Peony: A Short Story

“OW!” He exclaims, snatching his hand away from her face- moments after it moves away, she feels a small trickle of blood slide down her neck. She opens her mouth again to scream but stops dead in her tracks. A very cold and sharp object pokes lightly into the skin under her ear- and she realises that blood she felt wasn’t Rhett’s, it was her’s. “ I don’t want to hurt you Peony- but you screaming like that is going to attract an entire bloody swarm of walkers to flood this camp. After that neither of us will have supplies! So I suggest you sit down, shut up and-” *bang* “Everybody get up! We got walkers!” *bang- bang* “Someone go find Peony! Go wake Koga up! Come on people, MOVE!” *bang-bang-bang* Hundreds of gunshots are firing all

He places one hand on her back- using the other one to hoist her up. Peony was almost up and standing again when the dirt underneath her good foot slides forward- taking her with it. She lands hard on her bad foot, letting out the most blood curdling scream that either of them had ever heard. The walkers getting closer- her heart was beating faster and faster- head throbbing with it in sync. Peony had just gave up on running when she feels an arm slide under her legs and another across her back-the world spinning in her head as Rhett lifts her off the ground. “Don’t worry- I got you.” He begins running in the opposite direction of her campsite- of her group. She tries to tell him to stop, to turn around and go help her allies but she can’t find her voice. Dark spots begin clouding her vision, one spot- two spots- three, she takes one last breath- praying that her group gets out safe before her whole body relaxes and everything goes black.

He sighs, brushing one shaky hand through his hair. “Because… I gave it to him… it was an early bridal gift…” He confesses, letting the knife drop to the ground.
“What should we do?”
“Yeah Koga, what should we do?” Everyone gets loud again- all arguing over different possibilities to go about fixing this problem. “Listen up everyone!” He yells above the din- the crowd falling silent once more. “Thankyou.” He begins walking in a circle around the tent- making eye contact with everyone as he goes along. “We all know Rhett, we know what he did to Peony- what he did to us. But he has been harassing her the past six months for her to give him supplies- and she wouldn’t do it. But now, he came into our campsite, stole our leader and got ALMOST ALL of us killed! ARE WE GOING TO LET HIM GET AWAY WITH THIS!” “NO!” “ARE WE GOING TO GO GET PEONY BACK!?” “YES!” “Alright then! Grab the weapons- get in the cars and let’s go catch this kidnapper!” That being said, the group splits up- everyone running around to collect their battle gear. Once everyone besides Koga has evacuated the tent- he bends down and picks up Rhett’s knife of the ground- holding it firmly in his