Authors Notes: I don't own anything. There is very explicitly described rape in the first chapter. Please do not read if this will upset you. Reviews of all kinds are always appreciated. Thank you for reading, please enjoy!
"Get up" he hisses. Bile rises in my throat, stinging the back of my tongue with the bitter aftertaste of canned beans and acid. The warmth of his rancid breath sends a chill down my spine. He yanks the neckline of my sweater upwards like a collar, forcing me to my feet.
"Walk, Bitch," he sneers at me, pushing me forward. I stumble, leaves crunching and scratching at my feet. After a few moments of ginger footfalls, trying to avoid irritating the raw skin that was already tender and scarring from several months of abuse, his patience runs out. He grabs my arm in a vice grip and drags me quickly, far away from the group, to a clearing, and throws me unceremoniously to the ground. My blood freezes in my veins.
In spite of my best efforts, the tears already begin to well up. I know it's of no use, it never is, but I can never stop myself. "P-please. Please don't. Please not tonight," the begging flows from my mouth like a rushing river. His syrupy laugh tells me my pleas are to no avail, but I couldn't stop if I tried. Coherency is lost rapidly. I'm grasping at the ground, clawing my fingernails into the earth. I get a foot under me and try to stand before the stinging slap sends me reeling back to the floor. I thrash about violently, and a sharp pain shoots through my chest as he climbs on top of me, pinning me to the cold soil beneath.
"Hold still you filthy slut!" Droplets of his saliva cling to his beard and greedy lust fills the pinholes of his eyes. He rips my sweater over my head, scraping me with his yellowed nails in the process. He gropes indelicately at my chest; the bile rises up once more as he bites at my breasts, leaving new marks to join the multitude of others. The talon hands rip at my jeans and my flailing legs try to prevent the impending inevitable. In less than a single painful moment of struggling, the button is undone on my pants and the only barrier between me and another horrific violation is stripped away. I know the fighting is only prolonging this torment, but I have to try. His knees bruise my thighs as he pries my legs apart. I'm pinned. I'm vulnerable. I'm too weak fight anymore.
I close my eyes tightly and warm tears stream down my face. The pain is always horrific as he pushes his revolting length into my body. His fat slaps against my body with each tearing thrust. He mocks my whimpers,"BBlubblubleb Pleeeeeeease! Pleeeeeease! Pleeeeease not again! You disgusting cunt, this is all you're good for. You're used up, bitch! You're my claim. My slut. YOU. DON'T - " He punctuated each word with a violent thrust - "GET. TO. BEG. ME. NOT. TO. TAKE. WHAT'S. MINE."
My eyes still closed, I continue to plead with him to stop, though at this point the words are no longer understandable. The barrage continues relentlessly. Then there's a sound.
For a moment I think it's a crew member from camp, coming to fetch their leader, currently busy assaulting me, as a man bursts through the tree line in a volley of pounding steps. I fling open my eyes and realize it's not one of them as the man who just burst into the clearing wrenches the rapist off my body. I know it has to be a desperate delusion, my mind finally must have snapped, I think as the new man towering above us, slams a powerful fist into my assailant's jaw. The rapist falls to the floor.
"Whuh thuh fuh are yuh duhing?"the rapist viciously drools out through his clearly broken mandible.
"What was that you said? I can't hear you asshole, you're gonna have to speak a little more fucking clearly!" the stranger's voice is dark and husky; it hangs dangerously in the air. A moment too long of silence, and the stranger sends a punishing kick into the gut of the quivering man on the ground.
"AGGGH! WHUH THE FUH ARE YUH DUHING?!" He screams in response.
"What the fuck am I doing? Is that what you're asking, Fuckface?" I can barely make out a terrifying smile on the face of the man dressed in black. He blends in with the darkness around us in the clearing as he spits on the crumpled man beneath him. The man in black walks over a couple feet and picks up what looks to be a baseball bat, he had thrown it down in the process of ripping the rapist off of me. I curl up on the ground, aching and terrified of both men in this clearing, but I can't stop watching.
"I'll tell you what I'm doing, you fucking filthy sack of nuts." The stranger strides over with a terrifying tread. His charismatic voice is in striking opposition to the rippling tension and anger in his movements. The man in black gets down on one knee and I hear him whisper gently, "What am I doing? I'm giving you a fucking etiquette lesson on how to treat a lady." At this last part he turns and winks at me. My bones are violently shaking in my skin; I don't know what's happening and I've never felt so much fear in my life. The stranger rises.
