This fic is cruel. I'm not going to deny that fact. The M rating has nothing to do with sexual content; it's just brutal. You've been warned.

This fic also does not have anything to do with the timeline established in any other fics I've written, and unless specified, any other fics I write in the future. Mike having a happy future after this is probably impossible, so this can't coexist with my fluffier pieces. And so it doesn't. This is strictly an AU written to explore a concept.

Some friends of mine have discussed the idea of Mal having fangirls in-universe, how dangerous that would be, and how Mal would react to that fact. After a couple weeks of discussion and a couple weeks of me editing this, I have my result. And it's not a pleasant one.

But if you want a horror AU that explores that concept, well. Here's to you.

"Yo, Mike? Can I ask ya about somethin'?"

Mike groaned and stirred deep in the recesses of his mind. His last memory was of putting the body to bed, but later waking up to find out that someone else had taken control was nothing new. However, it was very rare for one of them to want to contact him while he slept. They were more likely to use his sleeping time to do things he'd stop them from doing if he was fully conscious. Being awoken when he could tell he hadn't gotten much sleep was a strange occurrence indeed.

Even stranger, the voice that awoke his mind wasn't Chester complaining about something Mike did earlier in the day, or Svetlana letting him know that she was sleeping in a tree tonight and that he should be careful if he was the one who woke up. Instead, he recognized the Jersey accent of an alter that almost never spoke to him, even while he was awake.

"Mike? C'mon, wake up. You gotta see this. I found somethin' weird."

Although Mike recognized the accent, Vito's cocky confidence was nowhere to be found. He spoke more quietly and hesitantly than usual. Something was bothering him, which wasn't uncommon, but this wasn't the voice of someone on the verge of punching whatever displeased him. For once, the egotistical fighter in Mike's brain sounded concerned and unsure.

"What is it?" Mike asked wearily in his thoughts, his voice not quite awake yet. He wasn't conscious enough to see, and instead sat in the blackness of his mind while Vito communicated his thoughts with him from outside.

"You, uh... you haven't been downloadin' weird pictures, have ya? I mean... don't wanna judge... but I don't think you'd be inta shit like this."

"What are you talking about?" Mike woke up a little more, enough to see his surroundings. He rested in the bed in his area of his mind, as he expected. It looked a lot like his bedroom, with its bookshelves and movie posters, but the brain-like texture that replaced the carpet made this room distinct from the outside world.

"I got on the computer 'cuz I wanted ta look at my pictures and I found a folder that wasn't on here last time. It's filled with weird pictures, and I know I didn't put 'em there. Here, ya wanna come out and look at 'em? They're pretty freaky. I don't know what else to say about 'em."

The world around Mike changed with a quick snap. One second he sat on his mental bed, and the next he sat in his real bedroom, on the office chair situated at his computer desk. The only light in the room was the glow of his computer monitor. It took Mike a few seconds to orient himself and focus on what Vito wanted to show him.

There were fewer seconds between Mike comprehending what was on the screen, and Mike's hand shooting out to turn off the monitor.

A lump formed in his throat and cut off some of his breath. Did he really see-? This had to be a nightmare. Vito contacting him should have been his first clue that none of this was real, and those pictures should have cemented it. Nothing like that could really exist, and it would certainly never end up on his own computer screen...

Mike slowly raised his trembling hand and moved it toward the screen. This wasn't real, this wasn't happening, this had to be a nightmare. A bead of cold sweat ran down his forehead as he gasped for another shaky breath. He told himself that he'd turn the screen back on and see nothing but the comic book cover he used as a wallpaper.

The screen flickered back to life as Mike pushed the power button, and to his fear, it showed the same images he wanted so much to believe were false. A folder full of photographs of people he'd never seen before was maximized on the screen. Each person had several pictures dedicated to them, and the scroll bar on the side of the folder indicated that there were many more pictures that Mike wasn't seeing. Most of them were young women, although he did notice one man among the group that was currently being displayed. Each set took place in a different room, none of which Mike recognized. Some were fully clothed, while other photos depicted the strangers in various states of undress. Everyone was restrained with rope, whether tied to a chair or a bed, or simply tied up on the floor. Each set of photos showed a progression of events; the first photo would show the person unmarred, but as they progressed, scratches and bruises appeared on the people's bodies. They all smiled in their first photo, and some even smiled for the first or second photo of physical harm, but as the set went on, the smiles would fade. Every set inevitably led to photos of the subject crying, screaming, or staring into the camera with blank fear, but even after that point, the injuries kept appearing.

