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The warm, damp air pressed around the woman like a wet blanket, plastering loose tendrils of blonde hair to her forehead. She sat against the thick trunk of a hawthorn tree, its rough bark digging into the ridges of her spine as she scratched the tip of her last pen across the empty page.
                          
Day god knows what: my jeep has run out of gas and the heat wave is insufferable. There's no food, and I'm running out of water. Jackson's wheezing is becoming a concern. I don't know how much lon
                          
She stopped writing when the snapping twig pricked her sharp ears, almost immediately followed by the growl of her small black dog. She looked up, freezing as she gazed into the faces of a pack of dogs - housepets turned feral; two of them still had their collars, and she could just barely make out a name engraved on one of the silver tags: Jess. Eye contact was never broken between the woman and the once beloved companion as she slowly reached for the weapon resting against innocently against the tree beside her.
                          
The eye contact she moved so softly in a desperate effort to hold was broken in an instant, her attention diverted to the lumbering sound of a larger being picking their way towards her. The woman swore under breath watching the dogs scatter, disappearing through the brush; away from the unseen predator.
                          
"Son of a bitch." Her hand closed  around the handle of her crossbow, and she shot up from her perch in the grass.
                          
As she zigzagged through the trees after the dogs, she realized she hadn't given her own dog an order, although she quickly pushed the thought out of her mind. Jackson was relatively well trained. If it was a biter, he knew to run away. If it wasn't, he'd stand his ground.
                          
The woman grunted as a heavy body leaped at her from behind, dragging her down to the forest floor. She struggled underneath her attacker, kicking her legs and fighting to keep him from forcing the air out of her lungs. The bastard needed to lose a few goddamn pounds.
                          
He let up on her slightly and she managed to roll onto her back, immediately beating the heels of her hands against any fleshy surface she could reach. Grumbling at her assault, he wrestled her hands over her head, pinning her wrists together in one significantly larger hand. His palms were calloused against her skin, adding to his abrasive image. He straddled her torso and glared into cat-like eyes that glared right back, until her eyebrows drew together and her eyes dropped to somewhere beyond him. She watched the last dog slip from the treeline, met by the quiet pop, pop, pop, pop, pop of a suppressor. The dogs were dead.
                          
Daryl's hard glare never wavered from the strange woman who had appeared out of nowhere. Correction - he had happened upon her. He looked her over through the dark hair that fell over his eyes, taking note of the odd shade of green her eyes were, the small pendant that rested on the skin between her collarbones. Was she alone?
                          
"First time on top of a woman, huh?" she asked, her voiced laced with a cocky attitude he didn't like as much. She was looking at him again and breathing hard, her chest heaving steadily."Well, allow me to give you some tips. Number one, don't get too comfortable."
                          
Daryl grunted as her forehead collided with his, stunning him enough for her to wiggle out from underneath him. When she got her footing, she brought his nose down to her knee and her elbow to the base of his neck.
                          
"This was fun, let's not do it again!" she called over her shoulder as she ran out onto the road, momentarily forgetting about whoever shot the dogs until they caught sight of her. She turned to run back into the woods, and skidded to quick stop. There was a crossbow aimed between her pale green eyes.
                          
"Who're you?" Daryl demanded gruffly, blood trickling from his nose. 
                          
She could tell he wasn't a people person.