Chapter Twenty #2
“I don’t like sound,” Aaron says conversationally, like we’re discussing the weather. “It’s silly to ask you not to scream while I’m cutting into you, so this helps.”
He pats my cheek with the back of his fingers.
The casualness makes me want to vomit.
Cortéz jerks his chin toward the man by the door. “Come watch the biker. He won’t be much trouble, but I’d hate for him to interrupt Aaron’s work.”
The guard moves without question, stopping next to Knuckles’ head.
Knuckles' pain-clouded eyes find me. Blood is smeared across his lips. His chest rises and falls in shallow, failing jerks.
But behind all of that?
Calm. Acceptance. Peace.
He’s dying. He knows he’s dying.
He’s just holding on for me.
I try to smile. To tell him I understand, to tell him it’s okay, to tell him I’m grateful he didn’t die alone earlier and leave me here with strangers…but the tape holds my face immobile against the chair.
So I say it with my eyes instead, hoping he understands.
“Should’ve stripped him first,” Aaron mutters, annoyed. “Now I’ll have to cut through the clothes, and that’s just a waste of my time.”
“Start with his face,” Cortéz sighs, as if he’s asking someone to dust a shelf.
“Hmm,” Aaron hums. “Not a bad idea. Alright, hold still, toy.”
Knuckles told me not to fight.
So when Aaron dragged me to the chair, I didn’t fight.
When the chains wrapped around my torso, I didn’t fight.
When duct tape pinned my skull to the metal frame, I didn’t fight.
But when the scalpel…the actual medical grade scalpel…comes toward my face?
I can’t help but fight. I’ve never been more scared in my life.
My body jerks against the restraints, metal rattling violently as I twist, pull, and slam my heels into the floor. Nothing moves. Not the chains. Not the tape. Not even the damn chair. It’s bolted into the concrete.
The only things I can move are my hands. Useless without the use of my arms.
My skin burns as the blade slides against my forehead.
“Nice,” Cortéz laughs, holding his phone inches from my face. “The red shows up beautifully on camera.”
I don’t scream. But dang…it hurts.
“Why there?” Cortéz asks casually.
“I like watching the blood run down the nose,” Aaron says cheerfully. “It’s like a tiny waterfall.”
“You’re demented.”
“Thank you,” Aaron replies sweetly. “Now, please step back. This toy has fluffy cheeks, and I want to see how deep I have to go before I hit bone. I can’t wait to start on his thighs. Though the tape will get in the way for cheek work… so I’ll start on his neck instead.”
The next cut slices my throat. Not deep enough to kill me, but deep enough to make fire explode under my skin.
My taped lips muffle the scream, but it rips out anyway.
My heart punches against my ribs and for the first time in my life…I want my body to shut down.
I beg for it silently…please, please just turn off, please. But it doesn’t listen.
Minutes drag like hours.
Aaron works with soft hums of pleasure, like this is some relaxing hobby.
Finally, he steps back.
My throat is raw from both screaming and trying to hold the screams back.
“It’s hard to tell with all the blood,” he says, tilting his head. “But I think it turned out lovely. Damian, can you see what it is?”
Cortéz leans in, phone recording the whole thing. “Is it… a bow’s arrow?”
“Yes!” Aaron beams. “Do you think we could get a table down here? I want to carve a landscape on his back. Maybe the Valley. Lots of detail. It’ll look beautiful peeled off.”
Aaron places his hand on the chair’s arm…right beside mine.
So I do the only thing I can.
I pinch him.
Hard.
“Ouch!” Aaron recoils, glaring at me. “That was NOT nice. How would you feel if I pinched YOU?”
Is he insane? Actually insane?
“I think a table is doable,” Cortéz says, pocketing his phone. “We’ll make space.”
I glance over at Knuckles.
He’s on the floor. Completely still. Utterly silent. Eyes closed.
I hold my breath, watching his chest.
Nothing.
My throat tightens. Tears blur my vision at the injustice of it all.
But beneath the grief…there’s relief.
Thank you, God.
He’s finally resting.
He’s finally free.
He’s finally out of pain.
And now?
Now I’m alone.
But I don’t care. Because no matter what they do to me, I will suffer nothing compared to what Knuckles has gone through this day. I can’t imagine the pain he suffered while fighting death.
“I expected Spike to have shown up by now,” Cortéz sighs, almost bored. “I’m going to offer him a simple trade. His men…for you and your biker.”
He paces slowly, boots scraping against the concrete.
“I’m sure they’ve found us by now. We’re not really hiding.
” A smile curves his mouth. “I even left him a little gift outside. Weak soldiers. Men I need gone, but can’t kill them outright because they’re family.
Rules and all that.” He chuckles. “That should take the edge off his rage before negotiations begin.”
