But it still wasn’t surprising.
Their job was to be outlaws, and torture was just another day at the office.
Both men waited patiently for the screaming to stop.
“Now we’ve gotten the formalities out of the way, why don’t we cut the shit and you start talking before I keep chopping off digits,” Swiss said. “Because if you talk now, you might still be able to jerk off with one hand.” He held the man’s thumb on the opposite hand. “If you don’t, you’ll be paying whores to do it for the rest of your life, and that shit will add up.”
The man glared at him through a haze of pain. “Fuck you,” he hissed. “You’re gonna kill me anyway.”
Swiss nodded. “True. No way I’m letting someone who works for the man responsible for the death of twelve of my brothers just walk outta here. But I might give you a kinder death than you deserve if you decide to start talking.” He paused for less than a second, then he cut off the thumb.
More screaming.
More blood.
“If not,” Swiss continued, discarding the thumb. “I’ll keep going. And I’m sure you know, there are things you can do to people to make them wish for death.”
Swiss glanced at me, I wasn’t sure if it was a threat or just curiosity to see if I had fainted or thrown up.
I hadn’t done either. My hands were steady.
They shook uncontrolled handling a feather a week ago, but in the face of this…nothing. I didn’t know whether it said more about what I was able to handle in the present, or what I was too afraid to revisit in the past.
“What do you think this man knows?” I asked, voice steady, the cold and calm tone I employed while interviewing. It was somewhat of a trademark, along with my red lipstick, that my voice never changed when I was interviewing victims or villains. All villains started as victims, after all.
Claw answered for him. “We don’t think he knows shit. We know he knows enough to help us.”
“Help you do what?” I asked.
His eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth, but the bleeding and thumbless man spoke for him.
“I’ll never help you. You have my word on that. Do what you wish to me.”
Claw grinned, moving his attention away from me. “Oh, I thought you’d never ask.”
Then there was more screaming.
A lot more blood.
And as promised, the man didn’t talk.
I had become strangely removed from the violence both men were taking turns unleashing on their hostage. Because it wasn’t merely violence for the sake of it. There was a purpose to it. It was a means to an end.
I wondered how much more this man would endure. There was always a limit to how much pain a human being could withstand. Most men in this world might be able to tolerate unimaginable limits of physical pain. But that wasn’t the only instrument of torture. Sleep deprivation, starvation, waterboarding, all effective.
Finding a weakness that didn’t exist on the body, but inside the mind was the most certain way to break a person. Whether it be a fear or a psychological trauma. Men usually went straight to rape with women. Because they knew it was almost the surest way to unravel the sense of control, of the sacredness of a woman’s body. To tear away the agency she has over her own body.
A lot of men did it because they were evil.
Most of them did it because they were weak themselves.
But in situations like this, with such toxic masculinity cloaking the air, I doubted the ruthless men in front of me would do something like violate another man for information. I hoped they wouldn’t do that to a woman. I had heard they had strong opinions on sexual assault. But I wondered how strong those opinions would be when all of their conventional methods of torture failed them with a woman. Would their conviction be strong enough to withstand their thirst for vengeance?
I didn’t get to think about it for long—thankfully—because the door smashed open from above us and boots pounded down the stairs.
Liam’s eyes found me first.
Then the dead body in front of me.
Then the two men torturing their prisoner to my right.
The energy in the room shifted immediately. I had thought it was violent, deadly before, what with all the violence and death in front of me. But that was nothing, nothing compared to what Liam punctured the air with.
“You’re fucking kidding me,” he hissed at Claw and Swiss.
Claw was smiling.
He had blood on his cheek and forehead, so, along with his grip on a bloodstained knife, it served to make him look maniacal and unhinged.
Then again, from what I’d just witnessed, he was maniacal and unhinged.
“What, brother? We’re just helping her out with her reporting,” Swiss said, voice teasing, taunting.