Mike turned the screen off again and drew his knees up to his chest. He hugged his legs close, rested his forehead on his knees, and took a deep breath, desperate to stop his body's trembles and hold back the tears that formed in the corners of his eyes. What kind of person could take photos like this?

Of course, he knew... he knew exactly what kind of person would commit an act like this. And for these pictures to end up on his computer, it had to have been one specific person.

Mike didn't want to believe it could be who he thought it was. That person being the culprit would lead to way too many implications, way worse consequences than Mike ever wanted to face.

But he couldn't hide from the truth. Hiding from the truth was how people got hurt before. He couldn't let that happen again.

"Mal..." Mike whispered without lifting his head. "Mal!" This second call was harsher; he would have shouted if it wasn't the middle of the night.

Mike's vision went black, and when it returned, he found himself sitting on the floor in the same position. He looked up to see a room he'd only visited once before. Mal's throne room hadn't changed much since Mike's visit over a year ago. Ornate swords and tapestries still lined every inch of his walls, and gold coins and jewels still piled in the corners, along with the occasional pedestal that held treasures such as golden chalices and silver crowns. Mal sat on his throne in the middle of the room, dressed in a velvet purple robe with black fur trim, with his golden, amethyst-set crown resting upon his head. He rose from his throne and walked toward Mike, every step echoing on the tiled floor. He grinned wickedly down at Mike once he reached him, his eyes glimmering with the malice he was so well known for.

"You called?" Mal asked lightly, the grin not leaving his face.

Mike pushed himself up from the floor with his shaking arms, trying his best to bring his trembling legs up straight. He drew himself up to his full height and stared directly into Mal's eyes. Mike couldn't help but step back from that menacing glare as Mal hungrily drank in his fear.

"I found-" Mike started, trying to ignore his heart's attempts to lodge in his throat as it pounded much harder than necessary. "...Vito, he-. Vito found... he found your pictures. And he- he showed me-"

"Oh my," Mal said, covering his mouth in mock horror. "Those pictures? On your computer? What if the authorities saw? Someone's going to be in very big trouble if he gets caught with filthy photos like that on his hard drive."

"Where... did they come from?" Mike asked, still stumbling over his words. "Did you... get them from a website?"

"Is that what you're hoping?" Mal asked. "You're hoping I'm a mere consumer... but you know me better than that. You know I don't rely on other people to give me what I need..."

Mike gasped and stepped back. "You- you didn't-"

Mal's widening grin told Mike everything he needed to know.

"You- took them yourself?"

"Scheduled them, arranged them, shot them. Yes, it was all my handiwork. Well, that, and the assistance of some incredibly willing participants, of course."

"Don't lie to me, Mal!" Mike said, a burning rage leading him to stand firmer and stop backing away. "How were they willing? Why would they let you do something like that to them?! I saw those pictures! Some of them were crying! How do you call that willing?!"

"I never said they enjoyed the whole thing. I simply meant that they came along willingly," Mal said. "In fact, in every case, it was their idea, not mine. All I did was give them what they asked for."

"No one would ask for that!" Mike insisted, but his firm stance wilted. Something didn't seem right. Mal was a liar. Mike had no proof that he was telling the truth about people asking to be in those pictures. But something in his words seemed honest. Mal only lied when his lies suited his needs better than the truth. Mike tried to figure out how this lie would suit him, but came up blank. If Mal really did kidnap these people, wouldn't he brag about how fun it was to overpower them? Why would he lie to make the job sound easier than it was?

But it had to be a lie. People agreeing to something like this didn't make any sense!

Mal turned to the side and stared at one of his tapestries, a simple, purple piece of fabric with gold trim and no design on it. He snapped his fingers, and as the sound echoed through his chamber, the tapestry burst into flames. The flames began dying away as quickly as they appeared, revealing a photo embedded on the tapestry. Mike hadn't seen this one earlier, but it obviously came from the folder he found before. A blonde woman with green streaks in her hair knelt on the floor and smiled up at the camera, her blue eyes beaming with excitement. Her shirt and bra sat on the floor nearby, although she still wore a short, black skirt, and her arms were tied behind her back with thick black rope. She didn't appear to have any injuries.

"Do you recognize her?" Mal asked.

