I knew it was an accident, that it wasn’t Kali’s fault, but at the time, the need to make someone pay had clouded my judgment. I didn’t care what their sins were. Anything would have done it for me.
So later that cursed day, I’d roamed the streets, one after another. The chatter of passersby had rebounded off my ear drums, my mind set one thing: to find the two idiots who had sowed disarray in our compound by stating we were weak and wouldn’t go to war and they had to branch out, leave our compound.
The morons had no clue what had been holding Gedeon back, what had befallen us twelve years ago.
Stumbling upon the fools in a dark and secluded alley had been a coincidence, but a lucky one. Precisely what I’d needed to rid the world of them.
Because, if not for them, our argument in the clearing could’ve been shorter and Gedeon would have been walking right now.
Yet the life essence flowing in the two brothers’ blood vessels and painting my hands hadn’t brought the satisfaction I sought that day.
So I’d returned to the streets, focused on my next targets—the seven new residents in my underground, a squadronleader and his boys. The soldiers we’d captured after Ilasall had attacked us.
Unfortunately, I’d had to enlist Ava’s and Amari’s help in extracting information from the commander. I’d hungered to rain damage, but my promise to Gedeon had included a condition—intelligence above all else.
So I’d sulked in the corner, waiting for the members of my catch-and-play team to gather the necessary information.
But hearing that Ilasall’s main source of information was the mole living among us… It’d snapped my patience.
My favorite knife had sunk into his right eye. The blade had vanished all the way up to the hilt, but barely any blood had pooled around the black rubber handle.
It had been a swift death.
Merciful.
Too soft to quench my thirst.
Now slicing the first soldier open had satisfied a fraction of it. If you were careful in your cuts, mindful of where the arteries and veins lay underneath the epidermis, had intimate knowledge of how to wield a blade, you could make your plaything quiver for hours on end.
And he’d had.
The second soldier wouldn’t stop begging. So his tongue had gone first. Such a fleshy tissue, thick and muscular. And useful. Could serve as a weapon. That was how the third soldier perished—choking on his comrade’s tongue I’d stuffed down his throat and his own vomit.
However, the voiceless Ilasall’s citizen had refused to cease thrashing in his restraints, so I’d scooped out his eyes. Figured he’d calm down. Unfortunately, I’d been proven wrong. The moment he’d awakened, he’d attempted to crawl away.
Obviously, his feet had gone next. They also had given me the idea to pick him apart, dismembering him slowly. I’d taken my time sawing through his joints.
Because torture had a flavor: sweet, bitter, or sour. It all depended on the person chained up.
And that one had been a mixture of all three.
But then I’d switched my tactics. Had peeled the fourth soldier's muscles off his thighs at such a leisurely pace, his body had refused to shut down until I’d accidentally severed a major blood vessel.
Pity.
But a lesson learned as well.
One I’d listened to as I’d flayed the fifth soldier from his toes to his eyelids. Little did he know that his screams had zapped down my spine, coiling in my lower back and making my core spasm.
After his brain had turned off, offering him the salvation of unconsciousness, I’d gotten bored and pulled his intestines out, checking if they would stretch all the way to my last plaything chained to a damp wall.
Much to my irritation, the experiment had caused the sixth soldier to faint. Taking it as a sign to sit back and relax, I’d admired his slumped form while licking the scarlet off the knife, savoring the flavor of iron, hoping the taste of his comrades’ deaths would spark my creativity.
It’d more than fulfilled my wish.
With my knife cast aside, I’d smashed his head into the cement floor until his skull fractured and his jaw disconnected. Half his teeth had scattered around him in the process. A sort of halo for him to take into the afterlife.
A beautiful finish line for my work.