"Lesson one," he drawls," No means fucking no, you piece of fucking rapist shit." With these words he raises his bat, and bashes it down on the rapist's skull. I turn away from the horrifying violence in front of me; the screams and squishy thud that follow the whizzing of the bat are enough to finally make me vomit. After what seems like an eternity of whizzing and thuds, the hulking man, casually catching his breath, drops his bat back to the ground.
His measured footsteps send my heart pounding even more as he walks over to my shaking, vulnerable body. I hear him undo a zipper and I panic, thinking maybe he wants a turn to claim my body as his own. Opening my eyes, I see he's crouched down in front of me, his posture and disposition changed from one of violence and fury into one that almost seems gentle. He removes the dark leather jacket he just unzipped and slowly brings it around my shoulders. I can't help but flinch when the garment touches my body. Still covering myself with my arms, I raise my eyes to meet the stranger's. He must be able to see the fear in my eyes. "Go on, "he says softly, "put on the jacket. You must be freezing."
I am freezing, so I do as the stranger says. It's a small, but much appreciated gesture that he averts his eyes when I slip my arms through the warm, massive, jacket and zip up the front. Despite still being partially naked, I feel less vulnerable to have the covering. "Thank you," I breathe out as a whisper.
He chuckles softly. "Anytime, love." He looks gently at me a moment more and I can see through the darkness that his eyes are toffee colored and warm, a drastic contrast to the murderous, rampaging stranger that created the mushy corpse only a few feet away. He reaches out a hand and cups my chin. "I know you're scared, and that's alright, but I'm going to help you. You're safe now, okay?" I am still petrified of this man but I nod my head in agreement.
Footsteps coming from the direction of my captor's camp, though still distant, are approaching. "I need you to trust me right now, okay?" I nod again. "Good girl." He hears the footsteps. "Are those his people coming?" He points at the gelatinous dead man. Another nod, more vigorous this time. "Alright. I'm gonna take care of you first, sweetheart. I'm gonna take you back to my camp and help get you fixed up, but you rest assured I'm gonna be back to take care of them soon."
With that, he's scooping up my body, still shivering with cold and fear, to the soundtrack of the ever approaching footsteps. The man takes a couple steps, stops to bend over, pick up his bat, tuck it under his arm, and grab my discarded jeans and sweater which he asks me to hold. I'm still scared. I don't know this man and I have seen at least one horror that he is capable of, but I know what awaits me back at the camp. Another claim. Another rapist. Another day of wishing I was one of the dead ones walking around.
I nestle more closely into the strangers' chest. It's warm and firm against my frigid body. I tuck my head into his shoulder and inhale the deep, musky scent of this terrifying man. With each slightly bouncing step the stranger and I escape the following footsteps of my captors. He silently carries me without so much as a strain, I'm small, but I'm certainly not a waif so the effortlessness of his strength surprises me. After a few minutes, I lift my head and see a handful of lights in the distance.
"I'm in the RV. I'll take you in through the back door, so my men don't ogle at these beautiful legs of yours," he offered. I winced at the suggestive compliment, suddenly becoming extremely aware of my vulnerability. He chuckled a little in response. When we got a little closer I could hear chortling male voices coming from the center of a circle of large trucks and utility vehicles, the pinnacle of which was a very large, handsome RV. We walked around the outskirts of the camp, just out of sight, until we reached the large camper, and with minimal jostling, the stranger got me inside the warm RV and set me on the bed.
I sat on the edge of the mattress, heart still pounding, wondering what I should do; the stranger had not given me back my clothes. My feet dangled off the floor, and I sat in silence as the stranger went into the bathroom of the camper. The water ran for a few minutes, and when he came back out the stranger had a bowl of sudsy water and a washcloth. He paused for a moment and looked at me, not with the gentleness I had seen out in the woods, nor with the murderous gaze he aimed at the rapist, but a colder, almost surveying type of look. He looked at me like he was taking inventory of his stock.
After a moment he set down the bowl and washcloth and knelt in front of me at the foot of the bed. This man was enormous, even on his knees we were almost eye level with each other. I was growing both increasingly comfortable sitting in this warm room, but also increasingly tense as he studied my face. I flushed bright red when his eyes lingered on the left side of my face. His eyes grew softer again and he brought up his hand to my face and turned it so he could have a better look. The strangers' fingers tenderly examined the large "C" shaped groove in my cheek.
His voice was both tinged with anger and gentleness as he asked me, "What happened here, sweetheart?" He looked almost sad as he asked it.
