[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 782 - It Just Exploded!

Dwight's grip on Sherry Birkin's wrist was vise-tight. Tight enough that she frowned.

"A massage?" Dwight suddenly laughed.

The sound echoed through the dim corridor, hollow and utterly desolate.

He raised his other hand and pointed. At the flush on Sherry Birkin's cheeks. At the faint tremor still moving through her body.

"You think I'm an idiot!" Dwight roared like a wounded animal.

"One man, four women, all alone! A man that even Negan would kneel before! You were in there for over two hours!"

"And now you're telling me you were just giving him a massage?"

The ruined half of Dwight's face pressed together, skin and flesh pulling taut into something grotesque.

Sherry Birkin looked at the man she had once loved deeply. She watched the suspicion, the jealousy, and the near-pathological madness churning in his eyes.

Whatever faint relief she'd felt at escaping Negan's clutches evaporated completely.

A deep, bone-heavy exhaustion rose in its place.

Her expression went cold.

She stopped struggling. She let Dwight hold her wrist.

"Believe it or not. Your call."

Sherry Birkin's voice didn't carry a single ripple.

"Whatever filthy picture you've cooked up in your head — nothing happened in there."

Amber, standing to the side, couldn't take it anymore.

"Dwight, let go of her!" She stepped forward and slapped his hand away.

Tania and Frankie moved immediately, planting themselves in front of Sherry Birkin.

"We swear on our integrity," Tania said, staring at Dwight with cold eyes. "We were only giving a massage in there."

"Kneading his legs. Rubbing his shoulders. Pressing on his head."

Frankie added.

"All four of us, for over 2 hours. Our hands are practically broken. That's why we're exhausted."

Truthfully, Amber and the others found the whole thing strange themselves.

That man, Leon, had looked at them with a gaze full of heat, not even glancing away when they were completely naked. And yet when they had made their move, he had never crossed that final line.

Half an hour ago, inside the room.

Amber had worked up her nerve. She'd crawled on her knees across the floor to the sofa, hands reaching for Leon's belt.

Leon caught her wrist and stopped her.

"I don't like touching women who've already been used." His words were blunt and unhesitating. "I only like virgins."

All three women had frozen on the spot.

It stung, a little. But none of them argued.

Everyone had their preferences. Some liked married women. Some liked them pure. They weren't about to drag Leon into anything against his will.

And then Leon had said something else.

"Sleeping with me isn't a wise choice."

"Every fluid in my body, blood, saliva, all of it, is saturated with lethal toxins."

"If you want to end up like those brainless Rotters outside, feel free to try."

That killed every last thought of climbing into his bed. They'd been so frightened their breathing went quiet.

So for the 2 hours that followed, physical intimacy firmly off the table, they had genuinely done nothing except wear their revealing clothes and walk back and forth in front of him. Eye candy. Background decoration. And then a long, diligent massage.

None of this, they decided, needed to be explained to Dwight.

It touched on Leon's private business. They were alive right now because of him. How could they go around repeating his words to anyone who asked?

Besides, the man had already helped them. Some form of repayment was only reasonable.

Not only had he never made things difficult for them, he'd saved them. And in the end, his conditions had been simple. That alone was enough to earn their genuine gratitude.

"We truly did not do anything that shouldn't have happened."

Amber met Dwight's eyes. Her voice didn't waver.

But how could Dwight possibly believe that?

In this godforsaken world, a man with absolute power, alone with four exceptional women, and all he wanted was a massage?

That was the kind of story not even a three-year-old would swallow.

"Integrity?" Dwight's eyes went red. He jabbed his finger at Amber and the other two. "Do you even have integrity left?"

"Negan used you all up long ago! You're nothing but whores who'll spread your legs to stay alive!"

"And now you're swearing on your integrity to me?"

"What a goddamn joke."

His words drove into the three women like knives.

Amber was shaking.

Out of nowhere, why was she being attacked like this?

"What choice did I have? There was a gun pressed to my head and my family's heads. I didn't want to do it, I had to. You think I wanted to?"

"Dwight, I'm telling you, if you're really so tough, why don't you go kill Negan yourself? Why are you taking it out on us?"

