from his face, holding it in his. "I love you." He said quietly.

"I love you, too." I reached up and kissed his cheek.

We spent some time cleaning the place up and looking at what we had. I found a few bottles of liquor scattered through out the house. I gathered it all up and put in the closet of the master bedroom. I wasn't exactly ready to dig into that yet.

"I don't know how you are but I'm not gonna be able to keep the place clean." Daryl sat on the couch.

"I can clean and cook. Just hunt and all that and don't make a big mess." I sat next to him.

"I think I can do that."

I looked around at the house that was now more habitable than before. I dusted everything and picked up a bit. Daryl helped, of course. But now we kinda had our own house.

"I don't know how you are on drinking but I found some alcohol and put it in the bedroom." I looked at him.

He shrugged. "I don't have to drink. It's just nice to." He looked down at his hands. "This one guy we had chose drinking over medicine for our sick people one time. He was lucky he lived as long as he did."

"What happened to him?"

"Bob got bit and then was supper for some cannibals. They took his leg and dropped the rest of him off at our door."

I said nothing. I just looked at the floor. I had no idea people had resorted to cannibalism. It was kind of expected but, hearing about it being a reality was hard to grasp.

"We killed them all after that."

I nodded and cleared my throat. "I wonder if there's any more cannibals out there."

"Probably. Just not here."

"Probably."

We sat in silence for a little while. I rested my head on his shoulder and he put his arm around me.

"Do you think we can get some candles from the Kingdom?" I asked Daryl.

He nodded. "We might. He wants to help us."