“You were stalking him all along.”
“Keeping an eye on what belongs to me,” he corrects. “I thought I’d almost kill him myself when I understood what this selfish fool was up to.”
“Don’t you fucking insult him, you bastard!” I yank on the restraints and wince from the ribs he struck earlier. “Where is he? Tell me where he is!”
“Impatience is a nasty character trait.” He gets to his feet and nonchalantly walks over to the wooden table at the back of the small room and grabs a toolbox.
One after the other, he pulls out a different tool. A hammer, a set of pliers, the crowbar he was holding a second ago and more. My stomach lurches at the realization that this man is a total psychopath, and I start pulling at the chains as dread washes over me.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“Now since we have a lot of time ahead,” he says softly as if he isn’t about to torture me. “How about I tell you a little story while I relieve my pent up frustration?”
My eyes widen as he grabs the crowbar, and he swings it at my side. I scream when he repeats the blow again and again and again. Targeting the same spot and tears spring to my eyes, metal colliding with my bones, tearing screams from my lungs.
“When I was sixteen, my brother and his wife had a child,” he starts, exchanging the crowbar for a flame gun and a rod. “That child was the most adorable and pearl-skinned baby I have ever seen. An angel from heaven, you could say.” He holds the flame under the rod and watches as it heats up. “He and I became inseparable. Only I could make him smile as brightly as the sun, so I took him under my wing and hid him from the world. My precious little angel.”
“What the fuck are you doing?” My voice comes out shaky as I scramble away from him but fail miserably. “Stop. No! Stop!”
He places the burning rod against the skin of my arm and grins as it melts into my flesh. The scent of my skin being reduced to meat on a barbecue grill brings out another fresh wave of screams and terror as the pain anchors itself in my bones.
“I made him mine when he turned sixteen. I spent so much time waiting for the right time. For him to show signs of infatuation and longing before I encaged him into my arms.” He scoffs dryly and flicks my carbonized skin before dropping the rod on the table and taking his precious time deciding which instrument he’ll use next. “He begged for my touch, yearned for my love and so I gave him everything.But then his mother found out.”
Sweat trickles down my brow. “You’re sick.”
He’s talking about Aoi. Fuck, he’s been tormenting him since he was a literal baby? No wonder he could never get rid of Jason even if he wanted to.
How do you want to get the poison out of your system when it tricks you into believing it’s medicine?
I let the tears spill down in waves. Rage, terror and pain echo in my heart and demand I fight back but how? I’m chained up against a wall with most definitely broken ribs and now melted flesh.
I have to get out and find Aoi but how? Fuck!
“That vicious cunt had to get involved.” Jason grabs a pair of pliers and smirks. I sense disgust and rage in his tone when he says, “She threatened to tell my brother and the cops if I didn’t erase myself from her son’s life entirely. I couldn’t do that of course. I worked so hard to mold him into my most precious possession and yet she wanted to get rid of me? Not a chance.”
“What did you do?” I ask, dread pulsing in my veins as he crouches down to my height. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you will die here.” He grabs my hand and immobilizes it against the wall.
I try to kick him off me, but that monster is double my size and holds me firmly against the brick wall. “Get off me, you sick bastard!”
“I had to get rid of her of course. So, I tampered with the brakes of her car, but when she went for a drive I didn’t know she wouldn’t be alone in the vehicle. My brother and niece were in it with her. Such a waste. Those two were never meant to be in the car, only Meredith.”
He killed Aoi’s family?
“My biggest regret is that I caused the demise of the man I cherished the most,” he says, almost sorrowfully. “He was my brother and my second half. Had he not chosen that bitch, he could have been mine, but no. He made his choice and suffered the consequences.”
A rustling near the door momentarily catches my attention until it is stolen back by the devil in front of me. Jason positions the nip of the plier under my fingernail and smirks cruelly down at me as fear pales my skin, and sweat drips down my back.
My instincts kick in, and I violently headbutt him. He stumbles back before he can rip my nail off.
A gun falls from his pocket, and he jumps to his feet, grabbing it and shoving it in the back of his pants. His head turns toward the door and the shadowy figure running away.
59
Aoi
It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.
