Page 30 of Dark Side of the Cloth

“Fuck you! You said two, and I’ve answered both.”

“That’s fine. I don’t need to know how many women you’ve raped or abused. I’m sure there have been many.”

Dean laid the crowbar down at the man’s feet, who noticeably slumped in his bindings.

The calm before the storm.

Dean walked back the way he’d arrived and pulled the tall canister on wheels over, and went back for the rest of the welding equipment. Such a beautiful thing that this place welded conveyor belts. Dean’s initial thought had been to pull the man apart by attaching him to the conveyors, but this… this was going to be so much more fun.

“What the fuck are you doing?” the man asked. Dean ignored him.

He’d helped his buddies weld on many occasions while deployed and knew his way around a welder. He lit the end, the bright blue flame hissing to life.

“Fuck me!” The man jerked violently against the ties. “What the fuck, you crazy son of a bitch! I told you what you wanted to know!”

The screams came before the flame started to cut, the tone shifting from fear to terror and finally unspeakable pain, as his voice raised several octaves. The rancid stench of shit wafted through the air, and his jeans dripped with his piss. The scent brought Dean serenity. It was a physical reminder that he was completing his sworn duty.

The beauty about working for The Righteous was that they didn’t care how you killed your objective as long as it didn’t trace back to them. That was why only the best operatives from any agency were ever selected.

The bright blue flame danced in his eyes as he knelt, cutting through flesh, muscle, and bone. The man’s body whipped back and forth with obvious excruciating pain, his eyes bugging out as he watched his foot being cut off at the ankle. Dean looked up into his terrified eyes.

“Yes, this is really happening,” he said conversationally.

Once the foot was severed, he quickly cauterized the stump and then picked the severed offering up by the laces. He held it in front of the man’s face, it dangling back and forth.

“You see this? I’m going to cut off a body part to honor every single person you’ve hurt. I want you to remember their faces, remember their smell and how they felt as you brutalized them, and then remember that it all lead you to this moment.”

Dean wouldn’t settle for anything less than true suffering, and a quick death was too kind. He’d done this for more than one of his brothers. He’d gotten used to the stench, the screams, and the desperate pleading in their eyes. They were always torn between the choice of living or losing a limb. His brothers had always thanked him in the end for saving their life, but he doubted his man was going to thank him as he turned his attention to the second leg.

More screams, more begging, and more swearing echoed off the walls of the warehouse. What these walls must have seen over the years? Darkness was present in this place, the sensation of pain and death hovering around the space like a cloak and begging for more.

Only incoherent babble tumbled from the lips of the thing before him. Dean slowly stood and took in his captive. He stared at the top of his head and the balding spot that was oddly shiny before mentally checking if he held any guilt. Not finding any, he smiled. The sides of his lips pulled up, and he began to whistle his favorite tune as he continued his work.

The man was reduced to a blubbering mess as he lay on the floor, wailing incoherent nonsense. Dean appraised his work the missing feet and hands were lined up on display.

“I thought about killing you, and I’m sure you would’ve preferred that. The thing is, I’ve decided I’m going to leave you like this. Maybe one day you will walk again with the use of prosthetics, but you will never touch again, you will never be a danger again, and you will always remember what your sins have cost you.”

Dean knelt down, not really sure if the man understood, and was surprised that he hadn’t died of a heart attack, or at the very least, passed out.

“Most importantly, you will never see or hear again. You will forever be locked inside the horrors of your mind.”

“No, no, no, no…I’m sorry, please God, no.”

“God doesn’t judge you this night.” Dean placed a knee on the man’s chest, pinning him to the floor as he roughly squeezed his chin, pressing his cheeks hard until the man’s mouth looked like a stupid fish. Dean brought that deadly blue flame agonizingly slow toward the man’s eye, the flickering blue along with sheer terror reflected back at him.

“No, please,” the man blubbered.

Dean moved the flame a little closer, and the eyelashes began smoking, the scent of burnt hair curling in his nose. The skin around the eye pinked and would soon bubble. Tears filled and then rolled down the man’s cheeks. He clenched his eyes closed as if that might help.

“This is what it feels like to be the victim,” Dean whispered in the man’s ear.

The stubby arms comically beat at his bicep as the flame touched the delicate skin, melting it away and showing the bright blue for just a moment before it too started to melt. The strong stench of scorched flesh and hair hung in the air like a cloud. The man screamed higher than he had before, as the flame easily ate away one eye and then the other. Dean then did the same to his ears, standing to analyze his handy work once more.

“Emergency vehicles en route, T-minus fifteen minutes until arrival,” Sexy said in his ear.

Dean was tempted to take a couple of extra minutes to cut off the man’s dick, but he knew he didn’t have the time.

“You’re getting off easy, and the police are on their way.”