"You were scared. You wanted to live. So you caved."

"Does that mean I get to call you a spineless coward!?"

The fury broke through. Dwight lunged toward Amber.

"Don't you dare!"

Sherry Birkin's shout cracked through the corridor.

She stepped out from behind Amber and looked straight into Dwight's twisted face.

"Dwight. That is enough."

Her voice was soaked in disappointment, the deep, bottomless kind that comes after hope has already left.

"Do you have any idea what I was doing in there? Do you think I wanted to go fawn over that man?"

"Negan kicks my door open every single day. Baseball bat in hand. Trying to rape me."

Her eyes were rimmed red. Tears gathered, not yet falling.

"And where were you? When that was happening — where were you?"

"You were downstairs scrubbing his floors. Wagging your tail at him like a dog begging for scraps."

Dwight's face drained of color.

He opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

"You've changed, Dwight."

Sherry Birkin shook her head. The tears finally broke and slid down her face.

"You weren't like this before. You used to be kind. Brave. You would throw yourself at Walkers to protect a complete stranger."

"But now?"

She raised one finger and jabbed it hard into his chest.

"You've become exactly what I despise most."

"You became Negan's most loyal attack dog."

"You helped him strip other camps down to nothing. You helped him crush everyone who pushed back."

"You even helped him kill people."

"Every day you put on that uniform, pick up that gun, and swagger around the Sanctuary like you own it."

"Do you think that makes you honorable? Do you think it's going to earn you anything more than Negan's scraps?"

With every word, Dwight's body shuddered. The ruined half of his face convulsed.

"I am completely done with you." Sherry Birkin wiped the corner of her eye. When she looked at him again, her gaze was hollow. Empty in a way that had no floor to it.

"I would rather go give that stranger a massage. I would rather let him sleep with me. Anything, anything is better than looking at your cowardly, cruel face one more second."

That was the sentence that broke him.

"You think I wanted this!" Dwight howled like a man who had nothing left to lose.

"You think I wanted to be Negan's dog!"

"You think I wanted to do those things every single day, the things that make me sick to think about!"

He jabbed his finger at the ruined half of his own face.

That patch of cratered, uneven dead skin, a dark angry red, looked horrifying under the light.

"Look at my face! Sherry! Look at it!"

"Negan did this! He pressed a red-hot iron against my face and held it there until it was done. I can still smell it. My own skin burning. I can still smell it."

His eyes were bloodshot.

"If it weren't for you, would I have become this?"

"I made a deal with him. As long as he didn't hurt you, I would do anything. Anything he asked."

Dwight stepped forward. His eyes locked onto hers and didn't let go.

"I killed. I robbed. I became his lapdog."

"I sold my soul to the devil, for a room of your own in this damned Sanctuary."

"So you wouldn't have to go outside every day and face those things."

"So you could still live like a human being."

"And now you turn around and blame me?"

A wretched sound tore out of him. Not quite a laugh.

"You stand on your moral high ground and tell me I became a bad person?"

"Sherry, what right do you have to say that to me?"

"The clothes on your back. Every bite of food that goes in your mouth. All of it — every single piece of it — I wrung from Negan's hands using my conscience and my dignity!"

Dwight stared at her face. That face he had burned everything for.

He had given everything. Abandoned the last of what made him human.

And all he'd earned was her contempt.

But Sherry Birkin just shook her head.

"Do you know what I actually want?"

"I would rather die than be a burden. I would rather be gone than watch you refuse to fight back, watch you serve the man who destroyed you like an obedient dog."

"Living like this is exhausting. I am so tired."

"If I were dead, would you finally have the courage to fight Negan? To live like a real person again?"

She asked it strangely. Too quietly. Too deliberate.

But Dwight was still burning, still buried in his own rage. He didn't hear the wrongness in it. He just fired back, cold and flat:

"If you weren't here at the Sanctuary, I would have nothing holding me back."

Sherry Birkin looked at him for a moment.

Then she nodded.

Slowly. Deliberately.

"Alright."

Before anyone could move, she turned and threw herself straight at the open window.

➤ Next: Completely Over