The Ruins Part 2 (Sequel to The Ruins)

Chpater 75

How Negan managed to break Preacher Jack's leg with his throat cut, Mal couldn't have guessed. But he did, Mal watching him as if she was underwater, feeling frighteningly paralyzed, her limbs leaden and useless at her sides.

It was the sickening crack of bone that snapped her out of it, like she'd been dragged to the surface for air. Mal moved, diving to grab her abandoned machete and then looking up to see Negan sinking to the floor, rolling off of Preacher Jack, whose leg was twisted and bent unnaturally at the kneecap. Preacher Jack hissed in pain, a wounded animal snarling and scraping against the bloodstained floor. Negan's collar was similarly soaked, his dark shirt stained scarlet. His breathing was all wrong, ragged and shallow, and there was too much fucking blood, painting everything a sticky, sickening shade of red.

Mal saw that same red adorning the twisted face in droplets.

Negan's blood.

All she could think was that this fucking man didn't deserve to wear the blood of the man she loved.

"Now you, whore," said Preacher Jack. "I'll cut you some and then let you watch what I do to him more. When you beg me for death, I'll show you how merciful I can be."

"No. KillGames is closer. That is the law. You'll be begging me for death, and I won't be merciful."

"There is no law," snarled Preacher Jack as he lunged forward. Mal turned away from the cut.

Then Mal's hand closed around her machete, and Mal turned and the blade ripped itself as Mal turned and Preacher Jack's sarod whistles through the air and Mal turned... and turned...

And the moment froze.

Preacher Jack stood there, tall and triumphant, his lips curled into his crooked smile. Mal's tight grip on the machete extended all the way out, and then dropped her weapon onto the grass. All along the silvery edge of the blade there were threads that glistened like black oil.

Preacher Jack spoke first.

He said, "No."

Quietly. Wryly.

Then his sword dropped from his hand, and with infinite slowness he leaned backward and fell onto the grass. There was a line of black wetness stretched across his throat from side to side.

The whole thing took under a minute in his frenzy.

"Mal! Mal!" Suddenly Tom was screaming, shaking her, his frame carrying up Negan by the arm. "Help me! We have to get him to the bounty hunters!"

Mal was a machine, everything in her screaming under extreme duress, gears spinning out of control and smoking. The task at hand, focus on the task at hand. One foot in front of the other.

She groped blindly at the ground for the handle of her machete, grasping painfully when her fingers met wood. couldn't look at Negan until the man's weight was strung up over her and Tom's shoulders. She couldn't, she couldn't bear to look and see if-

No.

The blood wasn't spraying, she noticed. It dripped freely down onto the grass and the road as they rushed toward the trucks where Sally Two-Knives and few other bounty hunters are, leaving a trail, but it wasn't spraying. That was good, right? That had to mean something-

One of the Saviors was the one to open the back door, and Tom was the one to shout into the crowded infirmary that Negan's hurt, his throat got cut, Sally-!

Mal couldn't form words, mouth opening and closing dumbly as she held the man's weight on her shoulders. Sally and Basher Clay charged over, looking every bit the role of competent battle medic.