Scorch (Virtues & Lies 2)

Pulling the gauze out, Casper squeezes the hollows of Jack’s cheeks so tight that the outline of his teeth is visible. “You have a name. My niece didn’t. My sister will never meet her daughter…so, you either start talking or I’ll rip your tongue out of your mouth and watch you drown in your own blood. You think you know what it’ll feel like to die…but you don’t.”

It’s not so much the words as the cold, promising look on his face that chills me. I’ve known him for as long as I can remember, and Casper isn’t a man of many words…but what he says, he means. He doesn’t do empty promises.

A high-pitched whimper leaves Jack’s mouth as Leo pulls the needle out and throws it onto the trolley.

Fuck, there has to be something that will make him talk.

Getting up from the bed, I take my phone out of my jeans pocket. Holding it up, I unlock the screen and come face to face with my beautiful daughter one more time.

I don’t know how it’s possible, but every time I look at her photo, I fall in love a little more.

How’s that even possible when I know she’s gone?

My eyes glaze over as I turn the phone over. The screen lights up his bloodied face, and I keep waiting for any kind of emotion to flit over his features.

It doesn’t. The fucking prick looks at me like it’s nothing. Like my daughter means nothing.

Well, he’s going to die like not

hing. He will disappear from this world like a nobody.

“Do you think she was in pain?” I hold my phone closer to his face.

Freddie shudders as he looks away, his eyes falling to the floor. Even the ruthless killer has a heart.

“Do you see what you did? You murdered my girl, so it’s only fair you go too.”

Slipping my phone back into my pocket, I round the bed to the trolley and search through the drawers for the biggest syringe they have. When I find what I’m looking for, I open it up and fill it with air.

Eyes wide, Jack opens his mouth, closing it again as I approach.

“You have one last chance.” Plugging the air-filled syringe to the IV port, I look down at him.

I’m not offering him his life. I’m offering penance.

“You don’t know who you’re messing with…” Jack stutters.

That’s where he’s wrong. It’s him who doesn’t know who he’s dealing with. He’s clueless to what I am willing to do to repay my daughter’s life.

Casper shoves the gauze back into his mouth, looking over at Leo with a nod.

I tried to show him some mercy, he chose not to take it. That’s on him.

“It’s a pity you’ve chosen this moment to be brave.” Leo pulls Jack’s hand down so that the cuff holds his forearm in place. When Jack doesn’t say anything else, he folds his wrist over on itself. The crunch and crush of bone is barely disguised by the muffled scream that fills the room.

Tears pour from his cold blue eyes, and every drop feels like an insult to my daughter. She didn’t have tears to cry. Or a voice to scream her pain.

Injecting the syringeful of air into the IV, it takes a while for anything to even happen; there’s just stagnant silence.

Freddie starts to discard of everything, and I begin to think that Jack might just be the luckiest son of a bitch, because he’s lying there with the same look of confusion that’s on my face.

But then his face drops, and he’s coughing and coughing as he tries to clutch at his chest desperately. His bruised face starts to purple, and his eyes bulge…

“We have to go.” Casper starts for the door with Freddie following.

I can’t move though. I can only watch as the air that’s meant to give you life robs him of his.

I watch him like I watched my daughter, and although there isn’t a single drop of consolation in it, I take a deep breath as he stills.