Chapter Sixteen #2
Martinez doesn’t pick the asshole up, he grabs his long greasy hair and drags him out. Behind me, Xavier is kneeling beside Sheridan talking quietly to her. He has a wet cloth and is wiping her face.
“His sister was in a place like this once,” Camden says quietly. “Come on. Once the medics stabilize her, they’ll get her out, then we’ll call in the cops.”
“This is fucked up Cam. I’ve heard of these places, but shit. The people behind this-”
“We’re on it, Cal,” he pats my shoulder. “They’re not getting away with this. Come on, we don’t have much time.”
I take a last look at Sheridan and know she is in safe hands. We are not going to get anything coherent out of her, at least not for a while.
The only person who can tell me anything about what I want to know is currently crying out in agony. It becomes obvious why when we enter and close the door.
Martinez has done some serious damage in the two minutes it took us to follow them in here. I harden my resolve and force out the panic and fear I feel for Sheridan, and any thoughts of people back home. This piece of shit is going to die, how slow or fast depends on him.
“Get him up,” I tell Martinez. Even though he was salty outside, he doesn’t question me now and drags the man up. “Who brought that woman to you?”
He snarls but doesn’t answer. Fairs fair, he manages a place like this, doesn’t care what happens to the women that are dragged in here, it’s time he feels even an ounce of their pain.
I kick him right between his legs, so hard he throws up all down the front of his shirt. Behind me I hear Camden curse and Martinez laugh.
“Why did you bring that woman here? Who told you to take her?” I shout.
No reply, so I punch him in the gut. It goes on for a full five minutes of me asking and him not replying. Each time I hit him harder. He is coughing up blood before he finally begs me to stop.
“Did you or any of the sick mother fuckers you brought in here stop when they begged?” I scream in his face. “Did you ever give them mercy when they cried and screamed and asked for it to end?”
He shakes, snot, blood and tears running down his ruined face.
“This is your last chance. Who told you to bring her here?”
He pants and says something. I glance back when Martinez pats my shoulder. He holds out a knife. It’s a serrated hunting knife with a well-worn handle. Knives aren’t my thing but I take it and turn back to the sniveling piece of shit.
“Name.”
“Storm… stor….” His head hangs.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me,” I shout and stab the end of the knife into the meat of his thigh, making him scream. “Where the fuck is he?”
“Wes…west Virginia.”
“That’s a pretty big fucking place, right?” I look at Martinez.
“Really big,” he agrees.
Pulling out the knife, I stab it into his other leg and he screams again. “Where?”
“He’ll kill me.”
“Hate to break it to you,” I cock my head.
“He isn’t going to get the chance. This can be quick, or it can go on for hours.
My friend here will tie you up, drive you somewhere nice and quiet and slice you apart, piece by fucking piece, slowly, painfully and you will fucking wish I showed you mercy here. ”
I’ve no clue if Martinez would do that. He strikes me as a hard ass, but I don’t think he would enjoy something like that. Even Stryker has his limits.
“Romney,” he chokes out.
I’ve never heard of it. Camden pulls out his phone, holds it up when he has a map of West Virginia. It looks to be a couple hundred miles away from Baltimore.
“That’s all I know… I swear to God. I don’t know where, just the town,” he gasps as I rip the knife out of his leg. “I swear, I swear, fuck just, believe me… He told me to bring her here and mess her up. When I asked how long, he said… he said keep her…. He didn’t care if,” he chokes on some blood.
“Go on,” I encourage him.
“If she died. He didn’t care.”
“Well, I guess that is something we have in common,” I snarl, then push the knife into his stomach right up to the hilt.
His mouth drops open, and he tries to scream but he doesn’t have the breath to do it.
“Burn in hell you piece of shit,” I twist the knife and drag it upwards.
He jerks and drops to the floor, I still have hold of the knife and my hand is covered in blood.
My chest is heaving, my heart pounding so fast I feel like I might fall over. The knife is taken from me and my brother grabs my shoulder and steers me out of the room. I barely hear anything going on around me, my vision has tunneled and it no longer feels like I’m in control of my own limbs.
It will pass. I’ll move on but right now, I have to feel this, have to sit with what I’ve done.
I’m not sure how I end up at the back of his car, Camden cleaning me up before getting me inside. The whole time we drive, he keeps casting nervous looks my way.
“Callum,” he says after we’ve driven a while.
“Is she…”
“They’ve taken her to a private facility. You did it Cal. You got her out. And you have a solid lead on Storm. Remember that.”
I turn to look out of the window, still feeling like I’m not in my own body, I don’t know who I became in there, but I can’t get the images out of my head.
Not what I did to him, that bastard deserved it, and worse. In fact, I wish I had left him to the fate I created to scare him. I’m sure someone would have done it.
It isn’t about that at all. It’s the women whose lives have been irrevocably damaged.
Camden doesn’t say anything, understanding I need to bring myself from the ledge I walked onto back in that house. He does grip the steering wheel tight enough to make the leather creak when I do eventually answer.
“It wasn’t enough.”