CHAPTER 7
“Hey.” Cochise smacked the man in the face. “You still with us? You’re not pussying out already, are you? A big, tough fucker like you?”
The guest tied to the springs flopped his head slowly back and forth—not in answer to the question, but rather in delirium and excruciating pain.
A steady stream of bloody saliva drained from the corner of his mouth, dangling from his chin in one continuous string.
His watery, bloodshot eyes kept trying to roll back in his head as his breath came in short, stuttered bursts.
The asshole would check out soon due to blood loss. But he still had a smidge of life left in him. For now.
Cochise grabbed his jaw and turned the man’s face forward. “Look at me,” he demanded.
The man’s eyes rolled like marbles in his head, glazed and unfocused.
Cochise squeezed until something began to give. A choked whimper bubbled in the man’s throat. “I said… look at me.”
With much effort, the guest managed to focus on the Egyptian, tears running down his face and spilling over Cochise’s hand.
“At the park, you hit my kid for recording your illegal behavior.” Cochise leaned closer until their faces nearly touched.
“I saw the video. I know which hand struck the blow.” He unsheathed his large knife and touched the tip to the soft flesh below the man’s left eye, causing it to bulge in the socket.
“I’m sure even a dumbass like you is familiar with an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
” He raised the knife and pressed the blade against the man’s right wrist. “You hit my kid… I take your hand.”
Cochise ground down with all his strength, grinding the man’s hand into the metal springs as the razor-sharp blade sliced through flesh and bone.
A blood-curdling scream erupted from the guest, and he started to thrash. Cochise slammed his free arm against the man’s collarbone, pinning him against the springs as he continued to saw his way through his wrist, unfazed by his victim’s shrieks and cries.
The hand abruptly dropped to the floor with a wet splat; the man’s arm still held in place by the thin wire wrapped around his wrist. Blood squirted from the stump, raining down through the springs, following the curve of the coils like a crimson serpent.
The man jerked, convulsing beneath the pain, his screams reduced to gurgling sounds in his throat.
Cochise wiped the blade on his pant leg and stuffed it back in the sheath, then stooped down and picked up the hand.
He walked over to the hanging guest, who was hyperventilating and watching him in pure horror.
The Egyptian tapped the man’s face with the severed hand, smearing blood across his cheek, causing him to jerk away with gasping cries. “It’s fun to be scared, isn’t it?”
They’re psychopaths!
Brad’s heart beat too fast and hard for him to catch his breath. The large man carried Dan’s severed hand to the glowing drum and tossed it into the hot coals. A loud sizzling rose from the barrel, and the pungent stench of cooking flesh.
The cowboy picked up a pair of tongs from the table and retrieved Dan’s skinned, bloody cock from the floor and dropped it into the drum along with his hand.
Brad’s stomach lurched as the stench invaded his nostrils.
He’d never before smelled human flesh burning, but quickly decided it was the worst smell ever.
“Y-Y-You’re… monsters!” Brad choked. “You-You’re fu-fu-fucking crazy!”
Walking closer, the cowboy chuffed. “You think we’re monsters now? Wait till we start playing with you.”
Brad ducked his head, tucking his chin against his chest, sobbing like a baby. “No-no-no… please don’t… please let me go… please… let me go home… please… please… I-I have a wife and… and kids… please…”
The cowboy glanced at the other men, then cocked his head, his cold eyes pitiless beneath the brim of his cowboy hat.
“We watched the videos on your phones. We saw what you did… to the women… the children… even the men. You laughed at their pitiful cries, their pleas to go home. You mocked their tears, their fear. You made sport of them, as if it were all a game. You spit on them when they begged to go home to their families, begged for mercy.” He stepped closer.
“And now, you want us to show you mercy?” He shook his head once.
“No.” His face twitched. “No mercy… for the merciless.”
“Please…” Brad whimpered.
“But we’ll be sure to send your wife a copy of your activities,” he drawled. “To help ease her sense of loss.”
Jen knew nothing of his actual job. She believed he was rounding up undesirables—dangerous criminals who were in the country illegally. Jen and his kids saw him as a patriot and a hero. She couldn’t see those videos.
“Pl-Please…” Spittle sprayed from Brad’s lips. “… don’t… show her…”
“So you would have her grieve a lie?” The cowboy stared at him dully. “Seems selfish to me. The sooner she knows the truth, the sooner she can find herself a better man.”
“No… please…”
The cowboy paid no mind to Brad as he and his formidable companion closed in on Dan once more. The man was barely conscious, flickering with terror at the sight of the pair. Brad wondered how he remained aware after everything he had endured. Yet, unfortunately for Dan, he was still there.
Brad turned away when the large man took his place at the small table with the car batteries and coiled jumper cables. Brad twisted his head away and squeezed his eyes shut, wheezing as he struggled to pull air down his clenched throat and into his constricted lungs.
His head was jerked back toward the imminent horror scene as the older spic grabbed a fistful of Brad’s hair. “Open your fucking eyes, prick.”
“No…” Brad whimpered.
