Chapter 22
Alexei
“Wakey, wakey, bats and rabies,” Bohnes cajoles, throwing a glass of ice water in the corrupt police chief’s face.
Ernest Bolin doesn’t move. He appears to be dead, waxen-faced and slumped in the corner of the shipping container.
Bohnes has several of them, tucked at the back of his property and surrounded by trees.
There’s a bucket, a spigot for water, and a pile of untouched granola bars. It does not appear that Ernest has moved since he was put in here.
“Is he fuckin’ dead?” Widow asks, lighting up a cigarette at the edge of the container.
He leans his head back against the wall, inhaling and closing his eyes.
My lip curls. Once my marriage to Scarlett is finalized—I haven’t even proposed yet, dear God—I’ll tell them all to stop smoking. It’s an unsightly habit.
I curl my hands into fists at my sides, the latex of my gloves squeaking.
Scarlett is watching me carefully, studying me like she expects an emotional reaction of some sort.
I’m perfectly composed. That’s what I tell myself, but likely it’s because the man might already be dead.
Maybe I won’t have to face Papa’s killer?
I want Ernest to hurt. I’m also aware that hurting him will dredge up the feelings of hurt inside me. If he’s dead…Papa…I…
Wouldn’t that be a disaster, Alexei, you coward? I don’t believe the family will respond as well to his corpse. They’ll want to interrogate him themselves.
I press a handkerchief against my face, trying to stifle the smell.
Old sweat. Stale piss. Rusted metal. My eyes close as I rein in the ants of unease skittering through my bloodstream.
This container has seen things. Foul things.
Blood and guts and bodies. I reassure myself with Bohnes’ competency as best I can.
After every kill, surely he sterilizes the place?
It helps. But the smell is absolutely ghastly, and I’m being pushed far beyond my usual limits. To torture Papa’s killer though? I would walk through sludge. I would sleep in a sewer. I will bathe myself in his blood and screams.
“He’s not dead. He’s playing possum,” Bohnes hisses, circling Ernest like a vulture on a carcass. “Bring the chair in.”
Ash waltzes in with a wooden chair, spinning it with a flourish before he sets it in the center of the empty metal container.
Sound echoes strangely in here, like we’re underwater.
I can hear my pulse pounding, sweat collecting in my palms beneath the gloves.
That, too, sickens me. My sweat and their sweat and Ernest’s sweat.
His body fluids. That shit-stained bucket.
It’s hard to breathe. I want to drown myself in bleach and scalding water.
“Hey.” Scarlett reaches out with a single finger, like she’s intending on poking my cheek.
I grab her wrist on instinct, rapid-fire reflexes curling black-gloved fingers around that beautiful bronze arm.
She frowns at me but relaxes when I release her as quickly as I grabbed her.
“Are you sure you’re okay? You don’t have to be here for this. ”
I raise a haughty brow, my eyes on hers as Ash and Bohnes heft Ernest’s limp form into the chair, using two pairs of handcuffs to attach his arms to it. Widow watches dispassionately, continuing to smoke his cigarette.
“No. I absolutely must be here for this.” My veins buzz with the memory of that night, the night I lost my Papa and everything went to hell. If not for the people in this container with me, I would likely be dead. Tortured and then dead. Alone. For absolute certain, I would be alone.
Scarlett’s face softens slightly, a crack in her hard-shell personality that I feel was caused by someone other than me.
That irks. That itches. That chafes. If she’s to be my future wife, then I want to be as meaningful to her as my father was to my mother.
Once you’ve seen love like that, it becomes your sole and driving focus to obtain it.
I pluck one glove off, resting my hand against her cheek.
She pouts her lip and raises both brows, like she’s surprised by the intentional contact.
Touching her no longer disturbs me. Truthfully, there are things I want to do with her that would unsettle the average person.
Driving to the track that day, the day I thought I might die, and screwing my own virginity out of her against the dirt wall was the best decision I have ever made.
In the ice of the McKenzie River, with my life bleeding from me along with the current, I lost more than my virginity. I lost my heart. Scarlett has it in a bag along with three others and as vexing as I find that, I’m uncharacteristically smitten.
“Alright then,” she says, smacking her gum and reaching up her own hand to press it against mine. “I got your back. Do what you need to do. You’re the client here.”
Client. I lift the edge of my lip and draw my hand away, replacing my glove.
Husband. It should only ever be ‘husband’.
