Freedom -Negan-

Chapter 6

I stood only as the large man stopped screaming and shortly after stopped moving. I hurried over to the two remaining girls and cut them down from the support beam.

 "Holy shit." The short blonde girl said staring at the large man's body on the ground, pants still around his ankles. 

The other girl with dark skin looked from the dead man to me and embraced me in her arms. I felt warm tears hit my shoulder. The blonder girl joined her and we all held each other in an embrace and comfort that only we could give to one another. 

"We need to move fast. Who knows if they heard his screams or not." I looked between the two girls. "If you guys want to go now, I won't blame you or be mad. You're free and you can go, but I need to get the other girls." The girls looked at one another and back at me. "We're helping you." The dark haired girl spoke. "Heather." She added outstretching her hand.

"Carla." The blonde spoke, also holding out her hand. 

"Jesse." I grabbed both of their hands and squeezed. "Let's look the barn over quick and try to find anything useful, maybe some clothes." I gave them a small smile as we all realized we were naked. Their skin was covered in small bruises and cuts. I did take notice that they wouldn't look at me for very long. Unsure if it was from being polite or if it was from my unsightly scars and fresh bruises. Least of my worries now.

 I went over to Ben slumped on the floor. I contemplated letting him change into a corpse, but one of his size would be a hinderance rather than help. I put the knife into the base of his skull to keep him dead and decided to add one last touch. I carved the number 1 on his left cheek. A calling card if you will. I looked at the jacket he was wearing and took if off to try on. It was thin and not my jean jacket, but it was long enough to go mid-thigh, so I decided to keep it for now. I zipped up the hoodie and turned to find the other girls looking around the other room of the barn, where we were kept the very first night before being strung up like pigs. 

We couldn't find our own clothing anywhere, but they managed to find a t-shirt and white tank-top. Not much in terms of covering up, but anything was better than nothing after all this time. They stopped and smiled when they say the hoodie I was wearing.

"Well, isn't that fitting." Carla said with a sad laugh.

 I looked down at the hoodie confused and saw that Ben's hoodie sported a large symbol: The Punisher logo. I smiled at the girls and nodded at them to join me at the barn doors. Carla held a hammer in her small hands and Heather found a pitchfork to use for a weapon. 

We listened at the door for a few minutes. Faint whooping and laughter could be heard from the larger group. I peeked through the slender opening between the wooden doors.

A large bonfire was at the top of the hill near the main house. No one looked on alert so the screams from Ben went unheard. A little dread lifted from my chest, but the thought of taking on 15+ men w/ only us three was a bigger risk than I was willing to take.

 We needed to wait until the celebrations were calmed down and the men were really cocked out of their minds. The two other agreed with me and we sat and planned our approach. 

We decided that Carla would sneak into the camp and prepare the other girls ahead of time. One of the girls was her sister and knew she would be willing to fight the men when the time came. Hopefully some of the other girls would follow suit. Heather and I would take out any stragglers around the camp one by one.

 We searched the barn a little more thoroughly while waiting for the men on the hill to quiet down. Big Ben didn't have much on him besides the knife I carried. I thought about taking his shirt but it was crusted in grime.

 The barn was pretty scare in terms of any supplies. No food or water. No real weapons. Just rope, hay and wood scraps were found. The men only needed this as their fuck barn and nothing more apparently. I stood and stared at the area where we were strung up. If anyone had come in, it would look like barn animals were here recently.

 I looked at my wrists and studied the rope marks that dug deep into my flesh. My right hand had swollen from the deep cut in my palm. The flesh was red underneath the dirt and blood that caked it. I squeezed my palm and pain shot through my entire arm. I knew it was infected by the discharge that leaked form my open wound. It never had time to properly heal when I was strung up, causing it to fester. 

It would have been my luck to survive being strung up, raped, and beaten to only succumb to sepsis. I wanted to laugh at myself. Wake myself from this nightmare. This was too horrible to be happening.

Yet I knew better. Even before the world ended, I knew how terrible people could be. Now it seemed only the bad people were left.

 Carla pulled me from my thoughts to tell me that the bonfire was dying down. We needed to head out.