Nameless Kill (27 page)

Mrs. Delforth rubbed her palms together. “Now go upstairs and fetch me some more cloth so we can shut Mr. McDone up. No offence, Officer. Just we’d rather no unnecessary noises during our enlightenings.”

But Luke didn’t budge. He kept the hot rod right in front of Brian’s chest, his hand still, his gaze even more still.

“Luke,” Mrs. Delforth said, taking a few slow steps towards him. Brian hoped to God she didn’t touch Luke on the arm, not with the fucking twitchiness he’d displayed in her presence in the past. “Go upstairs and‌—‌”

“Get it yourself, Mum. I’m watching this one.”

Mrs. Delforth looked from Luke to Brian and then back at her son again, eyes narrowed. “And can I trust you to behave?” she asked.

Luke nodded. Kept the rod in place.

Brian bit his lip and tried to think of something other than the burning that was spreading across his slow-cooking skin.

“And no playing with him. Not like the last old folk who tried to shove his nose where it wasn’t wanted.” Mrs. Delforth looked down at Brian’s exposed cock. Her nostrils twitched, and she turned away and walked over the candlelit floor towards the concrete steps.

Brian listened to every one of her footsteps echo up the concrete steps. He listened, the heat on his chest getting to a point where he was going to have to scream if he wasn’t careful.

Then, the door at the top of the cellar stairs creaked open. As it did, Luke slowly lowered the hot rod.

Luke had a different look in his eyes. There was a sadness about them. He looked twitchily over at the girl, who was still unconscious. The smell of charred, cooked flesh was still strong in the air. Then he looked over to the oven-like contraption that the hot rod had come from. Then, he looked back at Brian, all the while biting his lip as more and more black paint slipped off his face and revealed his white skin.

What was this? What was that look?

“Keep still,” Luke muttered, looking over his shoulder before reaching up towards Brian’s hand, the hot rod now on the floor.

Brian’s heart pounded. He couldn’t believe his luck. He didn’t care that his cock was touching Luke’s clammy chest, or that his wrist was stinging as Luke untied it. He just cared that Luke was setting him free. He’d seen sense. Fuck‌—‌he was saving him. Stupid bastard was actually saving him.

Brian’s left arm came free. For a moment, as it dangled there loosely, Brian thought about scratching at Luke’s face. But where would that get him? Luke would change his mind. No. He needed two hands. Two hands, two feet, and an immediate trip to the police station.

As soon as he was dressed.

“I can’t…‌Luke, I can’t thank you more for this,” Brian whispered, wincing as Luke tugged the barbed wire away from his ankles. “I‌—‌I…‌I promise you‌—‌this will work in your favour. I promise you‌—‌”

When his right ankle became free, Brian tumbled down towards the concrete floor below, tasting dust and blood in his mouth.

His head spun. He started to roll over onto his back, but the pain was bad. The pain of being tied to that contraption for so long. He wasn’t sure how far he was going to make it, not in this state.

When he’d finished rolling onto his back and lifted himself up, he saw something in front of him.

Luke.

Only he wasn’t lifting Brian to his feet, telling him to hurry.

No, he was holding the iron rod. Holding it right in front of Brian’s face.

Luke smiled. “You’re gonna wanna be quiet so Mum doesn’t hear,” he said. “I’m dealing with you myself.”

Before Brian could strike out, attempt to run away, or anything like that, Luke’s sweaty, paint-tasting hand was pressed up against his mouth.

And before he could think to do anything else, the boiling hot spade-like end of the iron rod prodded firmly against his left biceps.

Chapter Forty Six

The pain of the red-hot metal iron rod on Brian’s left biceps was more intense than anything he’d felt in his entire life.

And that was coming from a man who’d felt his fair share of pain.

He tried to scream as loud as he could as the searing hot pain intensified on his arm, but he couldn’t because Luke Delforth’s hand was covering his mouth. Brian knew Luke was in front of him, holding the end of that rod against his arm, holding his sweaty, paint-tasting hand to Brian’s mouth, but Brian could barely see him.

He was too focused on the sizzling noise, like bacon in a frying pan.

The sizzling noise that was coming from the top of his left biceps.

