Chapter 38 #2
Pasha moved immediately, gripping him by the collar and hauling him forward. Cameron barely had time to suck in air. But at least this time he didn’t waste it. Water spilled over the porcelain edge, the muffled sounds of panic breaking. I watched the second hand on my watch tick.
When the time hit eighty-eight seconds, Cameron was yanked up once more. I signaled Pasha to let him go. Cameron slumped over the tub, hands gripping the sides. He gasped for breath, floundering in his weakened state. A complete contrast to that day when I burst through the door.
The gagging and sputtering made me believe he’d inhaled some water on that last one.
“You hurt her for years,” I seethed, my voice cold and controlled. “Now it’s time for you to pay.” I notched my head to the chair. “Dancer.”
Once more the kid moved with steady, deliberate force. With a calculated grin, he dunked Cameron once more and held him under. “For good measure, I was really having fun. Maybe I should explore some water bondage next?”
Laughter filled the room. Water pooled around Pasha’s boots. After a few more seconds, he hauled him out and then dragged him over to the chair. As he repositioned him, the bastard coughed, his body convulsing with effort.
“With your hands you inflicted countless bruises. You marred her delicate body. I can tell you by the end you’ll wish you never lifted a hand to her.”
Cameron groaned, and his head fell forward. Pasha was methodically efficient. He gripped his arms and secured them with the bindings Nik gave him against the back. He pressed down on his shoulder, then tilted his head.
I picked up the pliers Kinsley had used on his tongue and stepped closer. “It’s difficult, taking years of torture and abuse and paying all that horror back in a single night. But it won’t stop me from trying. I only wish I could prolong it over the course of days.”
Cameron’s gaze was sluggish, unfocused. That wouldn’t do.
“You’re going to want to sit up for this next part,” Pasha murmured, his voice almost conversational. He patted Cameron’s cheeks twice. Damn, the kid was fully embracing this shit. He’d stepped into the role so beautifully. Our eyes met. I read the message behind them.
No turning back. I’m all in.
Cameron shook pathetically as I waved the pliers in front of him. He was becoming more alert now that his near-drowning experience was over.
“Hold his hand out,” I instructed.
Pasha moved once more, and Cameron realized what was next.
In an effort to avoid it, he clenched his hands into tight fists, his thumbs wrapped over his curled fingers.
I grabbed him by the wrist. Clamping the nose of the pliers onto his thumbnail, I grinned.
Like ripping a piece of paper from a journal, I yanked the nail out of its bed.
Cameron’s shout echoed through the basement.
“One,” I said emotionlessly, setting it on the ground at our feet.
Cameron whined and squirmed, rocking back and forth in the chair. I wrapped him lightly on the head with the pliers.
“Stop. Focus and count with me. Every number you miss, I’ll make the next one worse. Tori had to play by your rules. Now you’ll play by mine.”
His answer was a swollen moan. I pried open his fingers, ignoring the tears streaming down his face as I took the second. “Two,” I said, as the nail snapped free from his nail bed, clean as could be.
Cameron yelled again, but failed to count. I snapped his index finger like a twig. The crack was audible, and Cameron’s scream rose in pitch. The chair rocked, the man threatening to tilt himself over in his attempt to fight the ropes. Pasha was quicker, though, steadying him in the seat.
“Feeling helpless, yet? Are you feeling the way you made her feel? I’m pretty sure I told you to count,” I seethed.
“You give him too much credit,” Sebastian remarked. “Dumbass probably doesn’t know how.”
“Well, he better learn quick,” Pasha sneered in the asshole’s face.
Cameron’s hand trembled as I attached the pliers onto his middle finger. His eyes shut, face screwed up in anticipation. This one gave me some resistance. I pulled as he screamed, and with a final twist of the pliers, it came away. Three down, seven to go.
He kicked and thrashed at first, then shouted a strained, tongue-tied, “Three! Three!”
There was shouting and clapping from the guys as Cameron played along with his own torture. I moved on to the next nail, and the one after, and the one after. All ten.
Sometimes, he was in too much pain to count, and the crack of another finger bone snapping would fill the basement. Finally, I had ten bloody fingernails set out on the floor. Only six of his fingers remained unbroken. His hands were an ugly, mangled display.
“Looks like you can’t make a fist anymore,” I observed, playing with one of the broken fingers as he groaned. I pinched the bloody, fleshy mess left at the tip of the flimsy digit. “That’ll make the next part easier.”
Without hesitation, I broke the rest of his fingers, ignoring his wailing screams. “Did you really think I’d spare you any pain if you played along? When you never spared her. Idiot.”
It was pointless to talk to him. He couldn’t hear me over the sound of his screams. When I was done, his hands were deformed, the fingers twisted and bones pointing every-which-way. I took each wrist and held the ugly sight of his own broken hands up to his face.
“Look,” I ordered. “This is what I’ve done to the parts of you that you used to hurt her. Now, let’s think…what other parts did you use? Because I won’t stop until I’ve taken every last one—”
“Pace yourself, Counselor,” Alek cut in. “I don’t want him completely broken before I get my turn.”
I nodded. “Untie him.” I directed my instructions to Pasha.
He made quick work of things and shoved him from behind onto the floor. The idiot’s instincts kicked in, and he tried to brace his fall on his mangled hands. He writhed on the ground like a worm, screaming and kicking pitifully.
“What’s that? What’s he saying?”
