Chapter 9 #4
Two hours later, I’m sitting in the warehouse feeling ambivalent about Lori’s presence here.
He made me wait twenty minutes in the mall parking lot while he got supplies, and he came back to the car carrying five bags.
I didn’t run him over only because he bought me a burrito and a ginger ale, and eating in front of a half-starved, drooling Jacob felt fucking good.
Lori is a fucking loon, but his unpredictability makes him interesting, and annoying.
His torturing techniques are odd, too. He bought a hairy tarantula, which keeps crawling up and down Jacob’s body.
He’s lying down, tied up to a wooden board, stiff as…
the board, jerking slightly every time the spider moves.
“If you keep doing it, Portia is going to bite you and then use the cut to deposit her eggs inside you. When they hatch they will feed on your flesh and eat your organs. You’ll be a mama.” Lori is spewing nonsense again, from his position, perched up on a crate fifteen feet away.
He is clearly scared shitless of the spider. Asked me to put it on Jacob’s bare chest, so why did he buy it? And thinking about things he bought, the mask he’s wearing is ridiculous.
“Did the costume shop have nothing else to cover your face?” I ask with a sharp edge to my voice.
“This was the scariest,” he retorts.
“The face of a pug? A rainbow unicorn would be scarier,” I clip.
“It’s disturbing. Round, far-away eyes, wrinkles all over, bouncing ears.” He bobs his head to demonstrate. “Your white mask is averag…” He jumps abruptly when Jacob starts screaming.
“It bit me! It bit me again! I’m going to die.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I bark. “It has venom, but the toxicity is low, equivalent to a bee sting.”
“I’m allergic to bees,” he cries out. His lips are dry and chapped, hair looks greasy and dirty, eyes crazily moving around the room.
“So, don’t make Portia mad,” Lori barks, his body trembling with disgust or fear. I can’t say with that stupid mask on. “Should have bought the rats.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” the idiot whines, fat tears making wet lines on his dirty face.
“You know why, shitbag,” I growl menacingly, remembering Sully’s scared gaze and the bruises on his body.
“Why not?” Lori huffs instead. “You have not given me a scrap of useful information, so next I’ll dip your balls in honey and let that jar of fire ants have their way with you.”
He leaves his place on top of the crate and comes to me. “Can you put Portia back in the jar?”
“Do it yourself,” I deadpan.
“I would, but do you really want to hear me scream? I thought you had enough of that for today,” he says, while grabbing the bear-shaped bottle of honey.
Fuck it. I take the empty jar and put the tarantula inside. I could never be afraid of a bug I could simply crush under my boot.
“You know what?” Lori lets the bottle of honey fall on the ground after pouring a generous amount inside Jacob’s boxers. “Maybe we should follow Super Model’s methods.”
That’s Lori’s nickname for Uriel. He surely doesn’t use insects to do his bloody work.
Lori opens the red ant container and leaves it on Jacob’s belly. The little insects quickly climb out toward the honey.
“Fuck! Fuck!” Jacob’s restrained body twists and turns and wiggles as more ants walk inside his boxers. Fire ants are known for biting.
“My soon-to-be brother-in-law once used electrical wires on one of his boyfriend’s exes,” Lori says. “He stuck them right to the guy’s testicles and…burn, blood, smoke. But don’t tell anyone, it’s a secret.” His mask’s ears bounce as he chuckles.
Jacob’s face is turning red. His body is covered in red bites from the tarantula and now the ants.
This is not working. I need to see Sully, but not before ending things here.
I should hang Jacob outside the window again and use his fear of heights against him.
I turn to see where I left the rest of the rope when I hear Lori.
“His ass has a hello-sailor quality to it, don’t you think?” He’s chatting with an almost unconscious Jacob now while pointing at my ass.
I sigh. “Did he faint?” He probably has a fever, and the fact that I only gave him a piece of bread and a few glasses of dirty water in two days made his body run on low energy.
