They were separated, even though he didn't know how close Maggie was...reality was that she was only next door, separated by a sheet of corrugated metal. He was in some sort of a room that indicated it was used for storage. There was the chair he was attached to at the arms by duct tape, some odds and ends scattered across the dimly lit, musty space. There was a mattress frame and a hanging light that was showcasing the dust particles as they fluttered around on invisible drafts of wind. The duct tape was solid on all his limbs though not for lack of trying. The asian was aching from his shoulders; Merle had just delivered a solid beating and he'd had no way to maneuver out of it.
And yet he'd remained solid. Maggie. They had Maggie. He couldn't lose her; not after they had just lost everybody else. T-Dog and Carol and Lori. And that baby if they didn't get that formula back. Daryl had said it right. They couldn't lose another one. Not now. The others would come looking for wherever they were but there was no guarantee anybody would ever find them. It was just him and Maggie and he had to protect her.
Maggie was everything good left about this shitty fucking world. She had hope and faith and somehow, God above, somehow she loved him. She made him laugh and made him want to scream and made him find deserted halls of the prison for hot, weirdly intense sex where they could be caught any minute by human and walkers alike. It was always intense with her. His incredible, sexy, talented girlfriend could electrify him just by looking at him with those eyes of hers. She was a soft southern girl but she was country strong. Maggie was kind and beautiful and there was nothing about her that he would ever change. They'd even talked about a family, now that they were secure, safe as they would ever be. Glenn didn't want anything more than a life with her and half a dozen kids running around and calling him Daddy. He wanted to hear their children call her "Mommy" and see them cuddled up on the bed together, with Maggie reading to them out of a storybook. He wanted to get old with her.
In a sick way, he wanted to be the one who shot her in the very end so she wouldn't have to come back as a soulless body. Glenn wanted that to be his responsibility. He wanted to hold her in his arms and never let her go. Glenn loved the way she laughed, the way she stroked his hair at night right before he fell asleep as she was nestled into his chest. He loved the way she woke him with a kiss every morning. He loved the way she would look over her shoulder and wink at him behind her father's back.
She was somewhere is this God-forsaken place and he had to get out and find her. Then Merle came back and shoved a walker into the room and chaos ensued.
–
She was taped to a chair. Why did it always come down to fucking duct tape? Enough to get out of if you could find the weak point but on her arms there were none. Maggie didn't dare call out for Glenn because there was no way of knowing if she was safe. There was no way of knowing if there were walkers nearby.
She had no weapons. Her knife and her gun had been taken from her by the man who had allegedly been left on the roof and escaped and survived. The farming girl had gotten the story but never quite believed it; it seemed to fantastical and a ploy to keep Daryl's allegiance. But she would never doubt again.
That same gun-toting psychopath with a knife attached to his hand was the one who had locked her in here. She knew Glenn was there, on the other side of the wall. She'd heard the one-handed man giving him a beating, asking where his brother was. Threatening to rape her, to beat her. And not once did Glenn give in. She was so proud of him and heartbroken he had to go through this. The sounds emanating from the wall made her want to be sick. She could hear a walker. Had it broken in? Had the security of this place been breached? Was she going to be next, stuck in this chair to die?
The sounds changed. There was a hell of a racket, Glenn was yelling, things were scraping across the floor and and wood was shattering. And then silence. One of them had won.
Maggie was scared. Eventually they would come for her and she had to live up to Glenn's expectations.
He treated her like a Goddess. He treated her as though she was special, as though he would still have chosen her even though she wasn't the last woman on earth. Somewhere deep in her heart she knew he would have. She knew that they were just supposed to be together, as much as she made fun of Beth for wanting the true love, the deep bond she was secretly glad that Glenn had rolled up on the farm that day. It made the fact that they were living among zombies and killers easier to bear. That somehow in the depth of all this madness she had found the man who loved her for everything she was and also for everything she wasn't. He laughed at her messy hair and kissed her even when she was filthy. He loved her with everything he had and there was no way she would ever deserve it.
