“You got any of those fun toys in this place?” Kinzer asked Quintz.
“I’m sure I have a few things lying around here.”
“Then can you fetch them real quick? I want a minute to let this flit fucker know how I feel.”
Quintz smiled. “Certainly. I’ll return shortly.”
Kinzer tossed his sword aside and threw a punch in Hayde’s stomach. He beat on Hayde, took out all his rage on that body, Hayde’s groans confirming he was making the sort of progress he wanted to be making. That he was hurting him. Kinzer punched until he was left panting and sweating. He pulled away and watched as blood ran down Hayde’s nose to his chin.
Hayde took a few shaky breaths, Kinzer watching him, studying him, wishing he could read Hayde’s thoughts...wishing he could infiltrate the mind of someone who had played him for a fool the way Janka had. He wanted to hear the laughter—how Hayde mocked him, thinking he was so goddamn clever for having outsmarted him.
“You don’t have to stop,” Hayde said with some strange, peculiar sincerity in his expression—something Kinzer couldn’t understand. Like Hayde enjoyed the pain, the way it hurt, something that only made Kinzer hate that he’d hurt him even more, because he didn’t want to satisfy Hayde. Didn’t want to give him any pleasure, not after what Hayde had done to him.
“You might find a couple of punches kinky, Hayde, but I’ll be eager to see how you fare when Quintz starts to make you really hurt. Make you bleed. Make you cry like a fucking baby.”
Quintz entered with a cart that looked like the one Brock had brought into his own torture chamber. His toys were spread across it. He wore a solemn expression on his face, one that, now knowing Quintz, Kinzer believed was just a ruse, a disguise he hid behind when he had to torture immortals like that, as was his work. Quintz struck Hayde with a whip like the one they’d used against Kinzer, and Hayde screamed the way Kinzer had. But it wasn’t good enough. He needed to hurt far worse than that.
“That’s enough,” Kinzer finally said, interrupting the torture. The expression on Quintz’s face—desire in his eyes—suggested he was aroused by how Kinzer ordered him around, something he wanted to take advantage of in a far more private moment, but that would have to wait.
“I know what hurts him most,” Kinzer continued. “I know how to break him.”
He slid the blade of his sword along the side of Hayde’s face. “I wanted to see him squirm…but, Hayde…oh, Hayde, we’ve been through this before, haven’t we? And you know exactly what I’m going to do to you.”
“Fuck you.”
“I only took your nose last time. This time, I’m going to take your whole face…and you won’t die…but you’ll never fucking fully heal. You’ll be this bastard-looking thing…forever. But I’m going to start with my favorite place.”
Kinzer jammed his sword into Hayde’s nostril, slicing through.
Hayde cried out. “You bastard! I surrender to the Leader’s Allies, fully and without condition.”
It was the official surrender statement, one that according to the code of honor the Leader’s Allies abided by meant they could no longer torture him so long as he was willing to cooperate.
Not that Kinzer gave a shit. Scoffing, he said, “Your word means nothing.”
He sawed into Hayde’s face as Quintz rushed beside him.
“Enough, Kinzer, enough!” Quintz demanded.
“Stay out of this!”
“No, you can’t do that! We have a code!”
“Not to a liar.”
Quintz rested his hands on Kinzer’s shoulders. “Kinzer, we can’t torture him, and you know that.”
Kinzer stopped, looking into the eyes of the tear-struck Hayde, his nose mangled already from how Kinzer had torn at the flesh.
“I surrender!” Hayde said desperately.
“He’s surrendering to us,” Quintz reminded him, as though Kinzer hadn’t heard the words himself.
Kinzer withdrew his sword, pulling it back from Hayde’s blood-soaked face, a familiar sight for him.
“He’s a fucking liar. It’s a trick.”
“I don’t give a fuck what his intentions are. I have a code of honor I follow. A code of honor I took very seriously when I signed up to be a part of the Leader’s Allies.”
