Torture (Siren Book 2) (10 page)

Of course I do. He fired the second shot.

The rotten apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I never managed to hunt that bastard down, and now his son is continuing his work.

He's too alert right now. I can't do it while he's expecting something.

“Think I saw him at the grocery store once.” I shrug it off, pretending to truly think nothing of it.

“Probably.” He accepts it gracefully. “So what about your family?”

I shrug. “They're all gone. Mom's not in the area anymore. We don't talk.”

“And your dad?”

I kick the antennae harder, and one of the bars falls off, one about as thick as my pointer finger. “Dead. He killed himself.”

“
Shit
, I'm sorry.”

“Eh, we all saw it coming.” There's so much more to it than that. So much more I can't say, yet.

“Can I—Can I ask why?”

I stand, pacing nervously. I don't like reliving the memories any more than I like talking about them. I bend forward to pick up the disconnected chunk of metal, testing it in my hands as though guilty about knocking it down. Still, he seems to largely brushed my restlessness off as unpleasant memories.

“It's a long story.”

“I'd still like to hear—”

Before he can react, I make my move, shoving the metal through his throat with a sickening crunch. My palms ache from impact. He falls backwards, tugging at the rod through him, but only loosing
more
blood.

Anger overtakes me, knowing he won't truly
understand
.

The knife in my pocket comes out, and his eyes widen, his gasps gurgling.

“He killed himself,” I say, turning the blade so it catches the light, “Because George Roane paid for the privilege of slitting his hometown's throat, and those of as many inhabitants as he
could
, and
hamstringing
the rest. And my dad couldn't keep silent.” I whip the blade across Evan's legs, drawing bright streaks of blood.

Tears fill Evan's eyes, but he's already going into shock. He can't get enough air in to yell. I only have a few minutes before he suffocates on blood and metal.

“And then
a man with a scar
—” I run the flat of the bloody blade down my own face, and he shakes his head, mutely. “—Shot his
four year old daughter
, in his
home
.”

I swing the blade down into his stomach, where the first bullet pierced Mara.  The reek of blood and intestines sting my noise, the smell so achingly familiar that for a moment, I'm seven again, and crying.

“You know? Wound like that, with proper medical care, she
might
have lived, with a
killer
dose of antibiotics. You know what killed her?”

He knows he's dying, or at least heavy into shock, his eyes wide and glassy.

“It was the
second
shot.”

I twist the metal in his throat, widening the wound. But from the twitches, he's nearly gone.

I plead with him for some understanding, for some some repentance. That kind of poison doesn't go away. It's why he was so averse to talk to me. And why he's so protective of Calder.

But the adrenaline is rapidly fading, and the smell makes me feel weak, dizzy, small again.

I've got to think of something to do with his body. I can't leave it up here. If I push it overboard, it
might
float somewhere; sometimes we find floaters in the pier. I want him in the ballast tank with the others, but there's two shorter decks and several flights of stairs in my way. There's no way in hell I can haul him that far, as drained as I am, and with as little time as I have. Especially now that I need to clean the blood off me. If I can just get him inside, I can cut him up, bring him down in chunks. That's reasonable. I can deal with it later.

Then, an idea strikes me. I can't take him the
whole
way, but the fourth floor entrance, near where Calder's pit was...

I kick his corpse over to the edge of the ladder stairway leading up to the roof, and then follow it down. I knock it off the roof, into the wrought iron stairwell. Then I follow it, and kick it a short distance more.

The rough treatment isn't doing his open wounds any favors; the gore is
horrendous,
and the hole in his stomach is only widening, bits of tissue and organ peeping out.

A few stairwells more, and I jimmy the mechanism open, and seize him under the armpits to haul him into the hall.

His body's no longer twitching. It's difficult not to contrast the vibrant man who wrapped his arms around me and took my side over his friend's with the puddle of carrion now in my arms.

I undo the latch on Calder's now-empty room, letting the light in the hall show me exactly where his pit is. I do a last minute search of Evan's body, rummaging in his pockets, yanking his phone out, and his own knife and gun. And with a little more maneuvering, I line Evan up, and send his mutilated body down.

I think it's time Calder and his buddy had a little reunion.

Hysterical laughs tear through my throat, and I pray Calder can't hear them. I
really
need to hurry, now. I
definitely
need a shower. Not just the kind I need to do with a damp rag before I even attempt to go home.

I walk out with a lilt in my step, and elation in my soul.

Later, I'll weep. I'll weep that monsters can disguise themselves so readily, and be so charming—
I actually
did
like him
. I'll weep that poisoned people can reproduce, toxic generation after toxic generation perpetuating the ills of the world.

I'll weep for myself, and for every bit of innocence his family's taken from me. For the first time, I truly feel like what I know I am, in my heart—a murderer.

But if I have to embrace the label to keep Winchester safe, I will. I'll kill every one of these pigfuckers with my bare hands before I let them hurt another one of us.

Chapter Fourteen

Calder

I wake up in darkness, but something's different. My flashlight is on, and pointed at a cooler. I'm vaguely relieved I woke up before it drained the battery. I shut it off, and find my way over in the blackness. I open it, and start guzzling water greedily, downing a whole bottle. There's gonna be food here, too.

My hand hits a sandwich bag, and squelches unpleasantly. What the hell is he serving me?

I turn on the light to see, and the bile rises in my throat, nearly costing me the dearly-needed water.