Glenn was the best thing that had ever happened to her, shrouded in the pain of the world. There was simply no living without him; that meant she would have to take everything that was thrown at her. She was sitting in the chair when the tall man entered. This was a different guy; taller, more traditionally handsome. Suave. He was a key player in this game. This man was somebody important and that made her hate him. This was the man responsible for keeping them here and apart, for beating Glenn and making him have a deathmatch with a walker. She had heard the whole thing; straining at the tape and aching to reach him, to help him, to call out to him. But it might have distracted him to his death, so the result was that she had stayed quiet.
There were no tears. He took the tape off her arms with no particular care but no particular viciousness either. It seemed to be a usual interrogation. He asked for information and she said no. He asked again and she said no. Then he told her to get up. Then he told her to take off her shirt. Then he told her to take off the bra; the black one that Glenn loved to see her model for him in the dark of the cells at night in a silent but intoxicating strip-tease. It was obvious what was coming next as he took off his belt and slammed her down onto the table. If Glenn could endure his beating and a one-on-one match with a carnivorous freak, she could endure this.
Something happened, then, then caught her unaware. The belt came slashing across her back, leaving a welt with the snap. The skin was red and puffy as the man stroked fingers across it, asking her again.
"Where are your people." No answer brought another lash against her skin.
"How many are you." They were phrased as commands and not as questions and he hit her again, splitting skin along her ribs as the belt wrapped around them. Maggie let out a cry, fingers digging into the table. She would not give him the satisfaction of breaking her.
She was lithe and lean from all those years of work, her hands calloused by work and livestock, but for all her strength she'd had a loving childhood and loving parents and no way to prepare for this. It rained and rained and rained and she was begging with him to stop by the time he bound her hands with the belt. It couldn't possibly get any worse.
And, as things tend to do when you think that, it did. Her hands were wrenched up over her head and secured on what she recognized as a meat hook. There was despair written across his face that made the man smile. The young woman was realized that there was no way out of this anymore.
"Please don't do this." Her voice was ragged, that deep southern twang was delicious to the man's ears. "You don't have to do this. You can just let us go." The resounding crack to her face set her staggering, caught as her hands wrenched on the meathook above her. She felt so defenseless, standing here shirtless and exposed. A sob was wrenched from her chest as he pressed behind her, hands crushing the breasts that Glenn kissed and touched and elicited pleasure from. Teeth on her neck made her jerk out of reflex.
These days, in this age, there was nothing more predatory than teeth on skin. She was thrashing against his hold even though she knew it was what he wanted. Even though she knew this was what he wanted to hear. She could feel his erection against her ass as his hands were at her hips, undoing her belt and sliding the jeans down her legs. Maggie was trying to fight him, bring her boots down on his instep, find a way to make him get away. She wanted her gun. The occasions she had ever wanted to kill a man were far and few; but this was the exception. She wanted him to suffer as she broke every bone in his body.
Deep in her mind the southerner knew Glenn was being subjected to this as well, perhaps in an even more intimate way. That if they ever got out of this he would be forced to look at her body until these bruises healed. Until the bite marks the man was leaving on her breasts and her neck faded.
And then there was lightning pain as he entered her from behind, claiming her body in a series of grunts. It didn't seem to end. Every time she was about to zone out, to leave, to vanish deep into her mind he hit her again. Bit her again. Dug hands into her rib cage and her hips. Anything he could to keep her back and in the present, living the horror he was inflicting on her. Eventually she lay sobbing on the floor after the man lifted her from the hook and dropped her, reclaiming his belt and watching as she pulled her jeans up over her shaking legs. The man grabbed her by the back of the neck and hauled her up and away. Maggie didn't bother trying to break free. There was nowhere to go.
–
This was killing him. Merle was standing there with a gun at his head, telling him if he said anything, a single word, he would be gone. Gone and leaving Maggie to a life with The Governor. Glenn could do nothing but pace and glare, pace and glare. He didn't know what was worse; hearing the love of his life scream or hearing her break into sobs. He wanted nothing more than to kill this son of a bitch and get them both the hell out of here. His imagination was running wild about all the things this bastard was doing to his Maggie and they were getting worse and worse by the minute. The fury was slowly rising in his chest and the heat was almost overwhelming, the feeling of rage and hatred overtaking his mind until he thought of nothing else but killing the monster who had raped his girlfriend.
