Page 115 of Serpent & Saviors

“You hurt her for years,” I seethed, my voice cold and controlled. “Now it’s time for you to pay.” I notched my head to the chair. “Dancer.”

Once more the kid moved with steady, deliberate force. With a calculated grin, he dunked Cameron once more and held him under. “For good measure, I was really having fun. Maybe I should explore some water bondage next?”

Laughter filled the room. Water pooled around Pasha’s boots. After a few more seconds, he hauled him out and then dragged him over to the chair. As he repositioned him, the bastard coughed, his body convulsing with effort.

“With your hands you inflicted countless bruises. You marred her delicate body. I can tell you by the end you’ll wish you never lifted a hand to her.”

Cameron groaned, and his head fell forward. Pasha was methodically efficient. He gripped his arms and secured them with the bindings Nik gave him against the back. He pressed down on his shoulder, then tilted his head.

I picked up the pliers Kinsley had used on his tongue and stepped closer. “It’s difficult, taking years of torture and abuse and paying all that horror back in a single night. But it won’t stop me from trying. I only wish I could prolong it over the course of days.”

Cameron’s gaze was sluggish, unfocused. That wouldn’t do.

“You’re going to want to sit up for this next part,” Pasha murmured, his voice almost conversational. He patted Cameron’s cheeks twice. Damn, the kid was fully embracing this shit. He’d stepped into the role so beautifully. Our eyes met. I read the message behind them.

No turning back. I’m all in.

Cameron shook pathetically as I waved the pliers in front of him. He was becoming more alert now that his near-drowning experience was over.

“Hold his hand out,” I instructed.

Pasha moved once more, and Cameron realized what was next. In an effort to avoid it, he clenched his hands into tight fists, his thumbs wrapped over his curled fingers. I grabbed him by the wrist. Clamping the nose of the pliers onto his thumbnail, I grinned. Like ripping a piece of paper from a journal, I yanked the nail out of its bed. Cameron’s shout echoed through the basement.

“One,” I said emotionlessly, setting it on the ground at our feet.

Cameron whined and squirmed, rocking back and forth in the chair. I wrapped him lightly on the head with the pliers.

“Stop. Focus and count with me. Every number you miss, I’ll make the next one worse. Tori had to play by your rules. Now you’ll play by mine.”

His answer was a swollen moan. I pried open his fingers, ignoring the tears streaming down his face as I took the second. “Two,” I said, as the nail snapped free from his nail bed, clean as could be.

Cameron yelled again, but failed to count. I snapped his index finger like a twig. The crack was audible, and Cameron’s scream rose in pitch. The chair rocked, the man threatening to tilt himself over in his attempt to fight the ropes. Pasha was quicker, though, steadying him in the seat.

“Feeling helpless, yet? Are you feeling the way you made her feel? I’m pretty sure I told you to count,” I seethed.

“You give him too much credit,” Sebastian remarked. “Dumbass probably doesn’t know how.”

“Well, he better learn quick,” Pasha sneered in the asshole’s face.

Cameron’s hand trembled as I attached the pliers onto his middle finger. His eyes shut, face screwed up in anticipation. This one gave me some resistance. I pulled as he screamed, and with a final twist of the pliers, it came away. Three down, seven to go.

He kicked and thrashed at first, then shouted a strained, tongue-tied, “Three! Three!”

There was shouting and clapping from the guys as Cameron played along with his own torture. I moved on to the next nail, and the one after, and the one after. All ten.

Sometimes, he was in too much pain to count, and the crack of another finger bone snapping would fill the basement. Finally, I had ten bloody fingernails set out on the floor. Only six of his fingers remained unbroken. His hands were an ugly, mangled display.

“Looks like you can’t make a fist anymore,” I observed, playing with one of the broken fingers as he groaned. I pinched the bloody, fleshy mess left at the tip of the flimsy digit. “That’ll make the next part easier.”

Without hesitation, I broke the rest of his fingers, ignoring his wailing screams. “Did you really think I’d spare you any pain if you played along? When you never spared her. Idiot.”

It was pointless to talk to him. He couldn’t hear me over the sound of his screams. When I was done, his hands were deformed, the fingers twisted and bones pointing every-which-way. I took each wrist and held the ugly sight of his own broken hands up to his face.

“Look,” I ordered. “This is what I’ve done to the parts of you that you used to hurt her. Now, let’s think…what other parts did you use? Because I won’t stop until I’ve taken every last one—”

“Pace yourself, Counselor,” Alek cut in. “I don’t want him completely broken before I get my turn.”

I nodded. “Untie him.” I directed my instructions to Pasha.