Am I supposed to pity him because of his addiction? It makes me even more disgusted by him. No one forced this jerkoff to stick the needle in his arm. Nah, he did it on his own. Wouldn’t be half as bad if he ruined his own life, but I see the bigger picture. The heartache he’s causing his family. Their sleepless nights. The pain he put on them because he couldn’t resist the call of his favorite drug. Fuck him. Fuck heroin. And fuck the balls it took for him to do what he did to me.
Me.
Forget the fact I’m an Unholy.
I’m Havoc-motherfucking-Taylor.
My reputation alone should have been enough to keep this asshole from—
Oh, for Christ’s sake, what’s Casper mumbling? Doesn’t matter. Don’t care. He’s lucky I used a gag to silence him instead of cutting off his goddamn tongue.
I’m itchy standing in this roach-infested shithole, but this is a necessary evil. What he did demands retribution.
And I’mrealgood at delivering retribution.
Casper knows it, too, because a wet spot spreads over his crotch.
I step on his chest with a disgusted grunt to hold him still and motion to the pee stain. “Seriously?”
Again, he tries to mutter something. Saliva streams down his chin. This guy stinks like warmed-over shit. Wait. Did he shit himself? No, thank fuck. He just reeks to hell and back.
“My friend Faith keeps trying to convince me to be nicer to people.” Casper cringes when I lean down to tap him on the top of his head with the blade. I was half expecting to hear a hollow echo. “But look where me being nice to you got us. I’m all sorts of pissed off, and you, well, you’re about to die a gruesome death.”
Casper whimpers. Sniveling, actually. I silence him with a bitch slap to the face. My black leather gloves intensify the hit and save me from having to make skin-to-skin contact. Plus, there’s something enormously satisfying about the sound of leather hitting bare flesh.
“Enough with the fucking crying.” I can’t stomach a man who can’t accept the consequences of his actions. “You did this to yourself.”
“…o …orry,” he garbles behind the gag.
Can’t decide what’s more pathetic, his wretched sobs or the slobber coating his face.
“Yeah, you are.”Now. “Everyone’s fucking sorry after they get caught.” I dig in my pocket and pull out a small, square cigar cutter Wraith handed out at Jamie’s baby shower for Lilliana. “Crazy thing about cutting off body parts.” I eye the knife in my right hand. Then the cutter in my left. Shift my gaze back to Casper. “Gets boring always using the same tools.”
Casper gurgles. Convulses under my booted foot. Coughs on spit. Maybe he vomits a little. Don’t know. Don’t care. I only need for him to stay alive long enough to suffer my vengeance.
I don’t do smiles. Not my thing. I’m not Jester. But here I am, with an almost maniacal grin tugging at my lips as I tuck the knife away and lift my foot off him.
I crouch low. Get in real close to this smelly bastard. “Oh, my God, the things I’m going to do to you will be the stuff of nightmares.” I release a heavy sigh. Gaze at the ceiling, imagining an actual audience grimacing in horror at my grotesque display of artwork. At what these filthy walls will look like painted with his blood. I shift my attention back to Casper, my eyes trained on him with grim determination. “And they’ll know why I hurt you.” I lift his pinkie finger, both bound arms moving in unison with the action. Savor his muffled protest. “You’ll be a reminder of what happens when someone picks a fight with me.”
Casper struggles to swallow on a strangled whimper. Tries to wiggle away, but I grab him by the neck. Squeeze hard enough to scare him.
“This here is cause and effect, Casper,” I growl in his face.
Cause: he struck first.
Effect: now I’m going to gut him.
Casper is thrashing in my hold. Shakes his head. Struggles to babble behind the gag.
I lift him by the neck. Slam him to the floor and again pin him beneath my boot. “Thing about my line of work, I’m like a hammer. I come in and beat a person. Break them until they’re dead.” I press the cigar cutter’s blade a few times, testing it. “We typically use the same tools every time. It gets fucking boring. Knives. Wrenches. Drills. Hacksaws. Blowtorches. You get the idea. Tonight, I want to try something new. Always wanted to see how long it takes to snap off a finger with one of these.”
That pee stain on Casper’s nasty jeans grows. He’s shaking his head, sobbing. His stink is revolting, and I think twice about my plan to drag this out. But too many of his junkie friends know what he did. If I don’t make a grand gesture tonight, they might also grow a set of balls. That’s how this works. America is a fucking wasteland, with most of the country buried under rubble and rot after the Second Civil War. If you don’t take the law into your own hands, justice will never be served.
For me to go easy on Casper is to invite trouble.
Fuck knows the Unholy have a hard enough time keeping the wolves out of Mayhem.
“So, this is what’s going to happen. You’re going to lie there like a good boy and let me hurt you.” I take my foot off him and crouch down again to grab his hand. “Or you make me do it the hard way, and I drag this out for days, Casper.Fucking days.”