“I can’t see well with this mask. I should poke his eye.” He leans over the table to do just that.
“Why?”
“Few people are still scary after you poke them in the eye.”
With a scorching rod, maybe.
“Was he ever scary?” I look at the wretched, miserable piece of shit lying on the board.
“Just trying a hypothesis, like how a cockroach can survive up to a week after its head is cut off. Should we try it with him?” He points at Jacob and then slaps him hard. “Answer, roach!”
“N-no,” he whispers reflexively.
“Alright, Gabe’s methods it is,” Lori adds after a moment. He goes to his bag and takes out a tossing knife.
He walks back to Jacob and raises the blade in the air, sharp point down. “Stay still so I can stab your ball. Prefer right or left?”
“No! I’ll talk. I’ll talk,” he wails. “I fuck freshmen and then send their naked pics to my friends.”
“Fuck, you are a repulsive fuck!” Lori barks.
“With that Latina chick, I-I made a-a video while I was nailing her.”
“Pedro Mendez’s daughter?” I ask. Ramiel didn’t say anything about a video.
“Yes! But it’s gone. It’s gone. From my phone and the internet. I don’t know how…where…” His voice quavers with fear.
Did Nine take care of it and make it disappear in exchange for keeping Jacob alive? Is that the deal she offered the drug lord? In that case, maybe Ramiel can find it and blackmail the drug lord. I grab my phone and send a quick message to him, letting him know what we found out.
“You tiny dick, rotten-dick-milk, piece of trash! Did you think you could do that to Sully as well?” Lori’s hissing voice booms in the silent warehouse.
I already thought about a few possible reasons why Jacob was dragging Sully toward his car.
Raping him was among them; it turns my mind into a murdering fest. But it’s Lori’s knife that comes down and spears through Jacob’s boxers.
The groan of pain he lets out echoes around the walls as a bloody stain quickly forms over the fabric.
Lori is still cursing at him when his phone starts ringing.
“Boys,” he answers, turning the speaker on.
“Where are you?” I hear Gabriel’s voice.
“Hanging out with Jacob, the perverted, vile fuck.” Lori glares at him.
“Where?” Gabriel insists.
“Where are we?” he asks me.
“Just check Lori’s tracker,” I say impassively at Gabriel. The thought of putting a microchip behind Sully’s ear, like all the others have, resurfaces in my head.
“I’m ten minutes away,” Gabriel lets us know.
“So, why did you ask?” Lori clips.
“Be good.”
“Bugger off!” The pug-masked kook hangs up as I grab my hunting knife.
“Let’s end this,” I say before moving near Jacob’s table. He’s muttering incoherent words.
I wish he were more present-minded as my knife slices into his torso piercing his heart and going deeper.
He arches, pulling at his restraints. He takes his last breath, and then drops with a thud back on the wooden board.
Blood drips out of his parted lips while the light in his eyes slowly dims and disappears.
I take a long breath. One less threat against my Sully.
Lori nods, making the ears move. “You certainly are good at this.”
I clean my knife and start untying the corpse when Lori silently hands me a small bag.
I take it and look inside. There’s a skimpy, lacy, red dress with matching crotchless panties and garter. Fucking hell, the image that forms in my head of Sully walking toward me, wearing it makes my blood boil with lust.
“Fly to Honey. It’s the name of the online shop I bought it from. It makes custom hot-cha-cha male lingerie. The best ever,” he lets me know. “When you two use it, think of me and send pics.”
I glare at him, like I would ever show a half-naked Sully to anyone. I grab the tarantula jar as a threat.
“No! Portia, no!” He runs behind the crate. “Just a thank you will suffice.”
“Fuck off! How is that as a thank you?”
“What the fuck is going on here?” Bezaliel storms into the room.
“I have a present for you,” I toss the jar at him and then look at Lori. “When you let it free around your house, think of me.”