Something sharp and pointed touched his eyelid. “Open your eyes.”
Brad obeyed, but tried to look anywhere but at Dan.
“Look at him,” the spic ordered, clutching Brad’s hair hard enough to tear strands at the root.
“You forced parents to watch you rape their children. Made kids watch as you beat and raped their parents.” He yanked Brad’s head back hard enough that something popped at the nape of his neck, and snarled in his face.
“You do not get to look away when it’s your turn to watch. ”
Brad's vision blurred as he stared at Dan’s mangled form.
He barely recognized him as the same man who had gotten into the Durango with Brad that morning—just hours earlier, when life felt normal, with a whole day of plans and the foolish hope that they were “protected” from consequences—completely unaware of what was coming.
The cowboy unraveled the jumper cables, hooked one end of them to the bedsprings, then leaned close to Dan. “When you touch our kids,” he spoke low, deadly. “There is no immunity.”
Brad tried to break free of the spic’s grip when the larger man picked up the other end of the cables and hooked it to the nearest battery.
Dan’s body convulsed and jerked wildly, the springs sparking.
Brad screamed as Dan’s flesh began to smoke and cook where it touched the metal coils.
The stench was so much worse than what came out of the drum of coals, and Brad’s stomach lurched.
The spic released him and moved away as Brad vomited down the front of himself, gagging and retching.
A few more volts passed through Dan’s body, then the large man unhooked the cables, cutting the current. Dan sagged limply against the springs, bladder releasing, jaw slack as thick strings of drool drained from his mouth. His eyes stared blankly, glazed and bloodshot.
Dead.
Cruz helped Cochise remove the dead man from the bedsprings and lay him on the floor beside the 55-gallon drum. Clint scooped up another bucket of icy water, doused their remaining guest to wash away the vomit, then grabbed a pair of wire cutters from the table.
“Your turn, fucker,” he muttered, reaching above the man to where his wrists were wired to the chain.
“No-no-no… please… no…”
“Save your breath,” Clint drawled. “You’re gonna need it.”
“No-No, please… I’ll do anything…” the guest begged shamelessly. “Don’t… please don’t!”
Clint clipped the wire, and the man’s arms dropped heavily as his legs buckled.
His knees hit the concrete with an audible crack, and he fell forward onto his bound hands, his wrists swollen, bruised, and bleeding, causing a purple swelling in his palms and fingers.
The guest stayed that way, huddled forward, sobbing into his own watery vomit on the floor.
“Get up, you fucking coward,” Clint ordered, grabbing a fistful of his hair. “You pricks act so fucking tough out there, protected by corrupt laws, but when your masks come off—you’re nothing but a bunch of weak, sniveling pussies.” He hoisted the man to his feet.
The guest came up off the concrete in a graceless, convulsive heave, his legs buckling.
He drove a sharp elbow deep into Clint’s gut.
The cowboy’s breath exploded out of him in a choked gasp, his grip faltering for one critical instant.
The man tore himself free, stumbling forward with a lurching, unbalanced gait.
He slammed hard into the edge of the wooden table, the impact shuddering through him.
His hands scrambled wildly across its scarred surface, closing at last around the worn leather grip of a machete.
He spun, pressing his back against the table’s edge for support, and raised the blade—a long, brutal arc of steel—swinging it in frantic, panicked sweeps.
“Stay back!” he cried. “Stay the fuck back!”
Recovering from the strike to the gut, Clint stood in place, staring at the man. Cochise, Cruz, and Rodriguez looked their way and advanced casually.
“Get back!” The man swung the blade toward them, his wild eyes darting between them and Clint.
“What do you plan to do with that pig sticker?” Cochise asked, his voice raw and guttural.
“I’ll-I’ll-I’ll fucking kill you! Stay back or else!”
“Or else.” Cruz huffed, looking dryly at Clint, a faint smile tugging the corner of his mouth. “Cute.”
“Fuck you!” The man shrieked.
Cruz snorted. “Not a chance in hell.”
Scooting his hips along the table until he reached the far end, he staggered backward toward the door. His swollen hands shook as he swung the machete back and forth, keeping his eyes on all four men.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Rodriguez asked. “We’re not done here.”
“Fuck off, spic!” the guest yelled. His chest hitched with heavy, ragged breaths, making his shoulders heave. “I’m getting out of here right fucking now!”
Clint’s exasperated breath left him in a slow pull through his nose.
He drew and fired—once, twice—the shots enormous in the enclosed space, their concussion a physical thing that pressed against the eardrums and moved through the chest. The first shot claimed the man’s left knee and spun him; the second found the right on the way down.
He hit the concrete in sections, the machete ringing out as it left his hand and skidded away under the table.
The screaming started a half-second later, the way it always did—the body needing a moment to process what had happened.
“We don’t have time for theatrics,” Clint muttered, walking over to squat beside the wailing, bleeding man. “We’re expected home for dinner, and it’d be a fucking shame if you made us late.” Rising to his feet, Clint gestured to the other men. “Let’s get him on the rack.”