My legs carried me faster than they ever carried me before. Two shots. He had to have killed the Governor. That was the only possibility. He was probably just injured. I had known Shane for a long time. There was no way the Governor had gotten the best of him. No way at all.

I turned the corner, almost smashing into the wall as I slipped on a thick substance. I looked down - blood. It was everywhere. I stared at the ground, too afraid to see who it belonged to.

"Ariel..." Shane breathed. My eyes resisted lifting from the floor. When they finally agreed, they filled with tears at the sight of the man I love holding his stomach, covered in his own blood. His back was against the wall, but his legs gave out and he slumped to the floor. The blood wouldn't stop.

"Oh my god, Shane. Oh my god. I did this. I'm so sorry!" I tried to be strong and fight the tears as I dropped to my knees beside him. He didn't need to see me cry. I moved his hand, revealing the gunshot wound dead center of his torso. "I'm gonna get you out of here. This isn't it. HELP!"

"Shhh." His hand shaked as it reached for my face. "It's alright, baby."

"Shane, don't." I ripped off my shirt and placed it on his wound. He hissed in pain. "We're going to get out of this." I put my right hand on his face. "You can't leave me yet."

"Ariel, you need to listen." His voice was getting weaker. He was dying and I was dying with him. "I love you."

"No. This isn't it. It can't be. We're going to get out of this prison and just go anywhere you want. We should have left. You said we should leave and we should have left." My heart pounded and stopped at the same time. My body trembled as the fear of losing him was becoming real. This was all my fault.

"I love you," he repeated. "I love... you."

My voice shook with every word. "Shane, please hang on. I can't do this without you. Please I love you. Don't go."

"I love-" His breathing stopped.

"Shane. Shane, wake up. This ain't the end. You have to wake up. Please. Please." With no response, I fell on top of him. "Please wake up." My hands, covered in his blood, held his face.

Shane may have been the one that stopped breathing, but I was the one that died. It was my fault this happened. If we would have just went like he asked me to or of we stuck to Rick's original plan. The love of my life was gone because I was selfish.

I was frozen against his lifeless body for what felt like twenty years, but it was only a couple of minutes. He had already started to go cold under me.

"ARIEL! WHERE ARE YOU?" Daryl's voice echoed through the halls, but my eyes couldn't leave Shane's lifeless brown eyes.

A herd of footsteps pounded behind me. I prayed that they were walkers. In that moment, I would have let them take me. I had nothing left to live for. Unfortunately, it was various members of the group following the unplanned gunshots.

Daryl was out of breath. I knew he heard the shots and ran like hell. "Ariel, what the fuck happened? Are you okay?"

I didn't move. They were all directly behind me. There were several gasps, "oh my god"s, and sniffles, but I didn't care. They didn't feel it like I did.

Rick was the first one I really heard. "Ariel, is he...?"

"He's dead," I pushed out.

He kneeled down beside Shane and in front of me. He was trying to hold back tears for his former best friend. I think Daryl might have tried to come in too, but I saw Rick warn him off. "What happened?"

My breathing quickened. "That mother fucker!" I leaned my head against Shane's and closed my eyes. My grief suddenly shifted back to anger. The death of Shane Walsh was it. My anger meter was through the roof.

Rick put his hands in front of me. "Ariel, I know. I know you're pain. You have to tell me what happened." He started to choke on his own words. Even though their relationship was strained lately, this was his partner and best friend. We both lost something here and he knew that.

But I couldn't. It was all my fault. They would have thrown me out if they knew the truth. "The Governor killed him. The Governor killed him." I covered my mouth with my hand, undoubtedly smearing Shane's blood on my face. "The Governor killed Shane."

Risk wiped his eyes. "Ariel, we have to take him."

I shook my head. "No, I have to do it."

"You don't have to. I can do it."

"It has to be me, Rick. It has to be me." I finally gathered the strength to brush the tears from my eyes and speak at a normal volume. "I have to be the one. He would have done it for me."

He nodded and stood up. I could tell by the rustling of the feet that Rick told everyone to give me space to do what was needed to be done.

I swallowed hard and looked up to the ceiling. I had always been skeptical of a god, but in this moment, I knew there wasn't one. No god would do this to a man who just wanted to protect the people he loved. Or maybe there was one that found joy in watching people struggle, watching me fall apart.

I knew he was dead, even if it didn't feel real, but I needed to say something. I pulled a knife out of my side holster and played with it in my hand. "Remember when I cut myself with that knife back at the farm. I was thinking about you. What a fucking surprise, right? I only seemed to hurt myself around you. You made me vulnerable. Man, I hated that. I hated always... feeling something with you, especially that night at the CDC. I had never felt more alive and that scared me. But when we had that fight, the one where you... well, you know. I thought I felt dead then. I guess I really had no idea what that really felt like until now." I caressed his cheek. "You brought so much into my life. I can never thank you." My knife sat idle in my hand as I hovered it under his throat.

His eyes twitched very slowly, just like he was waking up, and for a split second, I thought he did. I knew I was kidding myself and that I needed to act. "I'm sorry, Shane." With that, my knife went up into his skull, puncturing the brain. His body had gone completely limp. "You deserved better."

I stayed with his body for only another minute. I sat next to him, holding his arm. My head rested on his shoulder, but it didn't feel the same. His body was empty and I felt the same. The thought of taking that knife to my own throat crossed my mind. I wanted to join him, but I knew he would have frowned upon that. He would have called me a fighter or some crap. He wasn't even here anymore and he was still right.

A rage had begun to build up inside me. The Governor killed him and he was getting away with it. He killed my brother and my love and who knows what he did to my best friend. He needed to die and this time, I wasn't going to let him harm my family. I was going to kill this man, even if it killed me too.

Sitting here with his lifeless corpse wasn't going to get the job done. I finally stood from my spot and turning away. It was then I started to feel the pain of the bullet wound in my right shoulder. Not all of the blood on my body was his. I noticed that the bleed was extensive. I had nothing to put pressure on the wound, so I needed to seek medical attention before carrying on my mission.

I turned the corner to find members of the group still gathered there. Daryl handed me his shirt with the sleeves ripped off. I put the shirt on, covering my chest, and I used the sleeves to patch up my arm.

I coughed. "We can give him a proper funeral later. Right now, I need Hershel to patch me up and then we have work to do."

Daryl's eyes showed genuine confusion. "Ariel, you need to rest."

My eyes met his, no longer filled with tears, but with determination. "I need to go to Woodbury."