Mike squinted at the picture, trying to remember where he'd seen that face before. It took him a few moments, but the name finally clicked.

"Sandra? Sandra Bateman?" Mike asked. "We were in high school together... but I don't think I ever talked to her before..."

"Oh, you talked to her once," Mal said. "Don't you remember?"

The memory flashed in his mind, and Mike began reciting it, as if to reassure himself that he was right. "It was graduation day, after we got our diplomas... she came up to me and asked if she could meet you. I told her it wasn't a good idea, but she kept insisting that I should introduce her to you. And then... I went blank. By the time I came back, I was alone on the football field and she was gone. I haven't seen her since."

"I remember how terrified you felt," Mal said, grinning. "And you know how drawn I am to fear... I couldn't help but come up front and see what was going on. At first I couldn't figure out what was so terrifying about standing on the football field in a sweltering robe, but after she heard my voice and started telling me how excited she was to meet me, I had a feeling I knew what had you so disturbed. You don't like being reduced to me, do you?"

Mike didn't answer that question; the answer should have been way too obvious, regardless of who asked it. Instead, he countered with his own question. "How have you been getting enough control to come out? I thought I'd chained you up here again!"

"And that thinking is what's so dangerous for you," Mal said. "When you let yourself forget about me and you believe I'm not a threat anymore, that's when you stop focusing on the chains. And once those chains are weakened, all it takes is one trigger for the chains to crack. Ironically, your intense fear at the prospect of me hurting Sandra is exactly what brought me out. You'd forgotten me for so long and you didn't have enough time to hold me back before I got out. It was the perfect combination. And of course, the first thing I was faced with after a year of exile was the babbling of a foolish young woman with no sense of self-preservation.

"At first I found her rather annoying," Mal admitted. "She kept going on about how much she looked up to me and how 'cool' she thought I was... how pathetic. If she knew who I am, she must have seen me on Total Drama. How could she see everything I did there and think I'd be someone she wanted to meet? I almost walked away from her. I had no time for her nonsense. But then, she told me something rather interesting... she told me she might be a masochist, and that she wanted to experiment with me. She enthusiastically told me, whispering so no one else around would hear her, how exciting it would be to do a scene with a famous sadist... so, of course, I had to oblige. I couldn't take her offer right then, unfortunately... people would certainly question you not turning up for your own graduation party. You would have never ditched it under your own free will, and the other alters would make sure you got there, or would at least have no reason to wander off. Even Vito probably hoped to get some beer there. If I dragged you off, someone would have realized something was wrong, and if someone saw you talking to Sandra and traced you back to her, I could have been caught. But I managed to arrange a meeting for the next night, and thankfully, I was able to gain control of the body at the right time to meet her at her home. She was all alone, and so eager to invite me up to her room..."

A female voice that Mike quickly recognized as Sandra's filled the room. He twisted around in an effort to find the source of the sound, but it seemed to be coming in equal volume from every wall in the chamber.

"Thanks so much for doing this with me," Sandra said.

"My pleasure. I'm looking forward to this." Mal's voice followed, but his mouth didn't move. Mike quickly deduced that this sound also came from the wall. He must have been hearing Mal's memories.

"How are you feeling?" Mal asked.

"I'm scared..." Sandra said. "I'm excited! I do want to try this. But I'm still a little scared."

"I like making people feel scared."

Mike's stomach lurched at the sound of Sandra giggling. Didn't she understand the trouble she was in?!

"Do whatever you want to me," she said. "I don't even know where to start! So I'll let you pick what we do. I'll let you know what I like and what I don't."

"Of course, my dear Sandra."

She giggled again, triggering a gag from Mike. He had to help her! He knew this was a memory from months ago, but he still spun around the room, desperately looking for Sandra so he could untie her and get her out of there.

"Don't trust him!" Mike shouted at the walls. "He doesn't care about you! I told you before, he just wants to hurt you! Please run!"

Mal laughed and snapped his fingers again. The tapestry burned once more, and when the flames faded, the picture of Sandra had changed. The new photo showed an upside down view of her lying on the floor, her arms still bound. A necklace of bruises circled her neck, and someone had drawn crosses on her stomach with a blade. Various other slashes, carved without pattern, covered her arms and her legs. Her eye makeup smeared over her face from her tears, and the smile she held in the last photo was long gone. As the last flames died away to reveal every inch of the picture, a loud sobbing filled the room.

