That seemed to penetrate.
“Oh, relax,” I told him as he groaned with his eyes closed. “It’s barely more than a paper cut,” I added, watching as consciousness came to him again, as his eyes shot open, huge, bulging out, hazy for only a second as his system fought off the drugs. His instinct was to pull against the pain at his wrists, a fruitless, waste of energy move that made his whole body flop around like a fish on a dock, only managing to make the pain in his shoulders no doubt increase in intensity.
“Who the hell are you? What are you doing to me? Where are we?”
“That’s three questions. Unluckily for you, Vincent, I am only obliging enough to answer one. Choose wisely.”
I imagined it was the hollowness in my voice that had him going stiff, had his jaw tensing.
“Why are you doing this to me?”
“Meadow Holland,” I told him, moving up to his body, swiping his blood off my knife on the breast of his jacket before reaching to undo the button. “Does that name ring a bell?” I asked. “Here, let me refresh your memory. You did something like this to her,” I told him, pulling backward, cocking an arm, and swinging.
The angle wasn’t optimal. I couldn’t get full force.
But it was enough.
Even half force was enough to send his body spinning, make a string of curses erupt from his mouth.
“I don’t know what you heard, man, but I’ve never met some bitch named Meadow Holland. And I’ve never hit a woman.”
He was convincing as a whole.
Psychopaths usually were.
They wouldn’t get away with half as much as they did if they weren’t.
“Hm. Well, that’s a shame then. Because I have my heart set on this. So, I think we’re going to go through with it anyway,” I told him, reaching for the front of his dress shirt, dragging the sharp end of the blade upward, popping off the buttons, seeing the shirt fall open.
And there it was.
Sure, I’d never seen it in person.
But I saw a picture of it from a few decades ago.
And I had heard Meadow describe it in detail.
A plain silver wedding band, rubbed with age, blackened even in spots on a simple chain.
The mother fucker was wearing her grandfather’s old wedding ring, the one he’d wanted her to have as a good talisman with the hopes that, someday, she would find a love story like he had shared with his wife.
And this bastard took it as a trophy.
Swallowing hard, so I didn’t just sink the knife into his liver and lungs, end it right then and there, I cracked my neck.
“You know you’re only supposed to take a trophy if you kill your target,” I told him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Or, do you actually think you killed her?” I asked, watching the way his eyes flared. “You did, didn’t you?” I laughed, the sound creepy even to my own ears.
I was losing it.
Maybe Quin was right.
Maybe there would be no coming back from this.
It had been so long since I had been this person. And in the past, this heartless monster I turned into only existed on orders. Pain and torture were a job.
This was personal.
And maybe it would change me permanently.
But who would even notice anyway?
It didn’t matter.
Whatever the consequences, this mother fucker didn’t deserve to breathe what was left of this Earth’s clean air.
I wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing that he was out there, walking around, looking for a new target, someone else to torment, and this time, maybe kill.
“Your cut had hesitation marks,” I told him, eyeing my blade. “It’s the mark of an amateur. See this?” I asked, stabbing the knife into the tough pectoral muscles on his chest, dragging down a few inches. “No hesitation marks at all,” I told him over his screaming. “I’m not an amateur. Know what is good about that?” I asked, not waiting for an actual answer, of course, seeing as he was still hissing and cursing. “I know just how much I can do to you without killing you. Or making you pass out from the pain and blood loss. It’s no fun if you’re unconscious,” I informed him, digging the tip of the blade down one side of his jaw, the other.
The begging began then.
The begging always came. The timing was different for each person. Hardened criminals, people whose lives depended on keeping secrets, they took longer. You were usually coated in sweat and blood by the time they finally cracked, started praying for their lives.
It wasn’t as satisfying when it came early.
But, hell, it was still something like music.
Not many people got to play at God, got to choose someone’s expiration date. It was a heady thing, that taste of power. And, oddly, you wanted to drag it out. You wanted more of it.