My stomach twists.
“Aaron will handle the rest of Spike’s close biker friends,” Cortéz continues casually. “We never truly intended to release you, of course, but there’s no need for Spike to know that.”
He lifts his phone again and exhales impatiently.
“I need a body part to send with this video,” he says. “Would you mind cutting off an ear?”
“Not his ear,” Aaron snaps, glaring at my hand like I insulted his mother. “I want the fingers that pinched me. It’ll teach him not to be a bully.”
Is he serious?
Aaron disappears behind me and comes back holding… hedge clippers. Small, rusted, wickedly sharp.
My heart pounds wildly. If my body only shuts down after adrenaline drops, then I’ll be awake until the moment I die…because right now, I am nothing but adrenaline.
Aaron lines up my thumb between the blades.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
The clippers start to close…
BANG. BANG. BANG.
Three explosions tear through the basement, causing the clippers to fall away.
I gasp and snap my eyes open only to find one person standing…Knuckles.
He’s swaying, barely upright, covered in blood…but somehow still here.
“Guard… was an idiot,” he rasps, staggering forward. Smoke drifts from the gun in his shaking hand. “Fuck, Eli… you’re hurt.”
My throat closes. How is he even standing?
The guard lies dead where Knuckles' body was only moments before…a bullet hole perfectly centered between his eyes.
Aaron is sprawled beside my chair, blood pooling beneath him.
Cortéz is alive, but staggering as blood pours from his leg.
Knuckles turns.
Fires again.
Cortéz screams as his other leg detonates under him. He collapses, dragging himself backward until he hits the wall.
“I’m going to kill you,” he snarls through his teeth.
Knuckles ignores him.
He stumbles behind me, hands fumbling at the chains, breath rattling.
I can hear him struggling to breathe. Every inhale is a wet, liquid drag. Every exhale trembles.
He’s dying on his feet.
For me.
I’m so focused on him that I don’t realize Cortéz has risen to one knee.
I don’t see the gun until it’s halfway to my face.
“Fucking Shadows,” Cortéz spits, raising the weapon. “You should’ve just fallen in line.”
He pulls the trigger.
I squeeze my eyes shut…but there’s no pain.
Instead, something heavy slams into my chest, knocking the air from my lungs. The bolted chair holds steady.
When I open my eyes, Knuckles is on me.
Literally, on top of my body…shielding me.
His body collapses over my lap, warm and trembling and already soaking through my jeans with blood.
My blood? His blood?
A strangled sound bursts from my throat, muffled by the duct tape.
Knuckles coughs wetly, the sound rattling with fluid. His hand, shaking so violently it barely obeys him…finds my cheek.
“Hey… sweetheart…” he whispers, voice shredded to pieces. “Would’ve… been rude… to let you die first.”
No. No. No.
My cries come out broken, suffocated, desperate…just a stream of terrified noise trapped behind sticky silver tape.
He smiles. A weak, crooked thing full of pain and pride.
“I’d… much rather die… protecting my family…” His chest stutters. “...than from…fucking…cancer.”
My tears fall, and I try desperately to get enough oxygen through my nose.
He tries to lift himself, maybe to say more, maybe to comfort me, but his arms give out, and he settles heavily against me.
“And you,” he breathes, eyes drifting but still somehow soft on me, “you made the end… not so lonely.”
Another cough. More blood. Too much blood.
“Thank you… sweetheart.”
My vision blurs. I try to lean forward, try to touch him, hold him, something, but the chains and tape still pin me to the chair.
All I can do is sob…short, choked breaths that tremble through my whole body.
“They’ll… come… for… you,” Knuckles whispers, his voice barely audible. His weight feels heavier by the second, sinking into my lap. “Just… hold… on.”
I try to nod as tears fall from my face onto his hands.
Knuckles' head rests in my lap, his breathing shallow…almost non-existent.
Cortéz limps closer. He laughs, breathless and cruel, and taps the back of Knuckles’ head with the barrel of his gun.
“That was some show,” he taunts. “Shame your biker didn’t finish me off. Now I’ll get to take my anger out on you, toy.”
Knuckles’ fingers twitch.
He lifts the gun with a strength he shouldn’t have left, looks up, and gives me the softest, most defiant wink I’ve ever seen before fully turning to Cortéz.
“You don’t… fuck… with the Shadows.”
He pulls the trigger.
The shot detonates in the small room.
Cortéz’s body jerks, crumples back several feet, and slams to the floor with a dead thud.
Knuckles’ arm trembles as he lowers the gun… then slides it into my hand, curling my fingers around the grip with what little strength he has left.
“Shoot…” he rasps, eyes fluttering. “…any… fucker… who… comes… close.”
His hand falls away.