A scream fills the air, and words spill from his lips, cheap and thin, the kind of half-truths men hand over when they hope for mercy. I've never had the inclination to be merciful before, and I have no desire to start now. I remove the blade and slap my other palm down hard, on the bleeding wound in his leg, not to teach him how to scream or to stop him from bleeding out, but to make sure he remembers that I'm in control of whether he lives or dies now. An amused chuckle exits my lips and bounces off the dense walls, the sound unhinged even to my ears. It's a punctuation mark, filled with the weight of his sins. The shadows lean in, delighted, ready for more pain and misery.
River watches, leaning against a bunch of stacked crates, arms folded, and his jaw tight. He doesn’t like this, he never has. He thinks it's barbaric to torture our prisoners the way I enjoy. He sucks all the joy out of the experience with his sullen face. He shifts, discomfort unconcealed, flaring across his features, and I notice Julia appraising him from below her thick lashes. Does she think he's handsome, like every female we meet? A burst of jealousy rears its ugly head inside of me, and I slam my palm down once again against the mole's thigh.He's mine.Even if she's a pretty, evil queen, she doesn't get to have him.
“This one’s not worth the trouble, he's not going to tell us the truth,” River says quietly. “We gut him and toss him, his family too. Clean line, gone like he was never fucking here.” The syllables fall like the slam of a gavel. Nothing about his tone is theatrical; it’s simple, pragmatic disgust. He wants the simplest solution: remove the rot and walk away.
The mole’s eyes flick to River, like a child begging an older brother to intercede. He jerks his head toward the door as ifsomeone out there can save him. He’s wrong. It's too late for that now. River's look is empty. He’s done with the expensive kindness of men who talk morals when their hands are clean. His are just as filthy and corrupt as mine and Cross's, and if he's honest with himself, he prefers it that way.
“Talk,” I demand again, leaning across the table, my fingers tracing over his limp cock in a warning touch. I'm close enough that the mole can smell me, and the malice that lives within me. “Who did you tell? Names?” My tone is a cleaver cutting through the tension and heaviness filling the space. I squeeze his cock tightly between my fingers like deflated deli sausage. Only whimpers greet my ears, and tears slide down his battered face, as I add his balls to my vice-like grip, disgusted by the feel of his urine coating my digits. I slam the blade into his other thigh, careful not to hit an artery, and yank it back out before heading to his toes, and slicing his pinkie off. I grab the wet digit in my grasp and make my way back toward his face, shoving the offending lump of flesh up one of his bloodcaked nostrils. "I'll keep cutting pieces off of you and rearranging them. You'll become my personal'Mr. Potato Head',fucker."
Next, I slice one of his forefingers off, and use the bloody stump to trace the word'cunt'across his forehead. I lean in, close enough for the man to see the veins in my neck, and the deadness in my eyes. I let him smell me, the salt, sweat, and madness, mixed with the metallic tang of the room. He tries to gasp for air, when I use my palm to seal his mouth shut, and it's a ragged noise through only one nostril, as he forces his pinkie deeper into his nasal cavity with his actions. I bring the blade up and shove it slowly through the meat of his shoulder, digging my weight down as I stare into his eyes. "I'm going to cut off your tiny cock, and force you to swallow it, and shove each and every one of your fingers up your asshole. Don't worry, you'll enjoy it, promise."
I allow my fingers to trail down his blood-soaked chest, writing my name in his life essence, before making my way to his lower abdomen, and using the tip of my thumb to push into his hairy belly button. His body tries to bow off the table, but I use my forearm to force it back down. I have a reputation for not being gentle.What can I say? It's all part of the Morell family charm.
The voices chatter loudly in my ears,force their names from his lips, slice him open, eat his liver, rip his heart out.They tell me his betrayal is akin to that of an animal betraying its master, and biting the hand that feeds it, enjoying the taste of flesh, and that animals can't be restrained once they've done that. I obey, losing slight control and slicing over and over, until ribbons of flesh appear before me, bloody and ragged across his chest and stomach. I use the blade to cut a perfect circle around his belly button, until only fat, blood, and sinew tissue remain. It's beautiful, a masterpiece done in flesh, muscle, and bone. I bring my fingers to my lips and paint them with his blood, retracing the marks I had made with the unhinged princess's lipstick, and wishing it was her blood I was tasting.
"Jesus," River grunts, but doesn't turn away. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Julia take the necessary steps forward, her heels clicking off the floor with a staccato rhythm, before one of her blue-painted, long fingernails drags down the ruined flesh, forcing a desperate scream from the mole's lips.
She meets my gaze without flinching, the corner of her mouth quirking upwards. "I like your style, psycho." She winks.
"Julia!"The one word is like a bullet fired in the room, and it has her immediately retreating to her father's side. My glance catches her rubbing the mole's blood between her fingers, savouring it.
The mole crumbles, and starts desperately with excuses, his voice pain-filled and hysterical. It's the sound of a frightenedman trying to bargain his skin for a promise. His words are slippery, and noncommittal, like a man trying to keep both sides safe from harm, but he's a traitor. His safety ended the minute he pried his lips open and betrayed us. He's giving me nothing, so I press harder, burying the blade deep into his other shoulder. I’m not interested in his survival. I’m interested in the ledger of our lives. I want to know how many of us are marked, and whether anyone we love is walking into a courtroom with handcuffs because of this liar. "You have a daughter, if I remember correctly.” I lean forward and lick his cheek, tasting his fear. “I'll be paying her a visit after this. I have a nice cage she'll spend eternity in, on all fours, with my collar around her neck. Don’t worry, she’ll be used to satisfy the dark hunger in our ranks as a cumdumpster."
