It had been more than a week since your arrival and you were already in line with the new group. You had met the other people like T-Dog, Carol, Andrea and Shane. You shuddered to pronounce his name. Shane… You didn’t like how he looked at you, very often he let his terrible eyes fall on your body and put together a kind of perverse fantasies in his head. You avoided getting near to him and most of all being close to him. He had tried to come closer than once, but you always ignored it. In the last few days you had spotted him often to spy on you, you collected some wood before, while later you washed laundry with Lori and Carol or while you happily talked with Glenn and T-Dog about many things. Otherwise things were going well. Rick decided to trust Daryl as support for the hunt. You two woke up very early and in the late afternoon you both returned to the camp with killed animals. Like every morning you waited outside the tent for him otherwise no one went to the meadow in the direction of the forest. There was a great harmony between you, although there was usually no dialogue between you. You both preferred to listen to the sounds of the forest; the chirping of the birds that came from the high treetops, the rustling of the wind, the dry sound of the leaves shattering under their shoes, the sound of water breaking on the mossy rocks. You loved the forest as much as Daryl did… When you were a kid, you often went to your grandparents, who lived in a small house by a small forest. Your grandfather enjoyed teaching you some tricks on how to hunt animals, listen to nature and how to survive in the wild. Once, playing hide and seek with your brother, you lost myself under the tall trees and after an afternoon you spent looking for the way back, you managed to return home and hug your crying mother. Daryl was not human, he was more like a wild animal… As soon as he caught a prey, he silently hid behind a bush or behind a lichen-covered trunk, waiting and looking closely at the animal, at every move to load the crossbow at the right moment and after a brief moment, the arrow shoot. He lived in complete harmony with the forest, like some bacteria that manage to establish a relationship of complete well-being and mutual exchange with the host organism. Who knows if the epidemic had not broken out, how Daryl would have lived otherwise…

“Hey, sunshine, did you fall asleep?”

“Shit, stop calling me that!”

“Okay… parasite.”

What an idiot, he always made fun of you. You couldn’t stand him if he was like that. But you kind of liked it… Those were the only words he spoke to you all day. Daryl did not really talk to anyone, not even to the other members of the group. He was very introverted and often grumpy, he ate alone and spent his days in the forest. The only person he exchanged a few words with was Carol. Lori had told you everything about her. At the beginning of the epidemic she came with her daughter Sophia and her alcoholic husband into the group. He often enjoyed beating her and looked at the girl with mischievous eyes. After the attack on the camp and the loss of her husband, Carol remained alone with her daughter, but soon she also lost Sophia. Daryl had made himself available from the outset to seek out Sophia, to risk his life for her, but it was already too late, since she had been bitten by a Walker. It was difficult for both of them to recover from the incident, but they looked to the future and strengthened each other.

“Hey sunshine, move, we have to go.”

“Okay I got it.”

You followed him absent-mindedly, watching out for the landscape you were immersed in, perhaps looking for a nice prey for dinner… Suddenly Daryl stopped and turned to you, you went on without realizing it and slammed against him with full force. You felt his heart pounding, the muscles under the thin shirt pulled together; his chest gave off an animal heat that mingled with its wild smell. You stood there leaning against each other, listening to the deep breaths and noises of your hearts that had gone mad by this feeble physical contact. What happened to you? You felt how your body contracted inwardly through emotion and at the same time through fear.

“Daryl…”, you whispered.

“We should go…”

You looked up visibly embarrassed and plunged into the icy, bright and crystal blue of his eyes. He looked back and raised his hand close to your face, only a few inches away from your skin. Why? How so? What did that mean? But soon he turned away and withdrew his hand.

“Let us go.”

You arrived at the camp when the sun had already set without saying a word. Carl greeted you happily as he lay in his mother’s arms. Andrea was busy cleaning her gun, which she never parted with. Glenn and T-Dog talked to Lori and Carol at the fire. Daryl headed for the house to bring the animal you hunted in the late morning into the kitchen. You decided to sit by the fire and listen to the others. Only then did you notice Shane sitting down to sharpen his knife. He began to look at you mischievously, without batting an eyelash. You tried not to look back and turned to the house, hoping to see Daryl appear at any moment. Shortly thereafter, the man stood up and the darkness swallowed him.

“Y/N, could you go and get my shotgun?”

Your thoughts were interrupted by Glenn’s voice as he sat on an old suitcase. You looked at him and after a short smile you agreed with a nod.

“I forgot it near the henhouse.”

You shuddered. Shane had just left and you had no idea where he was… You took your bow and got up, walked slowly, trying not to make a noise and not to pay attention to yourself. You just had to take the shotgun and run to the camp as fast as possible. When you arrived at the chicken coop you did not see a gun. Your attention was attracted by the horses, not far from the chicken coop, by Hershel, who cared for the animals with so much love and devotion. You were so trapped that you didn’t notice the dark shape behind you.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

You gasped and turned around in horror. It was Shane. Crap…

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

The man touched his lips with two fingers as he looked you from head to toe, scrutinizing every inch of your body. You felt disgusted and turned to avoid his gaze. You took a deep breath to calm down, but you couldn’t. A terrible thought went through your mind, but you put it out immediately. He would not do it. He would not even be able to afford such a thing. At least you hope so. You forced yourself and you turned with the intention of going back to the others and leaving that part of the farm, but Shane stood in your way. You felt his breath on your skin a few inches away from your face.

