The man in the chair sagged with relief. He thought giving me what I wanted had bought him something.
He stared up at me, hopeful in the ugliest way. “Am I… am I okay now?” he asked.
I stared at him for a long moment, letting him feel the truth even if he didn’t understand it.
There were things you could come back from.
There were things you couldn’t.
“You did one useful thing,” I said.
His mouth trembled. “So, you’ll let me go?”
I moved to the table and picked up my phone, saw the message had been sent, and Caleb’s quick responsegot it. Then I set it to record again.
I didn’t face the reverend when I answered. “Not yet.”
He made a sound like an animal realizing the trap had closed. “Wait—please—I told you everything?—”
I turned back to him. The drain sat between us. The concrete held the cold. The bulb flickered once.
“You told me what you thought would save you,” I said. “That’s not the same thing as earning a way out. What else do you know?”
His chair rattled as he tried to stand, but the bolts held.
“I have a family,” he sobbed. “I have—I have three kids—don’t hurt them!”
“I don’t hurt kids.”
“Let me go! Please, I’ll give you anything you want?—”
I drove the knife into his chest and felt the resistance give. Not deep enough to end him. Just enough. His scream snapped into a strangled gasp. One side of his chest stuttered, breathcoming thin and uneven. Partial collapse, I noted. He wouldn’t last long like that. His breathing changed first. Fast. Then uneven. A faint hitch on the left side.
“I’m watching for cyanosis,” I recorded for Caleb to hear that I’d done my due diligence. “Lips paling. Pupils widening. It will be two minutes before panic sets in properly and five before the body starts to shut down.”
His scream fractured into something smaller, thinner. The rhythm of his breathing changed—ragged, uneven, panic chewing through whatever control he had left. I watched the rise and fall of his chest, measured it without emotion.
He wouldn’t last long if this continued.
“I have names.”
“Tell me.”
He gave me details he thought would win his freedom, then begged, and, too late, realized that some doors only opened one way.
“Please,” he wheezed. “Please.”
“Is that what the kids said when you hurt them?” I asked and lifted his cock again with my blade.
“I never… I didn’t…”
I finished it, slicing up and removing his cock and one of his balls.
His scream broke apart in a wet choke, then into nothing but air. The fight left him in stages—rage, panic, disbelief—until there was silence.
When he went still, I checked for a pulse out of habit, then released the restraints and let the body drop to the concrete. I wrapped him in plastic with the same care I’d used setting up the room.
Stage one done.