"PLEASE! PLEASE, NO!" The mole screams, his body spasming over and over, as real fear and nightmares fill his mind. He knows I'm not just saying the words. I kept a man in a cage for months while he starved nearly to death, for merely pissing me off. His breathing is laboured now, and it won't be long before he takes his last breath, so I know I have to speed this up if we’re going to get anything out of him.
"Tell me what we want to hear, and I'll ensure she dies quickly and painlessly." I won't bother to make promises that she'll be safe and untouched. It's not in my nature to lie. He knows his whole family will be branded traitors, and must be disposed of. It's the only way to ensure some son or daughter doesn't come back later to bite us in the ass.
"Eastern shipments, all of them! I... gave them... dates and carriers. They... wanted a way... to trap your... father."My father?This fucker was selling out my miserable cunt of a dad. Well, fuck, I should reward him for that. I’d love to see my father sitting behind the bars of a cell for all eternity, or better yet, at the bottom of some godforsaken sea, rotting and feeding sharks.
"Who else?" Cross questions, as he comes closer.
"Cabanos!I gave them their gun mules... the feds know... the location of the... safe house." Huge gasps fill the air in desperation, as he struggles to breathe.
"Motherfucker!" Diego yells and approaches the table. "I'll see you in hell, fucker, and don't bother to hide, I'm the fucking devil." He turns away and starts heading toward the door. "Julia,Vamos!"
Julia's glance meets Cross and River’s before meeting mine. She blows me a kiss. "Adios, guapo. I'll be seeing you again soon."
"The fuck you will,Cherub!I'll rip his fucking heart out. I'm going to find a fucking nunnery to lock you in, Julia!" Diego rages with exasperation as he waits for her.
"Papi, you know I'll just fuck and corrupt the nuns, that's not the threat you think it is," Julia replies, as she walks toward the entrance ahead of her father, and his accompanying men, and their voices trail off, before the warehouse door slams behind them.
"Good luck to whatever stupid fucker ends up with her, they ain't living very long. That's for fucking sure," Cross mumbles.
“He’s fucking done. Stop, Damon,” River’s voice cuts through the space, filled with ice and irritation, as he watches me poking my fingers along the cuts in the mole's flesh, widening and tearing them further, and causing more blood to cover the surfaces, and spray up onto me, until my chin is dripping with a crimson river.
He doesn’t bother to shout. He states his words as if he knows I will obey him, and that fucking irks me. He’s tired of the animalism in the room. He’s weary of how the edges of us fray into monsters whenever someone betrays Mayhem. His eyes flick to me, and then over to Cross, and in that glance, I see a man who still remembers rules and morality, for how longI can't say. Everything in our world is destruction, and meant to reshape us into unfeeling killers. I could continue to take the mole apart, and leave him in pieces, until his life force slides into the drain, or I could make it quick, cold, and righteous, but River wants the clean break.
I desire something else; my cravings remain unsatisfied. My interaction with theUnhinged Princessearlier has heightened all my emotions, and the need to spill blood without mercy is overwhelming me. The shadows inside my head swell at the idea of cruelty, and they want to hear more names sizzle on his tongue. I require all the lies to burn away, and the truth to sit like black coal between us, the same shade as my soul.
I disregard River's silent request and head toward the mole's cock, the blade dragging along the surface of his skin, and the edges of hunger roaring like waves of depravity inside of me. The mole utters fevered prayers in barely there whispers, but no benevolent god is listening, and his soul won't be saved. I cut open his nut sack, the contents sliding out like meaty, bloody prunes onto the surface of the table, and marinating in his urine.
Cross roars like a beast when the man mentions more routes, the truths he spilled about our organization to our enemies. I grasp onto his measly cock and saw through the tissue, my fingers becoming slippery with his blood, and when it finally tears loose, I hold it tightly and squeeze, enjoying the feel of it in my clenched palm. The man on the table trembles viciously, as if he can already feel the night closing in. He begs with pitiful, ragged, silent screams, and invents loyalty he never had, for clemency. His breath is jagged, and his voice is but a whisper as he details a street, and then another name of someone else who may have betrayed us. The name is spoken small, and without courage or conviction, and suddenly everything in me grows large, heinous, and filled with fury.
There are others, fuck.Maggots that have betrayed their masters. I can feel the net of it tightening around us, the places we thought safe now dotted like open wounds, festering and spilling their contents. The writhing voices of the shadows go mad with triumph, their whispers like small knives, demanding death to all those who are false. Anyone who has betrayed their oath to Mayhem is taking their last breaths, they screech.
Cross and I exchange looks, each of us calculating the cost this Judas has exacted from us. I slam the meaty tissue of the mole's cock between his lips, using my fingers to push it further down into his throat, until choking noises fill my ears. "That's it, swallow for me, fucker." I place my hand over his lips, to prevent him from being able to push it back out. The man can barely breathe, his body seizing on the table with all the pain, wounds, and blood loss. It's such a stunning sight to watch, someone in their last throes of living, knowing that they're about to die, and that only darkness will meet them wherever they’re heading. His eyes roll, and eyelids flicker rapidly, as the sounds begin to fade behind my palm.Almost done now.
River shakes his head, filled with disdain. “Enough, Damon,” he says, the two words like a sentence, as if they will hinder my own needs to please him. His mouth is a machine of judgment. It doesn’t matter that I want the voices quieted in the way only suffering will do. It doesn’t matter that Cross’s hands twitch raw and eager, with his own restrained bloodlust and fury. River’s pragmatism slices through me like a cold blade, the shadows pipe down, and I hear a quieter voice, the one that says survival is a ledger, and a ledger must be balanced.