In that split second, sitting naked on his knees as the pain made him dizzier and got worse by the millisecond, Brian realised what was happening. Like a deep down realisation that went far beyond thought.

He was going to die. Right here, on the dirty, candlelit concrete floor, he was going to die.

The candles.

He could see their glow just ahead, flickering away.

If he could somehow get Luke over to them‌—‌

Fuck! The pain got worse. Luke’s pressing of the iron rod got harder. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could go on. He wasn’t sure how much he had left in him.

But no. He wasn’t going to just roll over and die. Even a few years back, when he’d tried to take his own life, he wasn’t doing it for anybody but himself. He wanted to die back then, but on his own terms.

Those terms weren’t changing. Not today.

With all his strength, fuelled by the searing, bubbling pain on his arm, Brian did all he could to bite Luke’s sweaty palm, his ground down teeth slipping away on first attempt.

And then he felt the pain again. The pain getting stronger. The sizzling on his arm getting more and more noisier. He could smell himself cooking.

So he tried again. He pushed his mouth as far forward as possible, instead of struggling to lose Luke’s grip.

Come on, Brian. Come the fuck on‌—‌ARGH!

He brought his teeth down on a section of skin on the middle of Luke’s palm, and he bit down.

Hard.

He felt the pressure on his left biceps recede but the pain was still there. He kept hold of Luke’s palm with his teeth, digging further and further until he broke through the flesh, until he felt warm fluid trickling into his mouth and down his chin. He bit harder and harder, Luke shuffling to free himself, Brian’s teeth sinking further and further into his hand.

And then Brian felt the hand pull itself away, and watched as Luke tumbled to the floor, red-hot rod falling out of his hand.

Luke curled over on the floor. He was holding his left hand. The black paint on that hand had almost been covered completely with dark red blood. Luke stared at it with wide, fearful eyes, making little whimpering sounds, lying there just inches away from the candles.

This was it. Brian had to take his chance. He had to do something.

With all his strength, despite the agony in his left arm and the dizziness in his mind, Brian forced himself to his feet. His legs were unstable, but he had to think. He couldn’t just walk away up the stairs. Luke wouldn’t let him. And the girl‌—‌the poor, tortured girl who was still quiet after passing out with pain. Brian couldn’t just leave her here with these monsters.

He couldn’t let the Delforths slip away.

With Luke still on the floor in front of him cradling his bleeding hand, Brian rushed‌—‌or at least, attempted to rush‌—‌towards the red hot iron rod just inches away from Luke. If he got that, he’d have a weapon. He’d have something to hit or burn Luke with. Something to make him stay put.

He was just a few steps away. He was closer to the rod than Luke was. He could do this.

He lowered himself. Reached for the cool end of the iron rod.

And then he felt something grip hold of his left ankle.

Before he had a chance to do anything about it, Brian was lying face down on the dirty concrete floor, his chin stinging having smacked against it.

He looked to his left. Looked to his right, the taste of blood strong in his mouth. He could still get the red hot rod. He could still‌—‌

He felt his body being turned over onto his back and then he was looking above himself, above towards the dark, mural-painted ceiling.

Luke was standing above him.

And he had the hot iron rod in hand.

“Keep still,” Luke said, moving the rod slowly towards Brian’s feet. “Because I’m going to start with the less painful parts. The tops of your feet.” He moved the hot end of the rod over one of his feet, and Brian could feel the heat coming off it. Fuck. Fuck.

“Then, I’m going to move on to other places.” He brought the rod up the side of Brian’s leg. “The inner thighs. The groin…‌and then we’ll see how far this thing likes to travel
inside
you. But only when I’ve charred the rest of you.”

Brian wanted to move. He wanted to scream out. Fuck‌—‌he figured whatever Mrs. Delforth had planned for him initially couldn’t be worse than this, could it?

But he couldn’t do a thing. He was completely frozen.

Frozen, as Luke Delforth brought the hot end of the rod closer to the top of his right foot.

Frozen, as he tensed his fist and dug his fingernails into the solid, debris-laden floor beneath him.

Chapter Forty Seven

Brian dug his bitten-down fingernails into the dirty floor of the Delforth’s cellar as Luke’s hot iron rod closed in on his right foot. He squeezed his eyes shut, tried his best to tense himself and prepare for the pain. His left biceps still sizzled, the smell of cooked‌—‌no,
burned
meat‌—‌strong in his nostrils.

