Chapter 32 Casey
CASEY
The door shuts and in two seconds, I pop up from the backseat and jab a needle into Charles’s throat. “Night night, Charles.”
His eyes go wide and he tries to fight me before the sedative kicks in. I pull him to the back seat with me, and Kendra slides into the driver’s seat. Thank fuck for her skills because she has the security cams everywhere on a loop. She drives us to the abandoned building and parks behind it.
“You ready?” she asks.
“More than ready. I’ve been ready since the day we ran.”
I grab his feet while she pulls him out by the armpits. We’re not gentle. Why would we be?
It takes a bit of effort to get Charles into the abandoned building and right where we want him. The sedative will keep him out a little bit longer, then we can play.
The chair in the middle of the room isn’t as solid as the one back home, but it’ll do.
We zip tie him to the arms and legs. His head will be able to move freely and I don’t like that at all, but this is sort of a last-minute booking to the death hotel for Charles and I guess he can have a bit of comfort.
We did, however, pick up a muzzle and modified it for a human face. I really hate the idea of him biting me and a gag just isn’t my thing. Who knows what kind of bacteria he harbors? It’d be my luck that he bites me, then it gets infected and I die. I’m not taking that chance. Not at all.
And because I can’t help myself, I break his pinky finger while he’s still out. I want him to suffer immediately upon waking and I’m sure this will do it. I thought about driving a nail through his foot, but decided against it.
We rig up all the cameras I bought from Big Mac weeks ago.
There are less angles than I like, but can’t be helped.
Kendra leaves me to sit in the room next door and get set up herself.
I’m in my torture gear, but the store didn’t have black gloves, so the nitrite gloves are blue this time.
I’m not sure how I feel about it, but again can’t be helped.
I hold my balaclava as we wait for Charles to wake. After getting us secure for a Nightmare show in an hour or so, Kendra joins me again. We want our time with this fucker before we let our audience decide his fate.
“We’re set for midnight.” Kendra squeezes my shoulder.
“Plenty of time.” My voice sounds strange to my ears. I pull the smelling salts from my pocket and wave the container under Charles’s nose.
He comes to with a start, then a moan. He bucks in the chair, which annoyingly does move a few inches. We might need to figure out a way to secure it before the show.
“Orion.” A slow smile slides across Charles’s face.
I fucking hate that name. Well, I hate it for me. Objectively, the name is pleasant, but to me it’s torture. It’s memories. It’s not me. He turns to Kendra and looks her over.
“Who are you?” Thank fuck he doesn’t recognize her. He probably only recognizes me by my hair and eyes.
I hold up a thick nail and a hammer. “You’re not the one asking questions, Charles.” I press the tip of the nail to the top of his hand.
“You’re too scared to do anything like that.” Charles grins again, as if he knows me. Knows who I grew into.
I squat so I’m not towering over him. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. I’ve grown up, father. I murder people like you.” I bring the hammer down and watch the shock of pain wash over his face.
“People like me?” He grits out while trying to wriggle his hand from being impaled. Silly man.
“Rapists,” Kendra says. “Pedophiles.”
Charles laughs. It’s entirely too joyful. It grates on my nerves and my psyche. There’s something that snaps inside me and I jam the nail ripper part of the hammer into the meat of his thigh. He chokes on that fucking laugh.
Charles’s hands fist and he grits his teeth. “I treated you like royalty and you ran away.”
“Royalty? What was the point of the Servants of the Divine cult?”
“Cult?” Charles laughs again. “That was an experiment. To see if I could get people to do exactly what I wanted. Come to find out, yes. You and a few others were exceptions. But people are so fucking gullible. Especially if you promise a bunch of ridiculous things in the afterlife. Which one was your Divine? There’ve been so many that I’ve elevated to god status I can’t remember. ”
“Dorian,” Kendra and I whisper together. I’m numb. He used us all as an experiment?
Of course he raped more kids to turn into “gods”. All for an experiment. To see if he could.
