Chapter 10 #2
The soldier’s eyes focused on Vin’s face, and for a moment, he thought that perhaps the captive combatant would see reason, that this would be enough for him to give in. But those hopes were dashed when the man’s face contorted in rage and defiance.
“Go fuck yourself,” he snarled, and Vin realized that a change of pace was in order.
He stood up sharply, drew one of his pistols, and fired off a shot that shattered the soldier’s kneecap. The man screamed in horror and agony, looking down at the bloody mess that was once his knee joint and back up at Vin in shock.
“It ain’t fuck me, partner,” Vin said, his voice now low and quaking with the strain of uncontrollable fury. “It’s fuck you.”
He then lashed forward with the side of his weapon and struck the man hard against the cheekbone. He nearly pitched back in the chair, but Sean was right there behind him to catch the wobbling seat and return it to a steady position.
“Now we’re talking,” Sean said, practically into the man’s ear with manufactured, sadistic glee meant to instill their hostage with even more fear.
Vin wasn’t sure if the man could even hear the comment, as his screaming had reached an impressive level.
Vin crossed over to the table in the center of the room and grabbed a length of rope leftover from when they had first tied up the soldier.
He wrapped the rope around the man’s thigh and squeezed it tight before knotting it off in a makeshift tourniquet.
“We don’t want you bleeding out on us just yet,” Vin said over the man’s horrified screams. “We’ve got a lot left to experience together, and you just lost your only ally left in this room.”
Sean approached Vin with a pair of needle-nosed pliers, which Vin accepted in one hand. He then leaned in close to the soldier’s face, ensuring he had a good solid look at this instrument of torment. Then he got to work.
Sean and Vin continued working the soldier over for nearly another hour, taking turns when one would tire and even working together at several points to inflict the maximum level of physical and emotional pain on their quarry.
Vin was almost impressed with how resilient the soldier was and how he held up under their enhanced interrogation tactics. But the time for playing around had ended. Vin nodded over to Sean.
“I think it’s time,” he said, and Sean simply nodded with an evil smile, making sure the soldier could see his expression through his puffy, swollen eyes.
“Time?” the man asked, the fear palpable in his tone. “Time for what? Time for what?”
“Oh, you’re gonna see,” Vin replied, tossing the knife he had been using to dig holes in the soldier aside and rubbing his hands together.
“Oh, it’s damn sure time,” Sean said, walking up with a pair of massive bolt cutters.
“What the fuck is that?” the soldier gasped in alarm, looking at Sean as he slowly opened and closed the giant cutting instrument over and over.
“Look, partner,” Vin said, laying a blood-stained hand on the top of the soldier’s head. “We miss that lady and that little baby. We miss them so much that it hurts. And the reason we’re still missing them is because of you.”
“Yeah,” Sean said, moving toward the man, angling the bolt cutters on a downward diagonal, “so we figured it was about time for you to miss something precious as well.”
The man quickly realized the bolt cutters were angled for his crotch, and a new terror hit his face with a blossoming intensity. He began to thrash wildly against his bonds as if the pain and injuries Vin and Sean had inflicted upon him up to this point didn’t even exist.
“No!” he screamed, utterly horrified. “No, please! Not that! Please!”
Vin moved behind the chair to hold him in place, slamming the legs of the chair against the floor with a resounding thud.
“You had your chance, you piece of shit,” Vin whispered harshly into his ear.
“I tried to be nice. I tried to give you a way out, but you didn’t take it.
Now the only thing left to take is your fucking medicine. ”
Sean approached with a sadistic smile on his face, clamping the bolt cutters in quick succession like a pair of scissors.
“You can’t do this!” the soldier shrieked into the dim light of the safehouse.
“We sure can,” Sean said. “And we can like it, too.” He snapped the cutters near the man’s crotch again.
“Okay, okay!” he cried out, and Vin could practically feel his spirit and resolve shattering. “I’ll tell you what you wanna know! I’ll tell you anything! Please don’t do this!”
“Nah, fuck you,” Sean said, moving in with the cutters while the man shrieked in fear.
“Wait, Sean,” Vin said, holding up a hand. Sean froze in his tracks, looking disappointed. This was all part of their ruse, part of the characters they were playing for the benefit of this prisoner.
“Oh, come on,” Sean said, the blades mere inches from the soldier’s private area. “I’m so close.”