“I’ve been watching you for a few days and you’re pretty, I would not mind having anything with you.”

You took a step back, moved away from him and pulled your bow. He looked at you in amusement.

“Do you think you scare me, you little bitch?”

You didn’t say a word and started to think. So you set the bow aside and looked attentively at the situation. You leaned forward to him, stroked your thigh sensually and put a hand on his chest.

“I see that you are interested in my proposal…”

You closed your eyes, ran your hand over his chest and stood on your toes to better reach his lips. He looked you in the eye and you opened them again. He tried to say something, but you blocked his mouth with a finger.

“Shane, your sneaky little games, won’t work with me.”

He stared at you surprised at your statement and you took the opportunity to step into his genitals. He screamed in pain and you ran away as fast as possible. You started screaming in the hope that someone from the camp would hear you, but it was too far away and you barely saw the small flame of the fire. You wouldn’t have reached it on time. So you changed roads and headed in the direction of the forest. You were sure he would never follow you. And you were wrong… One of the things your grandfather told you was never to sneak into the woods in the middle of the night. But you had no other escape routes. You looked around disoriented and anxious and searched for a hiding place. You decided to climb a tree, but as soon as you wanted to climb, one hand reached for your pants. You looked down in the hope that it was a harmless Walker. But you were wrong again… It was Shane, angry at the humiliation he had just received. He threw you violently on the floor and threw your bow furthest away from you. You tried to react, but Shane grabbed your wrists and pressed them over your head.

“You just did that to make fun of me, you damn whore!”

He took his knife and put it under your shirt and jerked it away. He took two pieces of cloth to tie your wrists and to stuff your mouth. Then he put his dirty hand under your bra and began to aggressively press your breasts.

“What’s wrong, are you crying Y/N?”

You felt like a prey to be killed. Until that moment, You’ve always felt like a predator in this huge forest, but now everything was different. You died inside. He took off your pants and unbuttoned his jeans quickly.

“Don’t cry, keep the tears for later!”

You felt an unbearable pain that grew more and more between your legs, his skin was rough, his hand was cold as he rubbed your breasts and his stinking breath greased on your neck. You struggled, trying to suppress your tears, but to no avail. At one point you didn’t feel any physical pain anymore, but you felt a mental wound getting bigger and bigger. You felt humiliated and brutally injured. You did not want to see this horrible show, so you closed your eyes and tried to imagine something beautiful and positive. You began to think of Daryl and the physical contact you had with him a few hours ago, so naive and so embarrassed, yet so terribly beautiful… Tears ran down your face and Shane found it almost amusing as he uttered horrible and shameful sentences. The image of Daryl had disappeared in your head as your tormentor made a deafening scream. You opened your eyes and hoped for a miracle. And couldn’t believe it. The sounds had attracted a Walker in the area. The Walker began to devour Shane, who screamed desperately and asked you to help him. You got up with difficulty and pain, bent down to pick up the scraps of your clothes, and ran to your bow. As you lowered yourself, you noticed that the inside of your thigh was constantly running down with blood and you froze. You couldn’t move because of the shock and pain. Slowly you turned to see if the Walker had left. You were face to face with him. You would have died there, on this damn evening. No, you were already dead… A few moments earlier, a man had made your life hell and brutally injured you. Now you were just a body of matter. That’s how you felt. Like a Walker. You closed your eyes and waited for your end. You did not know if a bite-related pain could be compared to what you felt inside. Your soul screamed in despair and shame, but no one could hear it. You heard a hiss in your ear and a dull noise like a weighted body on the floor. You slowly opened your eyes and found the Walker on the floor. You collapsed in the leaves, smeared with your own blood mingling with the strayed Walker. Two warm arms clasped your waist gently and caressed your hips, hurt by the sharp stones on which Shane had thrown you a few moments ago.

“What the hell happened?”

You immediately recognized this warm, deep and so damn beautiful voice. Daryl had saved you. You could not speak because of the tears that didn’t stop running down your face and raised your hand to point to Shane’s defenseless body. Daryl’s eyes widened and he looked at your body, covered with scratches, wounds and blood, searching for a damnable response to the bad feeling that was pervading his mind.

“Damn bastard!”

Anger seized his masculine face and he ran to the body of the tormentor, who had now turned into a horrible Walker. He began to smash his skull with a stone and process it into porridge. You noticed a tear running down his face. After wiping his hands on his pants, he unbuttoned his shirt, which was soaked with Shane’s blood. He came to you sweaty and helped you very gently so you could get up again. He gave you a hand to get up, but the pain was terribly strong and you collapsed again. Daryl looked at you, sat down next to you, wiped his eyes and took you in his arms.You leaned your head against his bare chest and felt his heart thump with rage. You closed your eyes and finally felt protected again.

And for the second time, your angel had saved you…