And only about to get stronger.

He dug further into the ground with his fingers as Luke’s iron rod got nearer, the heat of it starting to tingle the top of his right foot.

He shifted his hand around the floor. Tensed tightly. Thought of Davey. Thought of Davey, Hannah, and all the good people in his life. He’d never meant to let them down. And fuck‌—‌the police. His own department. He should’ve called them. He should never have even come down into this cellar in the first place.

And that’s when he felt something smooth and sharp underneath his right hand.

For a moment, he thought he was imagining it. He thought it was just an indentation in the floor, or just a figment of his imagination. A pre-trauma mirage, or something like that.

But then he remembered. His phone. The cracked glass screen of his phone.

He didn’t think any further. He wrapped his fingers around the large, sharp piece of cracked glass screen, the edges nicking into his palm, and he looked Luke square in his bloodshot, manic eyes.

And then, he brought the sharp glass flying right into the middle of Luke’s right pupil, and he pushed and twisted.

Hard. Very hard.

The sharp edge of Brian’s broken phone screen burst through Luke’s solid eye like it was nothing more than a kitchen fork through a boiled egg. Luke dropped the hot rod onto the floor beside him. He tried to pull back, shouting, squealing, but Brian kept the pressure moving into his eye, thick juice running out of it, down Brian’s arm, onto his face, all over him.

But Luke was falling back. He was moving backwards, trying to pull himself away from the sharp glass.

Brian almost had the upper ground. He could do this.

Brian battled through the sharp pain in his shins, the burning across his left biceps, and he continued to rise to his feet as a screaming, struggling Luke pulled away.

And with a few more pushes, Brian was on his feet, and Luke was the one falling back to the floor.

He kept tight hold of the glass and once again, he rammed it further into Luke’s eye socket, scraping against something hard.

The strength slipped out of Luke’s body, and he fell back towards the floor, Brian still above him.

Brian went with Luke as he tumbled back to the floor. He kept the glass in place. He had to be sure. He had to be certain.

When Luke’s skinhead skull cracked against the hard concrete of the floor, the sharp glass rammed further past the hard bit and sent a warm shower of blood spraying over Brian’s hand, covering his wrist.

Brian held the glass there as Luke’s right arm, flailing like a fish on land, flapped from side to side.

He held the glass as Luke’s arm got weaker, as the tension in his body disintegrated.

He held it there as Luke let out a final, croaky gasp, and his entire body went completely still.

Chapter Forty Eight

Brian stayed elevated over Luke Delforth’s rigid body for some time. The sharp piece of glass from his broken phone screen was still wedged in Luke’s eye, and it was also glued to Brian’s hand. He didn’t want to let go. He didn’t ever want to let go.

He felt himself starting to shake, tension and panic building in his chest. He’d killed a man. And no, not like with the past case where he’d allowed rubble to tumble over the perpetrator‌—‌he’d actually pressed glass inside a man’s eyeball and pushed it through his head until he’d gone still and died.

He was a murderer.

A killer.

He was everything he tried to put a stop to in the world.

He heard a shuffling just above him. A slight whimper, muffled and distant. He looked up. Looked up at the wooden “x” where the blonde girl was propped up, and he saw that she was awake.

She shuffled herself from side to side, her movements slow and weary. Her naked body was covered in goose-pimples, but it was so warm and muggy down here now that Brian wasn’t sure how. Her eyes met Brian’s. And then they looked at the burned skin and muscle on his left shoulder, and her eyes widened.

It did sting, no doubt about it, but Brian was acting on other instincts right now. Urgent instincts.

The girl whimpered, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Ssh,” Brian said, finally lifting himself from Luke’s body but keeping the piece of sharp glass wedged in his eye. He stepped over to the propped-up girl, her wrists bloody and exposed as the barbed wire stuck into them.

“You just keep still for me,” Brian whispered, assessing the barbed wire for a way of letting the girl free. But the rusty, sharp metal was deep into some parts of her wrists, much deeper than it had been in Brian’s. He wasn’t sure what to pull. Moving some barbed wire might cause more pain than leaving it there.