"Aw, don't cry, Sandy!" Mal said, in a tone one would use to calm a child. "Isn't this what you wanted?"

"It hurts!" Sandra cried. "Please stop!"

Mal closed his eyes and relaxed at the sound of the memory's screams, as if he was listening to a nature scene or a piece of classical music. Mike staggered back, but caught his balance by reaching behind him and grabbing a pedestal. It took all his resolve not to faint from this.

"But you told me to hurt you!" Mal continued on in that condescending tone. "If it hurts, doesn't that mean I'm doing what you wanted? So why do you want to stop?"

"Let me go!" she screamed. "I'll call the police!"

"You'll call the police on me if I let you go? That's not a very good incentive," Mal said. "If anything, that sounds like a good reason to make sure you never leave this house again... but I suppose it doesn't matter, even if you do tell anyone what I've done tonight. What are you going to tell them? That you went up to an infamous sadist and told him to cut and choke you, and that he gave you exactly what you wished for? No one's going to feel sorry for you. You brought this on yourself. I hope your mommy and daddy never find out that you asked a man to come over while they were out and do such naughty things with you... they'd be so disappointed. I wonder how they'd punish you for doing this?"

The sound of skin slapping against skin rang out, accompanied by a wordless cry.

"STOP IT!" Mike shouted at the top of his lungs. The aural memory cut off mid-scream, and the tapestry burst into flames one more time, this time incinerating it and leaving nothing but a pile of ashes and the brick wall behind it. Mal's eyes shot open and he frowned, his relaxed mood now gone.

"I was enjoying that," Mal said. "Why'd you interrupt? That's very rude, Mike."

"Where is she?!" Mike yelled. "Is she alive?! What did you do with her?!"

"Calm down, I didn't kill her. I didn't kill any of them," Mal said. "I was tempted... I've never seen the light fade from someone's eyes before, and I was so curious about what it'd feel like to squeeze the last breath from her lungs... I'm sure there were times I removed my hands from her throat only seconds too soon to cause any permanent damage..." Mal sighed heavily and stared down at the floor. "But it would have been too risky. I wasn't sure if my fangirls could be discreet about their affections for me, and later research proved that they aren't, if their Internet posts are any indication. If someone who openly worshiped me was seen talking to you, and then her body turned up in a ditch a day later, what do you think people would have thought? It's not even as if I could try to pin the blame on you, especially not if it was obvious enough that she wanted nothing to do with you. No, as much as I wanted to kill her, there was too much risk of someone assuring you it wasn't your fault, putting you in a nice, safe mental facility with happy, caring doctors, and pumping you full of drugs until you found the strength to chain me up again. It took some thinking, but I decided that not even watching someone die was worth that." Mal grinned and stared directly at Mike. "Instead, I had a better idea! What if you found out what I'd done, and no one else knew? How would you react? Would you blame yourself and turn yourself in? Would you try to cover up a vicious crime to save yourself? Would you let the guilt drive you to self-destruct? I know how you work, and every reaction of yours I could think of sounded delightful. So I took those pictures, and at first, my plan was to wait before showing them to you and just give you that set. It was tempting to destroy you immediately, but instead, I decided to give it time. Let you forget that Sandra ever approached you. I'd break you once it wasn't on your mind anymore."

"Didn't you think she'd report you?!" Mike said. "In fact, why didn't she report you? Why haven't I heard anything about this?!"

"Shame is a powerful weapon," Mal said. "You heard what I told her. I kept reminding her of how she asked for this, how she was the fool who put herself in that position, and how everyone would be so ashamed of her if they found out she was stupid enough to trust me. She believed it enough to keep her mouth shut."

"You're wrong! She didn't deserve this! No one would!" Mike said.

"Are you sure?" Mal asked. "Someone comes up to me and asks me to torture them, and they're surprised when I do exactly that? How is that undeserved? I thought you'd enjoy the punishment of someone who cares so little for you, that they'd rather talk to the monster you created than the 'real' you. Someone so shallow and short-sighted deserves whatever they get."

"That's not what they wanted and you know it," Mike said. "That doesn't mean you can take advantage of people! People still have limits!" He gritted his teeth so hard that he risked grinding them down

"Some people have limits," Mal said. "I do not. And do you expect me to care about others' limits? Silly Mike, I thought you knew me better than that. It might have worked out in her favor if she knew me better, too. But she didn't, so this is what she got."