And then the door opened and she was there, crying, holding her hands to cover her chest in a desperate attempt at modesty. He couldn't help his reaction as his eyes wide at the sight of her. His Maggie, his beloved Maggie, was covered in bruises and welts and...
Oh God, were those bite marks? This son of a bitch was biting her while he raped her? This "governor" spoke before he even had a chance.
"Son, either you tell me what you want to know or I'll have my way with your darling southern belle and let your old buddy Merle have a way at her. And you know he won't be as kind as I was."
Maggie was staring at him and shaking her head desperately. "No, Glenn, you can't give them anything..." The Governor slammed her head against the door post and Merle threw out an arm to stop Rhee's rushing of the man in a bloody fury. The grey-haired man was staring at him.
"You don't much like that, do you?" He didn't need an answer. Arms pulled Maggie in closer, one wrapping around her to pull her close and the other across her shoulder, lips at her neck again. Merle swiftly put the young asian in a headlock; his struggles were now useless. "You can't stand the thought of me touching her." Maggie closed her eyes as as the bastard's hand slipped down across her hip, sliding in the band of her jeans. Glenn's struggles only got worse, his breathing heavy as he was wrenching on the much bigger man to break his hold. His voice was a snarl.
"You get your filthy hands off her you son of a bitch."
"You tell me what I want to know, boy and I'll leave you alone." the Governor went and started to undo his belt. "Maybe I should give her another beating, hm?" A hand came to wrap around her windpipe. "Maybe I should take her right here, again. She's so pretty when she's crying, isn't she?"
And crying she was, trembling. Maggie wasn't weak but she had not been brought up in such violence like others in their group had. She and Beth...God, what would this fuck do to her little sister? Shy, beautiful little Beth who was little more than a child? He would destroy everything if given the chance. It couldn't happen.
"Don't fucking tell him ANYTHING, Glenn! Not a single fucking word!"
The Governor chuckled at the fire she still had in her, this girl was soft under his hands but had a spine like iron.
"You really are something special, aren't you? I can see why he likes you so much. The question is how you ever ended up with him. Necessity, no doubt. I guess there was nothing else available." It was a plausible explanation. Road People were often banded together only by what they had. It's entirely possible that this whole relationship was based on politics. Maybe their group was unstable, comprised of different factions that could be split apart and broken so badly there was no hope of anything but being absorbed by Woodbury.
"I would've chosen him out of any of them. He's twice the man you are, you fucking coward!" She brought her head sharply back against her captor's nose, breaking free long enough to grab something, anything, she could use as a weapon. It ended up being part of the chair Glenn had destroyed in his battle with the walker. There was something oddly poetic about it.
"Think again, sweetheart." Merle brought the knife across Glenn's cheek as Maggie was about to launch herself at The Governor. Glenn's eyes locked on hers and, even though he knew what was going to happen, he still shook his head. But she was starting to break. That lost focus was enough time for The Governor to get behind her and slam her against the wall once again, drawing blood from above her eye and drop her to the floor while managing a savage kick to her belly.
"You're testing my patience, woman! Either you tell me what I want to know or I will leave you to rot in this room with your boytoy's body!" He was losing patience and his nose was killing him. He'd have to find a plausible explanation for it at some point but that point was not now. "If you think I'm joking you're sorely mistaken. Merle? Please. Do the honors."
Maggie watched in horror as the blade was pulled back and aimed for his back. Glenn would take his death stoically but she couldn't be responsible. A life without Glenn was just not worth living.
"STOP!" Her hands were out stretched and trembling. "I'll tell you anything you want to know. Just don't hurt him." She was desperate. And she did. She told them about the prison and how many people they had, how they cleared it out cell block by cell block by cell block. She told them of their food supplies and their vehicles. Eventually it must have deemed enough because Merle let go of the boy, who rushed to Maggie's side to shield her from the other men in the room. He gathered her up in his arms and held her bruised, battered, and broken body as the two men left them alone.
He sat like that against the wall, cradling his sobbing girlfriend and he found he cherished her even more after this. After all this, after all she had been through, the only thing that had broken her was him. There was guilt, yes. Feelings that he failed as a man and a partner and a friend. But there was also a fire; she had endured a brutal rape, a brutal beating, and all she cared about in the end was him.