Ivan grinned. “I think he’s begging.”
“Is that so?” I asked, kneeling next to his head. “You’re begging for more?”
Cameron shook his head frantically.
“Oh, he definitely wants more. Listen to him,” Pasha said, ignoring the obvious pleas of the man on the ground between us. Ivan sauntered over, and I stood.
“Class is in session,” he said, directing his attention to Pasha. I stepped aside. Ivan sensed I needed a minute. “There are plenty of thin, fragile bones in the hands. Not just the fingers. Like these.”
Passionlessly, he stomped on Cameron’s hand, smashing it again and again into the floor beneath the heel of his boot. Cameron’s scream gargled in his throat, and he quickly tucked his shattered hands beneath his body.
Suddenly, an unfamiliar shadow fell over him. Alek pushed his way forward and kneeled before the broken man. Nik sauntered over and dug into his pocket.
“Mother picked this up for me when her and Kinsley were in Paris last,” Nik said, pulling out a vintage collector teaspoon with an intricate design on the handle. The dim light glinted off the metal, and a sinister look passed between them. His eyes burned with a dangerous intensity.
“Yes, to add to your collection. I wonder if she’d approve of the usage? Oh well, she doesn’t need to know,” Alek said with a smirk.
“Alright, make room. I need to see this. Cameron, you’re in for a treat. The Reaper doesn’t often get his hands dirty anymore.” Sebastian moved closer. Alek shook his head and grinned at him.
“Did you like looking at my little kitten in her pretty black dress?” he asked, his voice soft as he ran his finger over the cupped portion of the spoon.
Cameron mumbled something incoherent. “Oh, suddenly at a loss for words? Let’s recap, your tongue isn’t working.
” He paused and smacked him on the mouth with the weapon.
“Your hands will never work again, so what’s the harm in taking an eye?
” He once more tapped him, this time on his left eye.
“Take both, brother. I didn’t appreciate it any more than you did,” Nik said casually.
The smile that spread across Alek’s face was sinister and yet full of pride.
“You could always keep them as souvenirs, Counselor. Take them out every once in a while. Let him watch you make Tori come over and over from the afterlife,” Sebastian crooned.
“I’m good.” I shook my head. Crazy fucker.
At Alek’s command, Pasha and Ivan hauled Cameron onto his back. His face had gone white, his eyes bulging with terror and pain. He barely looked human anymore. He was finally resembling the ugly, primitive creature he really was inside.
“A knife might be better,” I teased, but Alek’s demeanor only grew darker and more dangerous.
“Better for him, perhaps. But I’m not feeling very generous right now. It’s not my night with my girl and you know how grouchy I get.”
It took a great deal of effort for Pasha and me to pin down the squirming man and keep his eye open.
The bastard squinted and clenched desperately against our attempt to get to his eyes.
But when it came to flesh versus metal, metal always won, and Alek’s face was more determined than ever.
Who knew he could make a freaking teaspoon look so dangerous?
He wedged the cutlery into Cameron’s eye, violently twisting it horizontally to pry the lid open. The fight had come back to him now. He bucked and kicked like a horse, even slamming his own head back onto the floor.
We had to stop him before he could knock himself unconscious.
It took Pasha and me both to restrain him as Alek wedged the spoon deep beneath the eyeball.
Alek didn’t flinch as he leveraged it, and with a single twist of his wrist, as if he had done this before, the eyeball bulged forward and popped free from the socket.
The glossy ball dangled, and the socket twitched frantically around the empty space.
“Want my knife now, brother?” Ivan asked casually.
“Nah, I’m good. I’m in the mood for nice and slow tonight,” Alek said.
“Oh, our girl likes it that way with you,” Nik retorted, and damned if Alek didn’t beam.
I shook my head at their ability to compartmentalize torture. He took his time as he sawed through the optical nerve with the dull edge of the spoon. Cameron’s screams sounded more like an animal now, his throat raw and voice pitched.
Tears and snot streamed down his face, and he choked on his own vomit as he threw up from the pain. We quickly rolled him to the side. Asphyxiation wasn’t on the menu tonight. As Alek promised, it was a slow process, and he absolutely took his time.
I studied Pasha’s face. Even though I was focused on revenge, one of my jobs was to ensure mentally he wasn’t breaking. Especially given this was his first actual experience with torture. Not an ounce of fear or compassion showed. He saw Cameron as we all did—deserving of this.
“What a terrible day to have two eyes, hm? Come on, Cameron. Open up. It will be your last chance to see anything,” I said as Alek notched his head in my direction.
“Please, no,” Cameron croaked.
Alek’s hand closed on his jaw, making him look up into his face. “Look at us with your one good eye. All of us. We will be the last thing you ever see in this world.”
Fear has a stench, and this room now reeked of it.
Over the blood and the sweat—he stank of it.
Pure, pungent fear. His remaining eye, terrified and trembling, flicked between the three of us standing over him.
It passed over each of our faces, as if looking for the one of us that might show him mercy.
It didn’t find any. Satisfied, Alek dug out the second eye as well.
I clenched my teeth, ears ringing with screams so piercing they physically hurt. This one he let dangle from the socket before he crushed the eyeball beneath his boot into a disgusting, bloodied paste against the side of the man’s face.
The sight was enough to almost turn even my stomach, but I swallowed the impulse. The empty sockets were dark and bloodied, just rings of muscle in hollowed-out darkness.