"This is for what you did to my sister. This is for what you and your associates did to Cass and Jules' brother. And this is for Erin. When you get to hell, keep an eye out for Hypnos and Zeus."
If he was telling the truth and they didn't know who I was, they might not be looking out for me. Good. I was going to find them and I was going to kill them both.
But first, I was going to watch Solomon Danforth die a slow, uncomfortable death.
After that, I was going to book in for another tattoo, to cross off the next line on my arm.
"I could go for some pizza," Boner remarked.
"You know what, so could I," I said, sitting down against the wall. After all the stress and excitement, I was hungry. Yeah, I'd never had a weak stomach.
Obviously, since my torture box used to live close to my kitchen. More than once, I'd eaten dinner while watching the water drip inside.
"I'll order some." Cass hurried out of the bathroom without looking back over his shoulder.
"I should be pissed off with you for getting him into this," Jules said.
"Maybe, but you know by now he would have been involved either way," I told him.
"Yeah. He's safer with all of us to keep an eye on him than he would be if it was just him and me." Jules didn't seem happy with that, but he accepted it. For Cass' sake, if nothing else.
"You're sticking around then?" I asked.
He sat beside me and crossed his ankles. "Do I have a choice? I'm a loose end too."
"You're not a loose end," I told him. "You're a…" I couldn't think of the word.
"Freshman at Vigilante University," Boner supplied. "Where the fees are low, but the exams can be brutal." He gestured toward the bruising on Jules' face. "You should get some ice for that."
"I've had worse," Jules said. A slow smile crept onto his handsome face. "You should see the other guy. He got off far worse than I did."
I choked back a laugh. "That's true. If there is a Hades, he's there regretting his life choices." Possibly surrounded by fire and some strategically placed lava.
"He never should have fucked with us," Jules agreed. He rubbed at his face absently.
It didn't seem to me like anything was broken. That was a small mercy, given how hard that punch looked. If it was me, I would have been laid out flat. Jules must be even tougher than he looked.
"What are you going to do with them?" He didn't look like he wanted to know the answer.
"I have an incinerator," Archer said, nodding toward his oven. "No one wants to eat any of them. Gina would be bitter and those two would be too fatty."
He could have been talking about a pig or a chicken he'd dispatched. There was absolutely no emotion in his voice. No sympathy for the fact they were humans. They were nothing more than dead meat.
"Oh, I don't know," Jules said. "It could be interesting when people at the restaurant ask where Gina is. I could tell them she's…late."
I laughed again. "I should have figured you'd have a dark sense of humor like the rest of us." Except, I didn't think he was joking. He looked like he was ready to pick up a knife and start slicing her into the perfect cuts.
"I might as well. I'm sitting in an apartment with three people dead and one with acid dripping on his legs." Jules gaze drifted towards Solomon, without a hint of remorse. "This should feel completely fucked up, shouldn't it?"
"The first time it does, but after that you get used to it," I said. "If it wasn't him, it would have been us. People like him get off on torturing people like us. I bet he enjoyed watching Boner and Archer sitting there, defenseless."
"Not defenseless," Archer said flatly. "I had a knife. Used it when he wasn't looking. Then I waited."
He didn't look smug. Wasn't bragging. He was stating facts, nothing more. Possibly while wondering at the statistics regarding people who got bound with zip ties, but got themselves free.
Honestly, I suspected that was something no one had researched before. Or made a meme about. Maybe I should.
'My boyfriends were ambushed, but one had a plan…'
