The guy’s eyes are doing that cartoon spinning thing. Urine starts pooling under him almost immediately.
“Told you,” Callum calls out to me, triumphant. “Pisser! Mower likes it when you sweet talk it before you yank the pull.”
“Like you then?” I stare at the mess. “You’re cleaning the plastic, asshole.”
“Worth it.” He zips the guy’s wrists, then his ankles, humming the Jeopardy theme the entire time. “You want me to break anything on the drive, or we doing the full customer-service experience when we get home?”
Beige Boy is thrashing now, muffled screaming into the tape, tears and snot bubbling at the edges.
I lean in, pat his cheek gently. “Relax, mate. We’re the good guys. Mostly. You’re gonna tell us every dirty little secret about Oksana and Dmitry, and if you’re very polite and cry only a little, we might let you keep all your original joints.”
Callum rips another strip of tape just for fun and sticks it over the guy’s eyes. “There we go. Sensory deprivation. Very trendy right now.”
He hops out, slams the trunk, and wipes his hands on his jeans like he just finished changing a tire.
Inside the car, the muffled sobbing sounds like a lullaby.
Callum slides into the passenger seat, buckles up, and pulls a fresh lollipop out of nowhere.
“Drive slow,” he says, grinning around the candy. “I wanna hit every pothole between here and the warehouse. Call it foreplay.”
I pull out of the lot, turn the radio up (something with a good bass line), and smile at the rhythmic thumping coming from the trunk.
The warehouse smells like rust, old blood, and broken dreams.
We’ve got Beige Boy zip-tied to a metal chair that’s bolted to the floor.
I assume because past guests got creative.
I don’t ask Callum.
Love the little fucker.
Don’t need to know why he has a torture warehouse when he lived in a fucking trailer before Juliet adopted him.
Callum circles him slow, lollipop back in his mouth like a cigar in a bad mafia movie.
“Evening, sunshine,” Callum says, popping the candy out with a wet smack. “You’ve got a face that screams ‘I peaked in high-school debate club.’ Be honest, did you at least win regionals?”
Beige Boy’s eyebrows are half gone from the impromptu tape waxing. He’s hyperventilating through his nose. Tape’s still on the mouth, so it sounds like a broken accordion.
I rip it off in one motion.
He screams like I just castrated him with a spoon.
“Jesus. Please. I have a family,” he begs.
“Wrong,” Callum interrupts cheerfully. “You have an ex-wife in Reno and a goldfish named Mr. Bubbles. We know who you are. Mr. Bubbles is very disappointed in you.”
The guy’s eyes bug out. Fresh tears. Fresh piss.
I crouch so we’re eye level. “Oksana. Dmitry. Who else is inside the circle?”
“I don’t know anyone,” he sobs. “Oksana is careful. She trusts no one!”
Callum whistles low. “That’s what they all say right before the fun starts.” He leans in, twirls the lollipop stick like a tiny baton of doom. “Define ‘no one.’ Because I’m getting mixed signals from your pants.”
“Only Dmitry!” Beige Boy shrieks. “I swear on my mother.”
