By the time she’s exhausted herself, blood and gristle stick to her sweat-slicked skin. Her hair, which flowed freely before this, is stuck to her flesh, drenched in gore. I don’t even think she realizes when she bends down. “Tell. Her.”
Inhales whistling, Lakens fights to push himself off the floor, searching for his wife. When he finds her, tears are in both their eyes.
“I di-did it. I-I r-raped her. I raped her. We-we all raped her.”
There’s no more denial or argument. His wife doesn’t plead or refuse to accept it as true. She cries tears of truth and agony, finally unable to mask the devil she brought into her home. I want to feel bad for her, and a small fraction of me might, but the majority hides in the closet with that little girl.
There were two devils in this home.
“Now, get up,” she orders, nudging him in his side with her foot. “You’re going to help us find the others.”
Spitting at her, Lakens replies, “Fuck you, cunt. I’m not doingshitfor you.”
Folding, she taunts him by dragging the baton from his belly to his lips, ramming the blunt end past his remaining teeth. Lakens attempts to put up a struggle, jerking his head from side to side, but there’s no strength left in him, so there’s really nothing he can do when she jams it down his throat.
Bunny speaks to him softly, almost romantically. “You know, there’s not much I haven’t endured... not much that people haven’t shoved inside me. But you?” She stops, gently wiping away a fallen tear. “I bet you wouldn’t know what to do if I shoved this metal pole up your ass. I’m not scared to find out. Are you?” Even in his silence, we all know the answer.
He is fucking terrified.
Bunny basks in it, absorbing the flavor of his fear. She doesn’t want to waste a second, but his wife is completely passed out in my arms, immobile but not dead.
“Bun.” My voice brings her back, and her eyes go to the collapsed woman in my arms. “Toss me those.” I nudge my head toward the handcuffs I spotted on the bedside table. When they’re close, I gently lay the wife on the bed and shackle her wrist to the post, ensuring she’s tightly secured before yanking the pole from Lakens' throat myself, securing it in the waistband of my pants, where my blades usually lie.
My knife takes the baton's place, curiosity returning. “You’re going to fucking move and do what she says, because if you don’t, I’m going to fuck your throat with this blade, and then I’m going to saw off your dick and let her shove it up your hairy, untouched ass. You will cry,” I promise, digging my blade in. “You will bleed, and then you’ll fucking die. And in the end, I’ll still find a way to get her what she wants. So, what do you say?”I ask, running the tip along the soft inside of his broken mouth. “Are you going to make this easy? Or do you feel like playing?”
“Are you going to make this easy, boy?” Marone questions, wiping my blood from the whip in his hands. This is the third night in a row I’ve refused to fight for him, allowing death to be right upon me. He would have let that happen, had the crowd not loved me.
No. That wasn’t the word he used.
Desired.
Marone would have let me be slaughtered that first time, but the men watching—the men betting on me—desired me. Whether it was to be me or to be with me, he wasn’t clear. All I knew was that they wanted me, and because of that, I had to live. But I didn’t have to do so comfortably. Marone is making sure of that.
Lashing the cat-o'-nine-tails across my back for the ninth time, Marone asks me again. “Are you going to make this easy? Or do you feel like playing?”
His voice no longer just lives in my head. Marone infected my core, making mejust like him.
There are three devils in this house now.
Cade
“There’s nothing I can do to help you!” Lakens cries as I force him into the chair in front of the computer. “The list of men under Marone is miles long! There’s no way for you to identify them all!”
“I don’t need them all,” Bunny responds, leaning so her face is close to his. She lists a few, those whose names were easy to remember. With my knife pressed securely against his Adam's apple, he’s more than happy to provide us with the information we need. But there’s one more.
This one’s for me, too.
We describe him as best we can, mentioning every remembered detail until we’re all out. Bunny and I understand then that we don’t have much to offer, only fake names and vague descriptions. Worry begins to mar Bunny’s face, growing more intense as she paces a trail of fire in the dated carpet. Her stress only fuels my aggression, and there’s no one here to take it out on but him.
Creating little paper cuts on his throat, I hiss, “How’s that search going for you?”
“I don’t fucking know who to look for!” he snarls in a hushed response.
Yanking his head back with my fingers, scratching divots in his scalp, I bend, spitting in his face. “If you’re wasting our time hoping someone is going to save you, then you aresorelymistaken. I will gut you and hang you by your insides before anyone gets the chance. So,” I whisper, “you fucking give her who she wants, and then we’ll be out of your hair. Think you can do that?”
Bunny watches the exchange from the center of the room, eyes passing between us. The worry is still there, but her brow begins to soften. “Thank you,” she mouths, taking a deep inhale.
All I can do is smile in return, thinking,Anything for you.
