67. Orion
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
ORION
I t’s two days before I can drag myself away from Ember long enough to visit my prisoners, but Killian keeps them occupied in that time.
After an initial round of questioning, Lucas broke and told him where they had been hiding the girls, and just the photos from those cells make me murderous.
Ember has opened up a little about what she went through in the days she was away from me, but she’s going to speak to her therapist about the rest. It’s probably better that way.
As much as I want to know every little thing about my girl, I’m already protective enough without adding new layers to it.
Killian greets me at the door to the warehouse we keep exclusively for dirty work. There’s a cellar in the basement that makes for a perfect torture chamber, and there’s a thrill that rolls over me the closer I get.
I don’t do much of this myself anymore, usually leaving it to Killian, but this is personal.
This is about my Little Flame, and therefore I can’t hand it off to anyone else, not even him.
We take the stairs down into the basement, and I shuck my suit jacket as he unlocks the door and pushes it open, presenting my victims to me.
Lucas and Cain hang from chains on the ceiling, their toes dragging along the concrete floor, not dissimilar to what they forced Ember and Elsie to sleep on.
Both men have been stripped down to their underwear, which are soiled and disgusting. It’s part of the torture, though. What’s more dehumanizing than making a man shit himself?
Their bodies are covered in their own blood and bruises, but it’s nothing compared to how they’ll leave, and a fresh wave of thrill shoots through my bones.
“Ah, gentleman, thank you for your patience,” I say as I drape my jacket over the back of a chair in the corner.
I tug my mask from my pocket and hold it up, showing them the definitive proof that I am, in fact, the Hunter before tossing it onto the chair as well.
“Fuck you,” Lucas snaps, spitting at my feet.
I shake my head and sigh. “You really shouldn’t be wasting saliva. Who knows when we’ll give you water, and your throat is going to get so dry when you scream for me.”
“I’m not scared of you and your bullshit threats.”
I chuckle. Oh, how I love this part. Even though he knows my history, he likely doesn’t know the extent of it, and I look forward to telling him every gory detail.
“Do you know how I got my name, Lucas?” I pause for dramatic effect more than a response.
“It all started when I was a kid on the streets. You know the kind, shitty parents who were addicted to hard drugs and couldn’t feed their kid.
Foster parents who just wanted the check.
A whole sad story of a poor scrawny kid that never knew love. ”
I sigh dramatically, ignoring Killian as he scoffs behind me.
None of what I’m saying is a lie, and it’s not far from the life he lived before I found him.
The funny part is how little we talk about those times in our lives, and here I am reminiscing, like it’s a fond memory. I’d be laughing if I were him as well.
“I had to learn to fight to protect myself, and I was pretty good at it. I found my way into some fight clubs, got my ass beat to hell a bunch, until one day a man asked me if I’d like to do some work for him.
Now, as I’m sure you can imagine, there are many people looking to take advantage of young men and women, and I was wary to begin with. Until he explained the job.
“He wanted me to kill someone for him. Sounds easy, right? He said that he saw a darkness in me and thought I was the kind of kid who could easily lose his soul. He offered me an obscene amount of money to do that job.
“So I took it. No kid who’s lived on the street his whole life in between abusive households is going to say no to fifty grand, no matter what they have to do to get that money.
“The guy I was hired to kill was a piece of shit. A child molester who had been getting away with it for decades. He deserved to die, but my employer didn’t want it done quickly. He wanted me to drag it out.
“So I did. I stalked my target, taunted him, drove him insane over weeks. By the end, he was too scared to leave his house, and it wasn’t until he couldn’t eat or sleep without feeling like someone was going to kill him that I finally did.
“And thus, the Hunter was born. A professional stalker and hitman who was hired to kill some of the worst people to ever inhabit this planet.”
I cross to the table of goodies Killian has laid out for me, my fingers dancing over the implements of torture I’ve missed so much.
“Sadly, I didn’t get a chance to drive you two crazy, even if it would have been fun as hell.”
“You still could,” Killian interjects. “Leave them here with the promise of torture, the table of toys taunting them. Barely giving them enough sustenance to let them live. Maybe even starve them to the point they consider turning on each other. Could be fun.”
I chuckle. “And this is why I brought Killian on as an apprentice, of sorts. He was born to hunt the same way I was. But alas, we got busy, built our empire, and had to stop taking contracts.”
I turn back to them, a power drill in one hand, a pair of pliers in the other.
Their eyes widen comically, and I chuckle as I step toward them, bringing the drill to life and sending terror through both men.
“But I’ll let you in on a little secret, seeing as you’ll both leave here in pieces and won’t be able to tell anyone.” I lean toward them and whisper, “We didn’t retire until we trained our replacements.”
I don’t give them a chance to respond before I bring the drill head to Lucas’s left knee and smirk at the fear that crosses his face.
The moment the drill springs to life, slicing easily through his skin and bone, his screams fill the chamber, and I can’t help thinking how much I’ve missed this.