It Comes With The Name

Chapter 31: A Crack In The Glass

Shane glanced at Lauren before continuing. "You need to protect yourself. As long as I'm around you, nothing's gonna happen to you, Carl. But I can't keep my eyes on you 24/7. Only you can do that. Carl, take it. "

"I'm never touching another gun again!" Carl said, backing away. "Just have Aunt Lauren give it back to Daryl, he likes her so maybe he won't be as mad..."

Lauren took a step forward. "No, Carl, you can't just-"

"Just give it back to Daryl!" He shouted before running off.

Once Carl was gone, Lauren turned to Shane who had the same flustered look on his face. She sat back down on the back of the car, burying her face in her hands and taking a huge sigh.

"I swear that kid is going to kill me." She muttered.

Shane shook his head, still staring at where Carl had been standing just a moment ago. "You and me both, sister."

They finished loading the supplies and drove out to the old windmill. The two of them barely spoke on the drive out, only small comments about what the plan for building it was once they got there. Things had been tense between Lauren and Shane for quite some time now. She still loved him, of course, they were family. But she had felt his energy shift, something had been... off with him for a while, maybe even since the CDC. Lauren wasn't sure when exactly things had changed, just that they had.

"So, you with Rick on this whole Randall thing?" Shane finally asked once they parked the car below the windmill.

"What do you mean?" Lauren asked, hopping out of the car and walking around to the back, starting to unload the boards.

Shane followed her, grabbing a few boards as well and hauling them to the bottom of the structure. "I mean lettin' him go, you think it's the right call?"

Lauren shrugged. "I mean, it's not really up to me, is it? It's Rick's call."

"Yeah, I guess it's always Rick's call now." Shane muttered. Lauren paused what she was doing to glance at Shane. He had an irritated scowl as he picked up another block of wood.

"You never told me what happened out there. When you guys went out the first time." Lauren said, trying to casually bring up the topic that had been plaguing her mind.

Ever since Daryl's comment last night about Shane being dangerous Lauren had been replaying their return in her head. The first time they had gone out to drop off Randall, Rick, and Shane had come back looking like they had been through hell. And to make matters worse, they came back with Randall.

"What do you mean?" Shane played dumb, grabbing the last of the supplies and hauling it over with the others.

"I mean , you have a black eye, Rick is covered in bruises, and you both came back looking like hell." She said, placing a hand on her hip. "You expect me to believe that Randall took you both on and did that much damage?"

"We ran into a herd at the old elementary school." Shane shrugged like that was supposed to satisfy her question.

"Okay... that explains the blood but it doesn't explain the bruises." Lauren gave him a look. "I'm not stupid, Shane. I know what the aftermath of a fistfight looks like."

Rick had brought Shane over plenty of times after getting into it with one of the other boys in their grade. After the third or fourth time, Lauren learned how to stitch him up pretty quickly. He couldn't bullshit her with this.

"Things just got outta hand." Shane said.

"What the hell does that mean?" She started to press before Shane snapped.