“You got some shit to say?”
“I want to peel his face off.”
He turned toward me and his eyebrows flew high as he dragged deep on his cigarette. The cherry burned red in the darkness. He popped the cig out of his mouth and blew a long stream of smoke toward the night sky. “Graphic. Poetic. Yeah, why not.” He shrugged and turned to keep walking, and I kept right on his heels. “I was planning to do.... Well, not that because I don’t know if I’ve ever actually taken a face off someone, but I was planning to dosomethingafter I fucked Dallas. Everyone’s always in a big goddamned rush with this shit. This is why I love Timmy. He knows how to take his time and do this type of thing right.”
I snorted. “Torture edging.”
He laughed and his smile slid toward something that reminded me uncomfortably of the expression on his face when Dallas had King’s cock down his throat. “Tim is good at dragging all sorts of things out.” He let out a hot little laugh that had me shuddering. Our King was braver than I ever hoped to be. It was a well-known secret among those of us who’d been in the Kings for a long time that Undertaker and the pres used to knockboots, but I could not fucking understand how anyone would go near that sick fuck. I wouldn’t touch him with a borrowed dick.
We arrived at the metal torture shack, and I followed King down the stairs while a different type of irritation took root in me and spread faster than poisonous weeds.
My head throbbed. “Undertaker told us, me and Will, that you were waiting till tomorrow.”
King spun on the stairs. I nearly knocked him down, and he steadied me with a sigh. His cigarette flared and his face glowed a hellish red, and then the ember dimmed. “Some days I feel too old for this shit. We all know Will isn’t in the right frame of mind for certain things.” The look he gave me was layered in shadow, but I knew what I’d find if the light were better—regret tinged with grief.
I could see the miasma in his expression. We were mourning a living man. I clamped a hand to his shoulder. “Undertaker was boxing us out? He didn’t want Will involved?”
“No.” He tossed his cigarette down the stairs and it landed at the bottom. “I didn’t want Will involved.” He stomped down and ground the cigarette under his heel. I braced my hands against the walls because I wanted to fly after him and punch him in the face.
“Why?”
“Fuck, PD. I love Will. He’s got brain damage.” King tapped his fucking head, and I went closer to the red. I wanted to destroy something. “Who’s to say what his mind’s really like? He might not be able to keep his mouth shut. It’s not like he’s been to fucking half the PT he’s supposed to go to.”
“Excuse me?”
He shrugged. “He comes here some days and sits at the bar instead of going.”
The bottom dropped out of my world and I was glad I was holding myself upright. “That motherfucker,” I snarled.
King laughed. “How do we know how he might act? How... certain things might hit him? We don’t. Last thing I want to do is bury a brother.”
“But you already did.” I stomped the rest of the way down the stairs. “I’ve been fucking doing it, too, and I hate it. His name is Rook. When’s the last time I fuckin’ called you Aaron?”
King’s lips curled on one side like he’d caught a whiff of something terrible. “Yeah, yeah. Fuck.”
“He’s never going to forgive us.”
King laid a hand on my shoulder. “I appreciate what you’re doing for him. He’s still our brother, but we’re protecting him.” His lips thinned into a firm line. “Sometimes you have to do that with your brothers.”
“And he’s still never going to fucking forgive us. He deserves to be in on this. Dallas shot Jamison. The least anyone could do is let Will have this. It’s the closest he’ll ever get to real revenge.”
A short, sharp scream startled me so bad that I almost tripped over my own feet, then caught myself. King cackled and pointed at me, and I shoved him before we went into the room together.
The scene that met us had me stumbling to a halt. Undertaker had pure ecstasy on his pointy face. He’d stripped his shirt and, for some reason, his boots. The shitkickers were settled near the doorway with his shirt folded very precisely and laid overtop them. He was left in a black leather kilt. The black lipstick he wore made him look like a deranged devil as he grinned. He glanced over his shoulder at us and blew King a kiss. Tonight his hair was dark, no extra color in it, so he’d probably come here from work at the funeral home. When he didn’t have to look professional, he used that spray shit in his hair for extra glam.
But it wasn’t what helookedlike that fucked with me, it was what he was doing. He had his ass sat on the abdomen of a verynaked man staked out to the floor. Literally—there were metal stakes driven through each of his feet and hands. Undertaker’s bare feet peeked out from underneath him and seemed oddly vulnerable. He stretched his arms over his head and grinned.
I scanned the room for Undertaker’s shadow, but Lee was nowhere to be found. There was a small bathroom down here, but I doubted the man would fit inside it.
“Where’s your boy?” I asked and made my way a little closer.
“Sent him home. He’s sweeter than a choir of cherubs, and I simply cannot be around him when I want to rip out hearts. I know how good his would taste.” He shot me a toothy smile. “Now.” He grabbed something from his far side and held it up. I stalked closer so I could see what the fuck sort of nightmare he was creating. He shook a cylinder of salt at me. The girl on the front in her yellow raincoat holding an umbrella was smeared with blood.
The man under him sobbed. His brown eyes were too wide and his face was pale. He appeared to be beyond talking and tugged at his hands, as if he wanted to ward Undertaker off, and then let out a horrific scream as the pain hit from pulling on his raw wounds.
“Let’s whisper sweet nothings to each other.” Undertaker waggled his eyebrows at the man. “I need to hear all your secrets.”
Undertaker was in his element. It was disgusting. There was blood everywhere, running from the wounds of the man underneath him, but he was clearly enjoying himself.