Milla's fragrance burns my nose as I stare at the sandwich. Egg salad. The kind I saved for her so she wouldn't have to smell smoky dead things. Only its crust is wet with blood.

Please, god, don't let it be hers
.

I don't want to touch it. There's nothing I can learn from it. I won't know whose blood it is, or if they have any diseases.

But I'm starving, and I don't know how much longer I'll be here. Bloodstained or no, I can almost taste the tangy eggs.

I slam my hand into the grating, and the harsh edges of the lattice cut into my hand. Not hard enough to draw blood, but hard enough to leave painful imprints in my skin.

Fuck, Milla's
gotta
be okay.
This is some cruel mind-game. Someone who
knows
that the meal would remind me of her, and wanted to make it cut that much deeper. It's pig's blood, or something.

Even through the bag, I can smell the food, the faint aroma intoxicating as a fine liquor.

I can't survive if I don't eat. It's tainted, but it's food. It's
awful
, but it's food.

I promise myself that if it
is
hers, Milla will forgive me. She'll understand that there was no disrespect meant.

I chew my own lip until the blood flows freely, and only
then
do I choke it down, bite by bite.

Even half of the second bottle of water can't chase away the aftertaste. Maybe it's the new scabbing in my mouth. Maybe trying to inoculate myself with my own blood wasn't the best idea.

As the metallic taste ferments in my mouth, and as I look at my surroundings once
again
, knowing he was here, the light rebounds off Denise's blood, pooling on the subfloor.

And just like that, my entire meal comes up.

*              *              *

After I’ve gotten control of my nausea, pragmatism takes over. I need to know what else has changed, whether I might have missed some path someone could use to get in and out. Since someone
clearly
was here.

The doors are still sealed. Nothing new, other than the cooler. I have nothing to do but pace, keeping company with Denise's corpse, and the sinister writing on the wall.

I squint into the holes in the ceiling again, gauging again whether there's
any
way I can make it up there. And in one, there's a prick of light.

I retreat, to look for
anything
I can use as a makeshift ladder. Any loose pipes, or grating. With my back to it, a catastrophic noise startles me. I turn around, as I recognize the unmistakable sound of someone coming down the way I did. I scramble back, and give the new body a wide berth after impact.
Please, don't let it be Milla. Please don't let it be Milla.

“Hello?”

No answer. I approach, and roll the person until he's facing to me. And then I'm retching again, as I recognize him.

God, Evan,
no
. No, no, no
.

The one person who I know wouldn't have given up looking for me, laying at my feet nearly in pieces, several stab wounds and awkwardly angled limbs a testament to his
own
painful end.

I drop to my knees, wrapping my arms around his bloodless corpse. It's still warm.

There's nothing left to throw up, and the aches from trying only remind me of Alex. And Allen.

None of us are getting out of here alive.

Fuck me
.

Still, I'm not going down without a fight. I steel myself to search Evan's body, but someone beat me to it. His wallet's there, but no phone. No sheathed knife, no gun. Just Evan, defenseless as me. Was he getting too close, or did my captor murder him as a taunt, a way of working the blade deeper into me?

God, Evan.

The
one
person I actually talked to about family shit. Who didn't give me crap for the emptiness after Mom died. Or who didn't tease me about my inability to keep a girlfriend. The one person in my life who treated me like a
person
. Not an investment. The one person I
trusted
.

I'm truly alone.

I shiver, chills overtaking me with a frightening force. I haven't felt warm in days. He won't mind if I borrow his jacket.

Or—

I look up to the hole in the ceiling, to an exposed beam with room around it. If I can make a rope, anchor it to
that
...

It's the only idea I have. I strip Evan naked, and grit my teeth to do the same to Denise, averting my eyes as best I can from her bare skin. All of the fabric's sturdy, high thread count. Difficult to tear, especially with my fingers already damaged and raw.

But I have to try.

Each thread cutting into the pads of my fingertips feels like it's gonna push through tendon to hit bone. But I'm fast becoming accustomed to pain. And the important thing is that it's progress.

Each bloody strip, each firm knot, it's another inch closer to freedom. Or at least closer to ending this, once and for all. My eyes linger on the exposed beam.

Where did that thought come from?

The indignation—I never considered myself the type to consider suicide—is chased away by realism.

Maybe it
would
be best to end it.

Unsure yet what I'm actually
doing
, I toss the rope up, and pull the other end down until they're even.

Makeshift rope in hand, I glare at my salvation, one way or another, anchored to the ceiling.

And then my gaze falls, to the cooler, where I have the flashlight shining through the half-full waterbottle to amplify its light. And to the sandwich baggie next to it, still stained red.

No. I have to believe Milla and Allen are alive. And so long as they are, I can't let them down, taking the easy way out.

I tie the other end of the rope to one of the pipes, and test its strength. If I can
just
get to the next floor, maybe I can—

I'll deal with that when I come to it. I brace myself for what I
know
will be a difficult climb, in my weakened state. One hand, then the other hand, looping the rope in my feet to try to take some of the pressure off. Halfway up, the edge of the particle-board floor almost in reach...

And a sudden shift makes me swear as the knot at the top comes undone. Before I can make a mad grab for freedom, there's air under me again, sickeningly cold.

And then I'm on my back, pain shearing through my ribs, reigniting the old pain to new levels.

“
Fuck
,” I yell, my vision already fading to black.

So close.