"But even if she didn't tell anyone, she was covered in bruises! Someone would have asked what happened!"

"I imagine she wore a lot of sweaters that summer," Mal said with a shrug. "I knew she might report me anyway, but at least it was only a chance, rather than the certainty that would come if I murdered her. And I knew there was much more of a chance of her explaining everything away to save her dignity. She didn't answer her cell phone while I was busy with her? She forgot to charge it. Cuts on her arms? She angered the cat. Bruises on her neck? Oh, she's so clumsy, she kept tripping the other night and landing weird... people could suspect that someone hurt her all they wanted, but if she's too ashamed to tell the truth, then they could never trace it back to me. Luckily for me, it appears that's exactly what happened. I haven't heard from her since."

"But what about the other pictures?" Mike said. "You're not telling me they all agreed to this!"

"Funny thing is, they did," Mal said. "I can honestly tell you that I never tied someone up against their will, and they usually found the first cuts acceptable, even enjoyable. It's what came after that they didn't like."

"How did you even find them?"

"You're oddly curious about this," Mal said. "You ask a lot of questions. Do you enjoy hearing about this? Do you feel the same thrill I do?"

"NO!" Mike snapped. "I just need to know... what my body's been doing... how you managed to do this to all these people..."

And what I could have done to stop you, he thought, although the fact that he couldn't shamed him too much to want to say so out loud.

"I have a lot of fans," Mal said. "I didn't expect that to ever happen. Even when I woke up to find out you'd dragged us onto an international television show, I thought my name would go down in infamy. I expected people to fear the name of The Malevolent One, to make up stories about how cruel I might be, and to run away from the sight of you just in case you were me. I didn't expect to come back out and see that reporters have been circling you like vultures and asking you about me in fascination. And I certainly didn't expect sexually charged men and women to think more with their genitals than their brains and ask me, a known criminal, to fill their disgusting desires. As if I would ever participate in such a thing! I'll hit, I'll cut, but I have no interest in giving those fans the one thing they crave the most. But there they were, constantly approaching me when I would take over the body and try to take a walk. Even though I posed as you, some people were actually obsessed enough to figure out that I don't make the same facial expressions you do or walk in quite the same way. That obsession became a secret code – if someone was obsessed enough with me to notice something so subtle and then approach me instead of run, then perhaps a private meeting with me would be all they ever dreamed of. I never guessed incorrectly. I never approached anyone, but I had a steady flow of people pulling me aside for a chat... and walking right into my trap by asking for a little session. They all seemed to think they were so special, that their magic influence could tame the demon and they could be the only person I would ever feel affection for. They seemed to believe that their bravery when faced with me and their desire to get closer to me would earn my respect and mercy, rather than my scorn for them being so idiotic and not knowing what's good for them. A couple men did approach, but most of them were women. Not like it mattered. Blood is blood. I kept taking their offers, figuring that the more photos I could give you, the better. And I have to say, the game became quite addictive." Mal folded his hands behind him and took a deep breath through his nose. "I had so many willing victims, all of them just like Sandra... too afraid to fight back, even after I let them go... my favorite was that couple," he said wistfully. "Two girls came up to me and told me they were a couple looking to invite a third person into their games, and what they heard of me in the media made me sound like the perfect choice. I don't know what they heard, but clearly it was wrong, since they didn't seem to think of me as a perfect choice at all once I visited them..." Mal chuckled darkly. "I thought torturing one person in privacy was fun! Oh, but this... at the start, I focused on striking one girl, while the other jokingly whined at me for not paying attention to her... eventually, I had to punish her for her impatience. I kept hitting her harder as her girlfriend screamed for me to stop, told me to stop hurting her, she struggled with her ropes but all she could do was sit still and watch as I worked on her beloved with my fists and later their own knife, drawing blood from those pretty veins-"

"SHUT UP!" Mike had heard enough. He lunged forward and tackled Mal to the floor by his shoulders, rage and hate boiling in his very core. "How could you do this to innocent people?! I don't care that they asked you! Nobody deserves what you're doing! This has to stop!"

Instead of fighting back, Mal only smirked up at Mike. "You don't want me hurting people, so you're going to stop me by hurting me? I'm not surprised that you're a hypocrite."

Mike growled at Mal; words failed him too much for anything else.