My stomach twisted with the shame of the hideous mark. I hadn't seen a mirror in months, but I could feel how gnarled and warped the flesh was. "It's just a scar," I never wanted to think about the day I got it again, "I'd rather not talk about it."
"Sweetheart…" he chided.
"Please," was all I could say. I swallowed my fear and looked him straight in the eyes, "please don't make me go there right now."
I could tell the stranger was displeased, but he let it drop. He picked up the washcloth and my right foot and began to wash away the dirt, grime, and dried blood that had accumulated on it after several months without as much as a sock. It's a lot harder to run without shoes.
"So, who is it that I have had the pleasure of spending the last hour, or so, with this fine evening?" he asked as he soothed away the ache and the grime from my feet.
"Rori," I whispered. I flinched every time he touched me, still acutely aware of how bare my legs were in front of this dangerous, powerful man; no matter how gentle he was, I needed to stay on guard.
"Rori…" he played it around on his lips discovering the way the sound of it fit in his mouth. "Rori is a pretty fuckin beautiful name, Miss Rori."
"Thank you," I smiled slightly, the motion feeling unnatural. "And your name is?"
He looked up from his gentle ministrations and met my gaze, "Negan," he informed me.
"Negan?"
"Yep. Negan."
"Thank you, Negan." It felt good to thank him by name. It didn't matter that he scared the shit out of me; he had still saved me from the absolute worst cruelty a person can inflict on another.
"Thank me for what?" He asked as if he didn't already know.
I paused, letting the reality of what had happened that night, what he had done for me, set in a moment longer. "For stopping – " my voice caught, "For saving me from – " I couldn't say it out loud. All of a sudden I'm sinking under this wave of dirtiness and shame that feels like it's going to drown me inside my own body. Before I can even stop it I'm chocking on sobs and struggling to breathe. I close my eyes and I can feel the vice grip of the man's hands on me again, thrashing about powerlessly, the putrid, vinegary smell of his body as he tears me in half. I'm begging again, pleading for a mercy that never comes; even though my body is here, my mind is stuck in the horrors that have been my life for the past three months.
I'm curled up on the bed now, shaking again. Snot, drool, tears, mingle together as I'm trapped in my mind's own personal hell. In the distance that is the present, I feel the same arms that had lifted me out of the torturous reality only hours ago, wrap around my tremoring body once more. At first I'm even more terrified; the ribbons of muscle that hold me remind me of how impenetrable the grip of the rapist was as he held me down each night. But the voice, dark, husky, yet impossibly soft at the moment is what starts to pull me out of the nightmare. "It's okay, sweetheart… It's alright… You are safe now, Rori… You are safe… It's okay… He's gone now… You're okay…" he repeats these words gently in my ear as he's holding me, over and over, until I open my eyes and I can actually see it's not the fat, beady face of the dead man in front of me, not the dirt of the forest floor beneath. Negan's jawline is cut against his salt and peppered beard, his face is painted with what looks like genuine concern, and his chocolaty eyes are soft. I'm starting to get a handle on the shaking, and he very tenderly sets me down again on the bed.
He disappears for a moment into bathroom area again, this time returning with a large white t-shirt just like the bloodied one he's currently wearing, and a pair of boxer shorts. "I think you need some rest," he hands me the clothes, "get a good night's sleep and we'll take you to the physician back at The Sanctuary tomorrow." He pauses, "I imagine you'd like to get a bit more washed up tonight, but your feet are beat to shit and I don't have a proper bath for you here."
I notice how casually he finds anything other than my body to look at while I trade wearing his jacket for his shirt and boxers. I appreciate the respect conveyed in the gesture.
Once I'm dressed in the comfiest night clothes I've worn since the world went to shit, he begins to fold down the blankets and sheets of the bed, "Hop in, baby girl," he motions at the bed.
I'm nervous at the thought of being forced to share a bed with Negan, his dangerous abilities never fully abated even when he's being soft with me. "Will you… Um… Will we… I mean… be sharing – "
"Not tonight, Miss Rori, though the option is certainly on the table in the future." He winks this last comment my way; again I flinch but don't take offense. "You won't have to worry about anyone tonight. I have my best men on guard all night, and no one will bother you," he continues. I climb into the cozy cocoon of the covers and feel sleep approaching rapidly from the moment my head hits the pillow.
"Goodnight, Negan." I whisper as he shuts off the lights of the RV and begins stepping outside to join the smoky bellowing of his men around the fire.
"Goodnight, Sweetheart," he smiles, "try to have sweet dreams." I close my eyes and I'm asleep before he closes the door.