Now that Cal steps away, I can see the cauterized stump, steam still curling around it.
Cal turns to me in surprise, almost like he’s forgotten I’m here.
“I'm getting hungry.” I tell him by way of explanation.
It's fucked that I'm hungry after watching my husband sever organs and drop them on the ground like carrion. I'm not a cannibal, not the least bit enticed by the blood or gore, but it's been hours since we set this plan into motion. Hours that I've been here torturing them.
Who knew being psychotic worked up such an appetite?
The sky that I can see through the holes overhead is lightening. When I laid here waiting for him to return, it looked like little stars were punched in the fabric of the night. Now, it looks exactly like what it is.
Cal hefts a sigh, like he's been waiting for me to give him permission to end this for hours.
I did say I wanted him to suffer. He sure as hell has. Tears stream down his cheeks, the same way blood streams down Browen's. His empty eye sockets cry blood, and his chest rattles with a sob every few minutes. Bear's the one who's gotten off easiest. He told Cal he likes when girls scream, so we made him scream ‘like a girl’ when we shoved his friend's hairy nutsack in his mouth.
“Who do you want to go first?” He indicates each of the men with the knife we made excellent use of tonight.
“The bull.” I say coolly, watching the confusion dawn on his face as he looks where I indicate his father's old friend at my feet.
“Bull?”
“Mm.” I nod, swinging my feet. “Did you know that your dad's dear old friend was running a big-time human trafficking ring? Selling girls on the dark web?”
His brow wrinkles in confusion as he puts the pieces together.
He actually looks pretty fucking cute like that.
“Browen? He's where…”
“Where I came from?” I laugh. “Yep. You bought me from your daddy's friend. He didn't know when you offered to let him fuck me that he could have done it before, but he never visited because he only deals inwomen. Kids are just too much work, huh? Harder to break, isn't that right, Bull?”
At my feet, Browen whimpers just a little. “That and the fact you wouldn't be able to control yourself around them. That's why you never came to visit. Why you didn't care what happened there. The bull is just the figurehead. The Bear is the enforcer... although he turned out to be more bark than bite.” I laugh at the big man who turned out to be pathetic.
“And the badger over there…” I sneer. “He's a collector.”
I can see the wheels in his mind turning, the realization that all of these men have played a part in wronging me.
It was never just a stroke of luck.
I knew from the first time I laid eyes on Garrett that he was among my slavers.
Every man who lies dead or alive in this warehouse had some part to play in my misery, and they met over cards to discuss how things were going.
All their victims, they were just collateral damage... inconsequential.
It was all just a game to them.
But I took it personally.
I made my own game of manipulating my final captor, the man who kept me as his unwilling toy for months.
I played at his humanity, even when I wasn't sure it was there.
I manipulated him into playing my game. One with much higher stakes.
They played a gilded game, using their privilege and wealth to destroy, to take, and to serve their greed.
I played a carnal game, one of blood and flesh, skin and sin.
