Do you get nervous watching me bleed?
~
"I said get up, you fucking cunt! I know you're awake." His nasally voice practically dripped with slime. She lay face-down on the metal floor of her cage, refusing to acknowledge the man's presence; that always pissed him off. She heard the jingling of keys and the click of a lock, followed by a sharp pain over her scalp as she was dragged forward, her stomach getting scraped on the entrance to the cage.
Then she was face-down on the cold, concrete basement floor, the man's muddy boots standing an inch from her face. He reared one back to the side and swung it hard into her ribs. Cindy whimpered as she looked on; Melanie couldn't watch. Aven pushed herself up onto her side and the man crouched down next to her, his hand wrapping tightly around her throat.
"You get up when I fucking tell you to get up. You fucking belong to me."
"Bullshit," Aven spat. No sooner than she had, the man's other fist collided with her mouth. She shook her head to ground herself, her tongue running over the inside of her sore lips.
"You are mine," the man growled, thinking he sounded truly intimidating. Aven tasted blood and felt the warmth of a small drop trickle down her throat. She smiled, she couldn't help it. She began to laugh.
"You are so fucking pathetic," she sneered. "You think you're so fucking tough." The back of his hand struck the side of her face and she recoiled but straightened up again. "Fucking worthless little boy." The man struck her again and again and Cindy screamed, begging Aven not to anger him anymore and get herself hurt further. He grabbed Aven by her hair again and lifted her so she was struggling to stand on her weak legs.
"I guess you don't get the fucking rules," the man's voice warped as he spoke and she looked up to see the white-haired man from the woods. "The rules keep us alive." His mouth moved but it wasn't his voice; it was Negan's.
Then she was face-down on the cold, concrete floor again, a dull pain throbbing at the back of her head. She pushed herself up on her arms and groaned, the phantom pains of having just been thrown to the floor stretching across her body. She looked up ready to face the man again, but he was gone. She looked around, unable to see much in the dark room, although there wasn't much to see. It was always dark like this in the man's basement except for a single red, blinking light coming from the dehumidifier, which Aven couldn't find a the moment.
"Cindy?" she groaned. No response. "Cindy, I'm sorry, are you okay? I didn't mean to-"
Aven was interrupted by the sharp creak of a large door opening and light flooding in to blind her. She threw her hand over her eyes, only able to see the silhouette of a man in the doorway. She saw the outline of the gun on his hip and all at once came crashing back mostly to reality and remembering where she was.
"She's awake," the man said gruffly. Another unrecognizable silhouette appeared at the door.
"I'll go get Negan," the second man said.
"Well, hold on," the first man said thoughtfully. "He's expecting her to be out a few more hours...why don't we have some fun with her?" Aven could practically hear the shit-eating grin on his face.
"Don't even think about it, David. You know he would chop your dick off and feed it to you as a biter." The larger man, David, cringed. "Sorry, bud. His words, not mine." The man patted David on the shoulder before they both backed out of the room. The slamming of the cell door immediately sent familiar panic through Aven's body. Though vaguely dizzy from being knocked out, she jumped to her feet and lunged at the door banging on it with her forearms and shrieking, at first unintelligibley.
"I WAS FREE!" The words finally formed and she spat them with rage. "HE'S DEAD! HE'S DEAD! I WANT TO GO HOME! I WAS FUCKING FREE!" Tears poured down her face and her entire body vibrated in fury. Months and months of enduring that man's cruelty and no sooner than she escapes him, another locked door is put between her and her family. They had to be out there looking for her. She was so close.
She didn't stop screaming when the men returned, her beating against the door startling them backwards away from it. Her arms became numb and Negan's smug, lightly-bearded face appeared in the window. She continued her assault on the door, now sending her frenzied gaze straight into him. He frowned slightly. He could tell she meant to direct her anger at him but she seemed to be staring directly through him.
He sighed, knowing she wasn't in the mindset he needed her to be in. But tough shit. If she was going to act in a way that dug her a deeper hole, that was her problem. When he first met her, he'd been too soft and that was on him. He let his white knight feelings of pity get in the way as thoughts of Aven drifted into his mind at unwelcome times. It was something he'd dealt with many times before and as soon as he got some distance, she meant nothing to him. Or at least that's what he told himself.