“Ah, Dorian cried during his ceremony. He could have been the greatest of us all. The lips on him when we practiced—”
It’s as if the world stops spinning. I straddle the man and choke him with my bare hands. It’s the least efficient way to hurt him by the way he’s laughing. The chair tips back, and we crash to the floor. His head bangs loudly on the concrete, but I don’t let go.
No, I squeeze harder.
He wheezes, but the glint in his eyes spurs me on.
“Kay,” Kendra says and pulls me off Charles. “He’s trying to bait us.”
“It’s fucking working,” I growl out. It always has.
“Not so different,” Charles says. “You always were like your useless mother.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“I had to kill her. She was talking about exposing everything. She had to go.”
Kendra squeezes my arm. We knew this was a possibility, but it’s still hard to hear.
There’s that fucking grin on Charles’s face again. “In the beginning, she was so pliant. Perfect. Jumped through every hoop just to be loved. Runaways usually do that. Then she had you. I guess she realized what she’d stumbled in on. Realized I used her. She was so young and na?ve. So pretty.”
My legs turn to jelly. I’d told myself I didn’t care about my mother because she’d abandoned me. That was the lie I believed. If I’d just paid attention, I would have realized it was a lie. She could have saved us all, but Charles stopped her. My poor mother.
“What was her name?” Kendra asks.
A smirk plays on Charles’s lips. “I forget. Why would I give you anything?” He tips his head to me.
“Orion here never follows through with anything and fucks up every instruction. I don’t know how he roped you into whatever this is, little girl, but you should probably run so I can’t find you. Because when I do—”
Kendra spits in his face and stomps on his balls, making Charles finally finally cry out in real pain.
“You’re not leaving this place alive, you piece of shit,” Kendra says. “In fact, you’re going to die in pain. You see, we have this fun little show we run. Our viewers tell us how to torture our victims and you’re on the menu tonight.”
Charles scoffs. “Sure. That’s just rumors. There have never been torture shows.”
“Where do you think we got the idea?” I say. “This is going to be our greatest show yet.”
“I don’t believe you.”
We haul him and the chair back to rights. I grab his hair and maneuver his head how I want it. “See these cameras?” I wave my hand and move him so he sees each one.
Four instead of six. I really miss having six and we haven’t even started.
“We do this for them. For everyone with a story of abuse. Of rape. Of pedophilia. We do it for people that don’t have the heart or stomach to take justice into their own hands when the law fucks them over.
We are justice. And for everyone you’ve used, we’re doing this for them. ”
There’s something in his eyes like fear, but I’m not sure he really knows what fear is. That changes tonight.
He smirks again. “I’ll just tell your audience who you are. Merrick, The Merman.”
“It’s funny you think you’ll be able to speak,” Kendra says. “And it’s funny you know him, but not me. My picture is right next to him in all our promo. I was one of your experiments right next to him.”
“Ah, the little boy that wanted to be a girl. I remember now.”
Kendra stomps on his balls again. “I am a girl. Bitch.”
He howls, and it’s music to my ears. His breaths come sharp. “You think you’ll get away with this? As soon as you let me go, I’m going to the authorities.”
I snort. “Oh, I’m so scared. As if we don’t have an FBI agent on our side.”
Kendra lifts her brow, but goes along with the lie. “He helps us clean up.”
“I don’t believe you,” Charles laughs.
“Do you really have to?” I ask, tipping my head. “You’re not going to be alive by the time festivities start at Influencer Con.”
“Everyone will be looking for me. You’re making a big mistake.”
I tip my head from side to side. “Not really. You see, once you’re dead, we’re sending all the evidence of your transgressions to Influencer Con and the FBI to investigate you and all your little experiments.” I lean towards him. “What are they going to find, Charles?”
The laugh is manic, and he starts to struggle in his seat again. Fuck this chair, but it’ll have to do.
My phone buzzes. I hold up a finger and Charles just rolls his eyes.
Dallas: We’re parked and heading towards you. We got the goods.
Thank goodness. I grin and there must be something in my look because Charles’s eyes go wide.
“Oh, the plans we have for you,” I say. “Rest up, because you’re never going to have a moment of peace the second I get started on you.”