Suffering: Male Reader x TWDG (slow updates)

Chapter 57: Ericson's School

Ruby leads you out of the room you'd been handcuffed in and into a dingy school corridor. Clearly the kids hadn't kept up with the upkeep of such a place, though you're not entirely surprised considering it's a school for 'troubled' youths.

"So, as I'm sure you're aware there are no adults here," Ruby chirps as you admire some of the graffiti on the pictures of past headmasters and awards the school had won.

"Mr Richard can suck my dick," you say, reading one of the pieces aloud. "Charming."

"I think Willy wrote that," Ruby says with a chuckle.

You smile. "I'd love to meet him, he sounds. . . quite inspired."

"Oh, um," Ruby frowns. "That's not what most people say when they meet him."

You both laugh before continuing on the tour of the school. You were locked up in the dorms, specifically in the only spare dorm that was left. Ruby shows you the kitchen which despite the appearance of the rest of the school, seems a lot less run down and more operational.

She shows you the rest of the Admin Building, including upstairs where the Headmaster's Office was located, which was where Clementine did all the 'leader things' as Ruby put it. It also had a neat looking pulley system, presumably so Clementine didn't have to climb up the stairs 'one-legged'.

You don't think Ruby knows exactly what Clementine does. Then again, you don't think she really cares either. If you had to categorise her, you'd say she's a sheep. She'll happily follow whoever feeds and protects her. Clementine is obviously a shepherd. It'll take time to analyse the rest of the group but you will eventually and once you do, you'll have all the information you need to make an informed decision on what should be done; whether to leave or stay.

She then leads you out to the courtyard. You hadn't actually seen it on your way in due to being unconscious for most of it but as you take all of it in properly, you feel like there's something quite noticeable about it.

"Has there been some sort of fight here?" you ask, your eyes scanning over small piles of debris that have been pushed up to the walls, clearly discarded there; probably with the intent to move them elsewhere at some point but, like many jobs, got bumped down the list of important tasks. 

"Yes," Ruby replied, following your gaze. "We removed the worst of the rubble, and fixed a good amount of the damage to the walls. Nothing is getting in them, they're just a bit, well, they don't look as nice now that's for sure."

"And the people that did this to you?" you pry, hoping that you weren't trapped in a community that could be under siege at any moment.

"It was the Delta," she said sincerely. "But we blew up their boat so they ain't coming back."

"They have other ships," you reply bluntly, not exactly believing what you were hearing. "Are you telling me that your group, who were literally working together with the Delta, had no idea about even something as basic as whether the Delta had more than one ship?"

Ruby looked flustered and her face went from being pale to flushed red. "We didn't even know about the Delta until recently. Our last leader, Marlon, he was dealing with them behind everyone's backs. W-w- we didn't help them deliberately, they forced us to give them recruits."

"Where's Marlon now?" you ask, very confused as to how clearly nobody noticed that their leader was dealing with a very large group who were in possession of an entire ship; a ship that you'd seen in the past with your own eyes, docked up at a wooden pier you assume to be fairly nearby.

"He was killed," she replies, still quite flustered.

"I did it," a young boy says, approaching with a frown. "You should leave her alone," he says firmly, "you're upsetting her."