Shaw wasn’t beaten. He wasn’t hogtied or sedated. A single handcuff welded to an old radiator pipe that ran from the wood stove to the chimney across the room kept him secure. Clearly, the piping was a homemade design, but it worked for Steel’s needs.
Metal jingled as Shaw tried to break the pipe. It was useless, and he was only depleting his own energies. Steel had tried to break that pipe for three days before coming to the conclusion that it wasn’t going anywhere. At least, not without power tools, and Shaw did not have access to those. He was stripped naked,forced to stand with his arm handcuffed above him, and nothing within reach.
Neither man said anything. After all, what was there to say? Words would not change either man’s fate.
Steel sat across the dank cabin at a table set that had seen better days. He was using his knife to shave the tip off of a bamboo stalk. Shaw’s eyes kept dancing around the room as he sought an exit. Like the trained professional he was, he did not fixate on the weapon in Steel’s hand or the enemy in the room. He was plotting, working out his escape.
Steel did not try to hide what he was doing. He didn’t care if Shaw saw him or not, as it had no bearing on what was about to happen.
The door opened, and Scar walked through. Though Shaw’s eyes narrowed on the scarred man, he did not beg for help or try to bargain with him. While testing his restraints was instinctual, he likely knew talking to Scar would be a waste of precious breath.
Scar placed the duffle bag Steel had left in the van on the table. He pulled out four foot-long metal stakes and rope, placing both on the table next to Steel’s elbow.
Though they’d been together for nearly three weeks tracking Shaw down, not much had been said between them. Or said by Steel anyway. Scar was following Steel’s lead, assisting him rather than taking point. There’d only been a few times when Steel had had to speak his plans out loud. Scar’s ruthlessness and his ability to seamlessly fade into the shadows had come in handy, but what had surprised Steel the most was how unwavering the silent man’s presence was during this merciless crusade. Steel knew he could have done this alone—had planned to—and yet, he found he was grateful to have Scar with him. If only to know someone was watching his back.
Once he’d finished carving the two plants, Steel stood. There were two sledgehammers leaning against the cabin wall. One had Jeremy Harris’ blood caked upon the metal head. The other was recently procured off the back of a city work truck.
Together, Steel and Scar each picked up one of the heavy tools. Shaw stopped struggling as he watched with confused curiosity and trepidation as his captors moved to the center of the cabin. Steel hefted the sledgehammer over his shoulder and then swung it down. The wood flooring in the center of the cabin split, sending chunks and splinters in every direction. Some pierced him, making him hear Jenna’s phantom voice scold him for not wearing protection.
Scar swung next. Together, they demolished the floor until they hit dirt underneath. The silence in the cabin added to the eeriness of Shaw’s impending doom. He watched them work, transfixed, and yet he did not question them or demand answers. Steel absently wondered how broken the man had to be to be able to suppress his natural curiosity like that. He’d been under Primis’ control for years. Had they tortured him as they had Scar? Not that Steel cared, nor would it change Shaw’s outcome.
Once the dirt was cleared away, Steel hopped out of the pit they’d created. The heavy spring rains had made the forest floor even under the cabin damp and messy. Somehow, it was April. A month had passed since Ollie’s accident and Melanie’s murder, each breath an agonizing trial as he fought to keep his sanity in a world where his daughter did not exist.
He knew that killing Shaw would change nothing. It would not take his pain away or bring Melanie back to him. Intellectually, he knew this. Yet he did not care. Before, when he’d vowed to kill Shaw for making Jenna cry, he’d planned for a quick death. A bullet through his head, a snap of his neck, a blade to his heart… But now?
Now, there was no such thing as aquickdeath. Shaw would learn the meaning of pain. He would beg Steel for death, but Steel would not give it.
As Scar headed outside with his sledgehammer, Steel placed his upside down against the wall. He approached Shaw, acknowledging him for the first time by meeting the man’s eyes.
Shaw lifted his chin in a show of strength, but Steel saw his Adam’s apple bob in nervousness. “You think making me watch you dig my grave is going to scare me, Jackie?”
Steel reached into his pocket and pulled out two small items. The first stop Scar and he had taken after leaving the cemetery was to head to the police station where Melanie’s murder was being investigated. Steel didn’t talk to either detective, nor did he care about where they were in their investigation. What he wanted were the two bullets that had pierced his baby girl’s heart.
The bullets that had ended her life.
He held them up to Shaw, making sure the man could see them clearly.
Shaw sneered, his jaw tightening. “What are you going to do, Jack Attack?” It was an old nickname from their training days, one used before he’d become Steel. “Kill me with the bullets that killed your precious daughter?” Shaw scoffed. “If that’s the case, then get it over with. But if you do, you’ll never learnwhyyour daughter died.”
“You think I care about why?” Steel asked him, lowering his hand. “You think I care about whatever justification you came up with in your fucked-up head that allowed you to point a gun at an innocent nineteen-year-old woman? Keep your reasons and excuses. They mean nothing to me.”
Creaking from overhead drew Shaw’s attention to the roof above them, but Steel did not look away from the man who’dmurdered his daughter. The void in his chest where his heart should be pulsed like a living entity.
A moment later, the ceiling above them shattered. Shaw ducked his head, using his free arm to protect his head and eyes. Steel just stood there, not caring what hit him. The physical pain of the splinters or sharp edges were a welcome reprieve from the irreparable, overwhelming, and searing agony that made it feel impossible to survive to the next second, let alone the next hour or next day. Theonlything that kept him going was imagining this moment, right now, and knowing that he had to survive so he could end Shaw.
Scar continued to destroy the section of the roof over the cavity in the floor they’d created. Shaw’s confusion only grew, not understanding why they were destroying the roof if they were only going to shoot him and bury him as he’d wrongly assumed was Steel’s plan.
After Scar was done and debris stopped falling, Steel walked back over to the table on the other side of the crater in the floor. The hole was perhaps a rough seven feet long by five feet wide. They hadn’t dug into the ground, but the cabin stood about three feet above the soil.
“During World War II, the Japanese had a torture technique for POWs,” Steel told Shaw. “They would stake men to the ground in bamboo fields and interrogate them. You might be asking yourself why, because what danger could bamboo possibly be?” Steel picked up the small plants he’d been carving only a little while ago. “Well, rumor has it, that while they were interrogating the prisoners, bamboo saplings from beneath the soil started to grow up andintothe prisoners’ bodies as they were secured to the ground. Eventually, the bamboo would continue growing, impaling the prisoners completely, killing them slowly over several days.”
Steel took one of the bullets that had killed his daughter and secured it into the top of one of the stalks. He added a small amount of glue to ensure it wasn’t going anywhere. The baby stalk was only a few inches tall, Steel having pulled it from the soil only a short time ago. He repeated the process with the second bullet and stalk.
He dropped himself back down into the hole they’d created in the floor as Scar reentered the cabin. To Shaw, Steel said, “You’re right that I’m going to kill you with the bullets that you used to kill my daughter. But you’re wrong about the method or how long it’s going to take. This species of bamboo can grow one to three feet per day, given direct sunlight and plenty of water. I imagine it’ll take longer with a body lying on top of it and having to push its way through flesh and bone. An average human man’s chest depth is about eleven inches to a foot. So while it tooksecondsfor my daughter to die by these bullets, I estimate it’ll take you more than a day.”
As Steel knelt to re-bury the stalks into the moist soil below the cabin, the realization of his fate seemed to hit Shaw, and he renewed his struggles to escape with increased vigor. But his efforts would prove futile.
There was no hope for him, and the man knew it.