I find that I’m more disgusted with her referring to me like a stranger than I am with the dried snot and blood caked on Ernest’s face.
I’ve got a horrible erection, uncomfortable and yet impossible to adjust considering—
Scarlett slides her hand into the waistband of my pants, doing it for me. My skin explodes with gooseflesh and our eyes find each other in the damp miasma of Bohnes’ makeshift torture chamber. She doesn’t do anything but make me more comfortable, and it’s enough. I’m leaking. Dripping.
She draws her hand out and, never losing eye contact, licks her palm. The smell of salty pre-cum joins the cloud of assaulting scents, and I shiver. I’m as aroused as I am disturbed, torn in half between my future wife and my father’s executioner.
“You sure he ain’t dead?” Widow repeats with a frown, pushing up off the wall to crouch down in front of the man. He reaches out with the burning end of the cigarette, like he’s going to press it against the back of Bolin’s hand.
I step forward and Widow pauses, the cigarette dropping ash across the skin of Bolin’s knuckles.
Bohnes pauses in his own task, sharpening a set of blades on a metal rolling table that he brought in here with him.
Same set of tools he used on Cody. Ash is waiting patiently nearby, arms folded over his borrowed red sweatshirt.
It reads Run With Us on one sleeve and Or Run From Us on the other with images of serial killers on the front. Very apropos.
“Allow me.” I slide my sewing kit from the pocket of my hideous baggy black pants. I can hardly wait until I’m back in my own clothes again. Why a person would need six pockets on each leg of their trousers, I can’t understand. “I’d like to be the first face he sees when he comes to.”
“Yeah, of course,” Widow says, uncharacteristically pleasant and accommodating. He stands and moves aside, sweeping out a hand to indicate the slumped man in the chair.
Ernest is dark-haired and sallow-skinned.
Slack-jawed. Drooling on himself. There’s an emergency bandage over the gunshot wound on his shoulder which is likely the only reason he’s still with us.
I slip the metal thimble over my thumb, the one with a sharp nail that, under its cap, contains the deadly batrachotoxin.
Beneath the nail, there’s a bit of cork to make the handling of my other needles easier.
I use that cork to brace the thin needle I’ve chosen for Ernest, pressing the tip of it against his index finger.
Just like this needle is tucked under my metal thumbnail, I’m going to tuck it under his not-so-metal fingernail.
I use my other hand to brace Ernest’s hand against the armrest and, voila, he opens his eyes and lifts his head, panting.
“See?” Bohnes breathes, sharpening a medical grade scalpel. “Possum.”
Scarlett laughs, throaty and sexy. Her breasts rise with her next breath; her throat moves in a swallow. It’s an effort in self-control to remember I’m here to torture and not to fuck.
“Please. Please don’t,” Ernest breathes, eyes flicking wildly around the space.
He can’t see Bohnes or Ash stationed behind him, but he catalogues Widow, panics at the sight of Scarlett, and then…
He looks right at me and then urinates on himself.
Acrid. Piercing my nostrils. I gag. “Borisov,” he chokes out and then starts sobbing.
The sound bothers me so terribly that I end up shoving the needle under his nail.
He screams, letting out this shrill, high-pitched shriek that causes my teeth to clamp together with a clack.
I draw the needle out and try not to throw up at the sight of the blood glistening on it.
Making this man hurt is far more important than worrying about contamination.
“Should we, uh, close the door?” Scarlett asks, pointing at the open square at the end of the shipping container.
“In space, no one can hear you scream,” Bohnes says in a cinematically spooky voice, quoting Ridley Scott’s Alien.
Clever. Classic. I’m faintly amused. All five of us laugh.
All five. The sound echoes brightly. I should have agreed to say those quotes from The Princess Bride to Cody. I’m almost ashamed.
“PLEASE!” Ernest screeches, jerking at the handcuffs and throwing his eyes around the space, wild and white-edged like a frightened horse. “Spare me! I was only following orders!” He starts crying again which is so goddamn insulting.
I snatch his hair in a gloved hand, gritting my teeth against the bile that rises. Even with the glove on, I’m repulsed by the feel of him.
“Spare you?” I ask with a high, dry laugh.
“The way you spared my father?” I spit on the man and he keens like a trapped rabbit.
I jerk his head back and get right in his face, daring him to spit back.
If he does, I’ll knock his teeth down his throat.
“If you want to see your son, Bryson, then you’re going to answer some questions for us. ”