It echoes off the concrete walls, absorbed by the soundproofing, heard by no one except the men in this room.
The finger lands on the floor with a soft thump.
Blood spurts from the wound.
"Nine more where that came from," Fenrir says calmly. "And that's just the beginning."
The next two hours are the longest of my life, and the most satisfying.
We take turns.
Fenrir with the pliers, removing fingers one by one.
My father with a blowtorch, cauterizing the wounds just enough to keep Ted from bleeding out too fast.
Runes with questions—more questions about the operation, about names and locations and details we might have missed.
Ted answers everything, babbling, sobbing, desperate to make it stop.
But it doesn't stop.
Can't stop.
Not until justice is served.
And then it's Tor's turn.
He's been silent through most of it.
Watching.
Processing.
Reliving, maybe, some of the worst moments of his own past, but when Runes hands him the coil of barbed wire, something shifts in his expression.
"Do you know what this is?" Tor asks Ted, holding up the wire.
Ted shakes his head.
Crying too hard to speak.
"It's justice." Tor's voice is flat. "For every child you ever touched. Every kid you broke. Every innocent life you destroyed."
He moves behind Ted and shoves a barbed-wire-wrapped pole up Ted’s ass.
And when Tor starts pulling—slowly, methodically, inch by agonizing inch—Ted's screams reach a pitch I didn't know human vocal cords could produce.
It takes time.
Hours.
The wire tearing through flesh, through muscle, through parts of Ted Tomlinson that will never function again.
Blood pools on the concrete floor.
Runs toward the drain.
Exactly what this room was designed for.
