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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
WHEN THE YOUNG WOMAN'S eyes flutter open, the first thing she feels is shooting pains and the faint throbbing of her wounds. Her body is still, yet her eyes are drawn to the lingering presence in the room. The figure is staring out the window and she immediately knows who it is from the strong frame and the lack of hair. "Shane..."
The man quickly whipped his head round after hearing the light voice of Athena. He raced to her bedside and helped her sit up slowly, a few groans escaping her lips. "How are you feeling?"
Athena touched her head and looked around the room, noticing she was inside the farm house. She couldn't remember how she got there, the last thing she could recall was emerging through the tree to find Daryl had been shot. Athena ignored his question as her eyes went wide "Where's Daryl? Is he badly hurt? Who shot him?"
Shane placed her hands on either side or her face, pushing her hair out of her face as he tried to calm her down. He looked into her eyes with a soft expression "Hey-hey. Daryl is fine. Andrea thought he was a walker, it was a misunderstanding on her part but judging by how he looked I'm not surprised he got shot. He's lucky Andrea got to him first because I could kill him right now for letting this happen to you." His tone hardened
Athena shook her head and spoke gently "It wasn't his fault. The horse threw us off down this huge grass bank. I don't remember much of what happened after but Daryl wasn't to blame." She paused, silence filling the room as her walls came down and her eyes began to fill with water. She opened her mouth to speak but no sound seemed to come out as her eyes began to water more. Athena couldn't tell if she was crying out of fear of dying or crying out of fear for her baby. The two seemed to blur into one which made it unclear.
But the one thing that was clear — she had to tell Shane.
Shane shushed her gently and wiped away the stray tears with the pad of his thumb, he had never seen her like this and it broke his heart in two. After his fling with Lori he never thought he'd love the same way again, but Athena brought out a different kind of love in him. He felt every bit of pain she went through, he felt every smile when she was happy and he felt an overwhelming amount of love when they were intimately close.
Shane brushed her hair away from her face and lifted her chin a little, studying the dirt and blood that had stained her face. He could only imagine the mess that covered the places he couldn't see. "Why don't we get you cleaned up. Hershel checked you over and there's no broken bones, just a lot of bruising. Best we get all this dirt and blood off of you."
The man gently lifted Athena until she could stand on her own two feet and helped her over to the bathroom where he carefully began to take her clothes off. Pieces of fabric sticking to her dried up wounds as he pulled her shirt off tenderly. Shane kept glancing back ever so often, making sure she was comfortable with him undressing her — he didn't want to startle her while she was still in a state of shock.
