The Ruins Part 2 (Sequel to The Ruins)

Chapter 5

Mal wasn't surprised that she had trouble sleeping that night. She tossed and turned endlessly, restless with a deep well of worry in her stomach. The last time she rolled over to check the night- which she'd been doing periodically throughout the night- the night still dark. Luckily, it wasn't long after that that sleep finally claimed her.

"You're going to fucking take it. You're going to take it like any woman. God, she looks good with blood, Simon."

Mal shook violently, her arms twisted and bound painfully behind her back, the icy cold of the concrete floor stinging against her bare stomach where her shirt had ridden up.

"You look so good bending over for me." Another voice slithered over Mal's exposed flesh like a snake, a threat. Charlie just watched in his chair as all the greedy hands traveled further up.

Mal struggled, and her resistance was met with cruel fingers seizing her neck and her head being slammed down onto the unforgiving floor. She could taste the warm copper of flood bursting in her mouth as she bit into her tongue, pain cracking through her skull and dizzying her.

She knew what was going to happen, had known since Simon had reached for the buckle of her belt. But she wasn't prepared for it. Not when it happened, sudden and violent and painful in a way she'd never conceived of before.

She wished she could say that the way her teeth were splitting open her lower lip in a desperate effort at silence distracted from it.

It didn't.

Mal shot up in bed, her heart slamming against her ribcage. She was gripping the sheets below her, which were soaked through with a cold sweat that made her feel too much like she felt that day, her body trembling as she bit back on a broken sob.

She half-fell out of the bed and turned her lantern on and sat there for a while, eyes closed, hands covering her head, taking deep, unsteady breaths.

Just a dream. A fucking dream. You're fine.

She didn't want to get back to sleep in her bed, terrified that if she did, if she laid down in the same sheets she'd just sweated through, she would end up right back in that cold room with Charlie behind her.

"Mind if I come in?" A low voice scared Mal, thinking of him but then remembered whose voice is that. Negan gets a chair to sit in front of her bed. "I see you're awake."

"So are you," she said defensively.

"I heard whispers about you not sleeping a lot. Even the kids notice. Is there something going on, Mal? You waiting for everyone to go the to sleep so you can jack off?" Negan caught sight of the death glare Mal shot him and held his hands up in mock surrender. "Alright, sorry. Just trying to lighten the fucking mood."

Negan stared at her for a long second and then nodded and turned his gaze away from Mal, seeming to sense that he wasn't going to get anything more out of him. He looks at her table with the camouflage sheet where he spots the skulls. Picking the red skull, he taps his fingers on the skull.

"You keep these?" He asked.

"They're Rin's. Need to polish the other skull and give it to her eleventh birthday."

"Looks Shakespearian. Yeah, I read Shakespeare, you should too. We do have many collections of books." He taps his fingers to a particular beat and huffs a laugh. "I do miss some live rock. We could but with us being every day under siege and impossible for the dead fucks roaming around. I like to see one again, hope in your time as well."

Mal thought of seeing a band playing like the albums she'd listen too. Some of the lives of people and their structures before the Black Night may have been more fun.