“Now, just a second,” Vin said, walking over to Sean and gently pushing him back before turning back to the soldier. “If our friend here is willing to cooperate, I don’t see any reason to make him a soprano. Isn’t that right, soldier?”
“Yes, yes, I’ll tell you anything,” the soldier stammered in a hysterical panic. “Just please don’t do that.”
“All right then,” Vin said, walking over to the table and grabbing up a map of the city. He brought it back and unfolded it in front of the man. “But we’re gonna do this in a special kinda way.”
The soldier looked at him in confusion as Sean moved behind him, grabbing at his chair.
He spun the seat around, the legs of the chair dragging along the concrete floor.
The soldier now had a clear view of the other hostage they had taken.
Another of his squad, tied and gagged in a chair against the wall, looked at him with wide eyes full of horror.
This man had watched the entirety of the torture his comrade had gone through, and despite the wounds inflicted on him during the firefight, he was awake and alert.
“Now, I’m gonna hold up this map for you,” Vin said.
“And you’re gonna point with your nose to the place where they took the woman and the baby.
Then I’m gonna go over to your friend, and I’m gonna ask him the same question.
If he points to a different spot, then your twig and berries are coming off.
Do we have an understanding?” The soldier nodded frantically, and Sean crossed over to the other shoulder, tying a makeshift blindfold around his eyes.
“All right,” Vin said, holding up the map. “Now, choose very carefully, son. As if your life depended on it.”
The soldier leaned forward as far as he could go and pressed the tip of his nose into the map. Vin looked at the location he marked and nodded.
“You happy with that answer, kid?” he asked, his voice carrying a low threat as it pushed out.
“Y-yeah,” he said, nodding frantically.
“All right then,” Vin said, crossing over to the other soldier.
He motioned to Sean, who lifted the blindfold from the man’s eyes. He looked at Vin, approaching as though he were the devil himself, and Vin knew this man didn’t have it in him anymore to lie.
“Now I know you heard what I had to say to your friend over there,” Vin said, looking down the bridge of his nose at the bound soldier. “Now, if what you say and what he says don’t match up, you’re both losing something precious, am I understood?”
The man nodded frantically and motioned toward the map as if telling Vin that he was ready to comply.
“All right then,” Vin said, holding out the map. He watched with great interest as the man leaned forward in the chair and pressed the tip of his nose right into the same area where the first soldier had indicated.
Jackpot.
Vin looked up and nodded to Sean, tossing the map down as he stalked over toward the first soldier.
“What?” the soldier said, looking at the hardened stare on Vin’s face. “I told you the truth! He’s a liar! You can’t trust him! I told you the truth, man! I told you the truth!”
“I believe you,” Vin said, whipping out his pistol and firing a shot right between the soldier’s eyes.
At the same time, Sean was unloading a bullet into the head of the second soldier. Both of them fell back in their chairs, slamming into the ground.
Vin and Sean never gave them a second glance. They simply moved together toward the table in the center of the room. Sean had retrieved the map and laid it out on the table. Vin pointed at the spot both men had indicated.
“That’s our destination,” he said, indicating an open plot of land, which he knew to be a large open park.
“That ain’t gonna be easy,” Sean said, nodding at the destination. “They’re gonna have every approach area covered.”
“Yeah,” Vin agreed. “Gonna be hard getting in. Gonna be even harder getting out.”
“Maybe if we had a crew,” Sean offered, and Vin gave him a confused sidelong glance.
“Well, yeah,” Vin said with a shrug. “But we don’t got that. It’s just you and me.” There was a long awkward pause as silence settled between the two of them.
“Well,” Sean said, drawing out the word, “that ain’t totally true.”
“What?” Vin responded, his brow furrowing in confusion. He stood up straight and looked suspiciously at Sean. “The hell you talking about?”
“When I left Deb and Jimmy here, I was out looking for allies,” Sean said, pacing in front of the table and wringing his hands. He was nervous and maybe even a little ashamed to be sharing this information.
“Sean?” Vin asked, the edge of suspicion in his voice.
“I found the help we need,” Sean continued, still not looking up to make eye contact with Vin. “Both to get out of the city, and I’m sure to get Deb and Jimmy back. But…”
“But what?” Vin asked, tilting his hat up to get a good long look at the man standing across the table from him. Sean finally looked up at Vin, staring him straight in the face.
“But you ain’t gonna like it.”