"What's the big deal, anyway? I've seen your memories from when you're alone with Zoey, or even some of the dreams you've had about her. I've felt how much you revel in touching her body to see her reactions... it's wonderful to explore how the human body reacts to sensations. We both know that. We just have different ways of exploring those reactions."

"WE'RE NOTHING ALIKE!" Mike shouted. His hands twitched against Mal's shoulders; one movement would find his hands at his neck, if he could only psych himself into doing it. Mike hated the idea of hurting a fellow human being, but in his mind, Mal's evil actions had brought him somewhere far from human. He was a beast. A monster. An evil force that had to be stopped.

Mike would feel no guilt from destroying a monster.

"Who would you be without me, Mike?" Mal asked. "I remember a lot of the things you couldn't handle, and you gave me a lot of the emotions you didn't want. What would have happened to you if you never made me? What would have become of those emotions? Would you be the one tying people to their beds and carving them until they scream if you didn't have me to blame?"

Mike breathed more heavily as he removed his hands from Mal, sickening possibilities swirling through his mind.

"If you got rid of me, my mind would have to go somewhere. What if you took it? What would happen to your friends? What would happen to Zoey?"

Mike slowly rose to his feet and stepped back. He closed his eyes and hung his head, seemingly in defeat.

"You need me, Mike. You made me for a reason. My thoughts had to come from somewhere. No matter how often you deny it, I'm still part of you."

Mike slowly opened his eyes and looked up to see Mal standing in front of him, his murderous grin back on his face.

"Should I tell you another story? There was this one guy, I think he wanted to be me-"

As Mal spoke, Mike's eyesight focused behind him and onto his throne. Mike took a deep breath, and with a small rumbling sound, a chain shot out from the leg of Mal's throne and latched the shackle onto his ankle.

"Huh?!" Mal's eyes widened in shock, and he looked down and behind him to see what had bound him. He forgot about his story for the time being as he pulled at the chain, trying to get his leg free. The chain wouldn't give, and as he pulled, Mike took another breath. Another chain emerged from another leg of the throne and captured Mal's other leg. Mal snarled at Mike as the chains shortened and dragged a still-standing Mal across the floor and to his throne.

"No! I won't go down so easy!" He tried to walk away from the throne, but it was no use. The chains pulled him into sitting position and shortened enough that even if he stood, he couldn't step away from it. He sat up on his throne and glared at Mike, his face twisted in rage, but as realization dawned, his glare slowly turned into a smirk. "So this is how you punish me for tying people up? By restraining me yourself?" Mal asked, followed by a quick laugh. "You really aren't so different."

"I can't let you hurt people anymore," Mike said, "but I also can't take your memories. It's the only choice I have. I'll focus more on the chains this time."

Mal kept smiling. "That's what you said the last two times. We've been through this song and dance before. You'll never stop me, Mike. I'll always be a part of you. All you can do is slow me down a little."

Mike should have felt pride at restraining Mal again, but he couldn't ignore the circumstances. Mal's smirk made it clear that he didn't feel as if he'd lost completely, and the ashes and burnt shreds of tapestry Mike saw from the corner of his eye reminded him of the pictures he'd just seen.

Victory wasn't restraining Mal again. Victory would have been not allowing things to come to this in the first place.

"I guess I should have expected this after I invited you up here," Mal said calmly. "But it doesn't matter. I showed you what I wanted, and we both know I won't be up here long. Don't worry. I'll be back. And until I break these chains, we can still talk. I've missed our little chats about how you're doing... it's going to be okay. You'll never forget anything I've told you tonight. I'm never going to let you."

Mal tilted his head back and laughed, and as he did, a wall of fire sprung up and separated him and Mike. Mike's entire vision became obscured by flames, and he hunched over coughing as the smoke filled his lungs. Everything snapped to black, and for a moment, Mike wondered if he'd somehow been smothered by the smoke. But then his bedroom returned to him. He still sat curled up on his chair, and he no longer smelled the flames. The only sound he heard was Mal's faint, distant laughter, which faded into nothing shortly after Mike acknowledged it.

Mike stared ahead at the computer screen, Mal's photos still filling it. He took a few seconds to decide what to do with them, and in the end, he closed the folder and deleted it from his hard drive.

He'd never tell anyone about what happened that night. Not his friends, not his family, not his doctors, and certainly not authorities. No one ever needed to know about this.

A sickening feeling rolled in his stomach and reminded him that this fear of judgment and punishment was what constantly got people hurt.

But he didn't know what else he could do.