"LET ME OUT! LET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!" she continued to shriek. "I WANT TO GO HOME!" Negan narrowed his eyes. Home? She said twice that she was on her own. Did she lie to him twice? He stood quietly, waiting for her to tire herself out and her tantrum to end, but it was taking too long. He drew back Lucille and slammed her on the the metal cell door, the echoing boom knocking Aven backwards into the cell, where she backed up against the wall and slid to the floor in defeat, quiet but seething like an animal, staring at or through him.
"Well, doll, I was hoping to come in there to talk to you but I don't really feel like having my face ripped off by a god damn orangutan." He leaned against the door casually, grinning in at Aven, who was completely frozen in her state of fury. "You're really causing me more trouble than you're worth, you know that?" he continued. "I was counting on Simon to pick up some fuckin' slack while Dwight's out of commission, and you go and attack the poor guy. Now I'm down two of my top guys." He conveniently ignored the reason Dwight was out of commission in the first place. "But since I'm such a nice guy, I'm not going to bash your fucking face in. Hell, I probably won't even kill you if you get in line...probably," he repeated with a wink that served no purpose other than grating at Aven's once again fried nerves.
"So," Negan said after a long moment staring at each other in silence, "are you going to invite me in or am I going to stand out here like a fucking asshole?" When she still didn't react, he just quirked the side of his mouth up in a smile and chuckled to himself. "Just kidding, doll," he said slipping a key into the lock and cracking the door open slightly, watching her carefully to see if she'd be stupid enough to try to make a run for it. When she didn't, he swung the door open fully and leaned up against it with his arms crossed casually, Lucille leaned in the door frame and David and the other Savior watching from outside.
"I'm a flexible fuckin' guy, but it looks like you don't have many options here, do you?" When she still didn't respond, he pushed off of the door and his hand went like a magnet to Lucille's handle. He flew over to Aven, glaring directly down at her, not getting eye contact. He gave her one last split second to decide to pay attention, before again rearing Lucille back and bringing her down a centimeter away from Aven's knee. Aven's steel gaze went first to the bat and she gritted her teeth, swallowing her pride before glaring up at him.
"Here's how it is, doll," he began softly, crouching down next to her. "That shit you pulled today? That will not be tolerated. Hell, you're lucky I even threw you in here." He saw a slight twitch in Aven's cheek as she bit her tongue. "If you want to get out of here, you're gonna have to fucking comply. Your life belongs to me. You're gonna work until you pay back your debt, and then you're gonna work some fuckin' more." He leaned back, gauging her reaction, which as usual was not substantial. "Or you can continue to be a fucking thorn in my ass and stay in here. Now, if you pick that option, your life will be a full-blown living hell until you're begging to cooperate. My people will beat your sweet little ass down until you break. And by then, I might not be feeling so fucking generous." He allowed her a moment to take in what he was saying. "So...what'll it be, doll?"
Aven let out a heavy, controlled sigh, her anger having not subsided at all. She wanted to rip Negan to pieces. She wanted to take his bat and rake it back and forth along his face. She wanted to let him die slowly, agonizingly, and then bathe in his blood next to his decapitated head, after gouging the eyes out of course.
"Whichever option you choose," he continued threateningly when she didn't answer, as if to remind her with his tone that ignoring him wasn't allowed, "know this: you belong to me now."
"Fuck yourself up the ass," she spat. Negan's face fell hard, clearly unamused, before the corners of his mouth popped back up into a smirk that didn't reach his darker-than-usual eyes. It was like he couldn't decide what was more effectively intimidating, a straight face or a sickening smile.
"Your mistake," he said softly, straightening up and swinging Lucille back over his shoulder before sauntering out and slamming the cell door shut behind him. The second that it shut, Aven was launched back into her frenzy, thrashing and shrieking like the very sound could break the walls holding her in. David and the other man turned back to their posts guarding the cells and Negan stalked down the hall, trying to block Aven's screams out of his mind.
He stopped in front of the door at the end of the hallway, one hand against it ready to leave, but he couldn't stop himself from wavering and taking in the screams. It's not like prisoners never acted this way. They thought they could beat on the walls until the cell fell apart or until they scared someone into letting them go. This felt different, though. Aven's light-speed transitions between stillness and violence were something he hadn't quite seen before. He told himself she was just being difficult, just trying to escape, but it didn't feel true. She attacked Simon, she deserved this, right?
Her shrieks rose to the quality of the scream she'd let out just before he found her in the woods and he felt a pull to go back to the cell to let her out and just send her away, but instead he shoved open the door in front of him and walked until he couldn't hear her anymore.