4. Novak #2
I carved a line in his other leg, the skin splitting easily.
“Jesus save me!”
“Jesus isn’t here,” I said, and carved a cross, watching the blood spill.
“7419! No!”
“There you go, that was easy. And you used the burner phone for…?”
“SaintMichael said if I ever wanted a ‘gift’… I’d use it and get a message with a place.”
“What place?”
“I don’t know!”
He was lying, and I carved another line, then let the blade hover lower, not touching, just enough that he understood exactly where this could go next. I didn’t need to say it out loud.
“It was… it was a house. In the Valley. Like, North Hollywood? No, Van Nuys.” He shook his head, frustrated, trying to pull it from memory. “It had… it had a broken fence. A blue mailbox. And a… a car on blocks in the driveway. Tony lived there, but he’s dead now!”
“Last name?”
“I don’t know, he was just Tony!”
“Street.”
“I don’t know the street.”
“You saw it.”
He started sobbing again and I crouched in front of him so he couldn’t hide behind tears.
“Talk, and you might live,” I said.
His gaze snapped to mine, and for a second, there was a flash of relief there.
“I don’t know!” he said, voice cracking, “I wish to God I could tell you something else.”
I gripped his knee, right at the tail end of the cross carving, and I dug my thumb into the exposed muscle. He cried and sobbed.
“Ker-Kernville.”
“What about it?”
“They said…” He was sobbing so hard I could barely hear him. “Out past Kernville there’s a place.”
Eighteen minutes.
“And a motel.” His breath came in short bursts. “Off the 110. South. The sign… It’s red. A star. They use Room 12. Always Room 12.”
“Motel name.”
“I don’t remember.”
“You do,” I said.
He stared at the concrete, jaw lax, then whispered, “Starlight. I think. Starlight Motel.”
I sent what I’d recorded so far to Caleb and knew he’d pass the intel along to Doc, who would take it from there.
I glanced at the timer.
Sixteen minutes.
That left plenty of time to play and see what else I could get out of the good reverend.
The man in the chair sagged with relief. He thought giving me what I wanted had bought him something.
He stared up at me, hopeful in the ugliest way. “Am I… am I okay now?” he asked.
I stared at him for a long moment, letting him feel the truth even if he didn’t understand it.
There were things you could come back from.
There were things you couldn’t.
“You did one useful thing,” I said.
His mouth trembled. “So, you’ll let me go?”
I moved to the table and picked up my phone, saw the message had been sent, and Caleb’s quick response got it . Then I set it to record again.
I didn’t face the reverend when I answered. “Not yet.”
He made a sound like an animal realizing the trap had closed. “Wait—please—I told you everything?—”
I turned back to him. The drain sat between us. The concrete held the cold. The bulb flickered once.
“You told me what you thought would save you,” I said. “That’s not the same thing as earning a way out. What else do you know?”
His chair rattled as he tried to stand, but the bolts held.
“I have a family,” he sobbed. “I have—I have three kids—don’t hurt them!”
“I don’t hurt kids.”
“Let me go! Please, I’ll give you anything you want?—”
I drove the knife into his chest and felt the resistance give.
Not deep enough to end him. Just enough.
His scream snapped into a strangled gasp.
One side of his chest stuttered, breath coming thin and uneven.
Partial collapse, I noted. He wouldn’t last long like that.
His breathing changed first. Fast. Then uneven. A faint hitch on the left side.
“I’m watching for cyanosis,” I recorded for Caleb to hear that I’d done my due diligence. “Lips paling. Pupils widening. It will be two minutes before panic sets in properly and five before the body starts to shut down.”
His scream fractured into something smaller, thinner. The rhythm of his breathing changed—ragged, uneven, panic chewing through whatever control he had left. I watched the rise and fall of his chest, measured it without emotion.
He wouldn’t last long if this continued.
“I have names.”
“Tell me.”
He gave me details he thought would win his freedom, then begged, and, too late, realized that some doors only opened one way.
“Please,” he wheezed. “Please.”
“Is that what the kids said when you hurt them?” I asked and lifted his cock again with my blade.
“I never… I didn’t…”
I finished it, slicing up and removing his cock and one of his balls.
His scream broke apart in a wet choke, then into nothing but air. The fight left him in stages—rage, panic, disbelief—until there was silence.
When he went still, I checked for a pulse out of habit, then released the restraints and let the body drop to the concrete. I wrapped him in plastic with the same care I’d used setting up the room.
Stage one done.
Stage two waited, where what remained of Reverend Neil Langston would stop being an issue when I disposed of him.
It was only as I began to drag him out that I realized I’d still been recording. I dropped the victim and picked up my phone, then sent the entire last part to Caleb, including the crying, the begging, the extra information, and the slow removal of the reverend’s cock.
I could have edited it.
Removed the screaming.
Cut it down to the information he needed.
I didn’t.
He needed the full sequence to understand because I didn’t know which parts mattered to him.
Caleb called me Doc’s pet psycho, had even given me the nickname Freak, and that made something in my chest settle into place, because he’d named me correctly, and I knew exactly where I stood.
Caleb Shaw hated what I did for the Cave, and he told me that to my face.
Most people hid their reaction to me.
Caleb never did, and I didn’t hide the real me from him.
Everything I did was for him.