Chapter 34 #2
Aiden’s eyes darken, his Adam’s apple bobs on a swallow.
“Only if I get to watch,” he responds, his voice low and husky.
He slams on the brakes as some idiot cuts across two lanes, causing us both to lurch forward in our seats.
An unmerciful bang sounds from the boot, and for a brief moment, I think we’ve been hit from behind.
“I hope that fuckin’ hurt!” Aiden throws over his shoulder before turning his attention back to the road.
“Ah,” I mutter, feeling a rush of adrenaline from the sudden stop. “Is it wise to go for food with him back there?”
“He’s not going anywhere, bug.” We pull off at the next exit, I can’t help but look around and see how many motorists pass us by, completely unaware that there is a body rolling around in the trunk of the car.
“You’re stimming again,” he says, glancing at me with a knowing smile. “We’ll grab it to go if it makes you feel better?”
I nod, grateful for the compromise.
* * *
The welding torch sputters to life in his hands, casting an eerie glow on his beautiful face. I count eight men so far, all known associates of David Walsh, all with similar tattoos on their hands as the man who stabbed Robbie.
I shuffle back on the workbench, sipping on my caramel frappe and taking in the chaos of the warehouse.
One man is tied to a chair: given the fact that he’s the closest to Aiden, I’m guessing he’s up next.
Another two are chained and gagged in the corner, forced to watch my man work his way through the group.
There is a particularly chubby one with a sack over his head.
I’ve yet to see his face; he has no tattoos that I can see, his hands are clean of ink—he does not fit the body type of the guy we’ve been looking for.
I wonder what he did to end up in this situation.
Another two are lying on the ground, bruised, bloodied, and mangled.
Their eyes are staring blankly at the ceiling, their bodies stiff from rigor mortis.
They were the first two brought in. There is not a tooth or nail left intact on them.
I watched Aiden slowly dissect the tips of their fingers, one by one.
All the while, he taught me that the fingertips contain over three thousand touch receptors and are one of the most sensitive parts of the body.
I’ll admit, I zoned out for a while, too busy examining my own fingertips and wondering what it would feel like to have them cut off.
One man is currently in the adjoining room, missing an eye and part of his jaw.
The stench of blood and decay wafts through the air, I know my own pet is currently wishing he was never born.
Aiden wanted me to have my own body to dissect, probe, and do whatever it is that he does with his victims. He quickly ruled this guy out as the man who stabbed Robbie; his alibi, if you could call it that, cleared his name for the incident involving my future brother-in-law but shone a light on him being a sexual predator.
Of course, Aiden thought it would be a great gift to allow me free rein.
I’m not sure if my approach disturbed or delighted Aiden. I think a bit of both.
“Babe?”
Aiden turns to me with a curious expression.
“He’s foul,” I nod in the direction of the locked door near the staircase. “Should we end it now or?”
The flame from the torch sputters, leaving behind a trail of smoke, Aiden places it back down and approaches me.
“We should check on him first, yeah?” Snatching the jar of Vicks Vapo Rub from the workbench, he opens it, dabbing a bit under my nose and his before heading to the door. “Just in case,” he says with a wink.
Thank God for menthol because the second Aiden opens the door, the putrid stench hits us like a wave.
“Don’t breathe through your mouth,” he warns, pulling his shirt up over his nose as we step inside. The source of the smell is immediately apparent—our predator is naked on the cold concrete. The third piece of his manhood has finally fallen off, leaving behind a gaping, infected wound.
“I have to give it to you, bug,” Aiden’s words are muffled by his shirt. “Auto-amputation was a bold move.”
“I told you all I needed was some string,” I say, my voice strained as I try not to gag from the smell. “Once the blood stops flowing, the tissue will eventually die and fall off on its own.”
“Clearly,” he chuckles, nudging the man’s leg with his foot.
“That’s not just infected, bug. That’s gangrene.
Judging by the sweat and chills, it’s spreading fast.” He spins, taking my arm and leading me outside, shutting the door behind us.
“He’ll be dead by tomorrow; there’s no need for us to intervene. ”
“You sure?”
“Positive.” His shoes clip against the concrete as we walk back to his line-up of unfortunates. “Let nature take its course.” Bringing my knuckles to his lips, he kisses them gently before turning back to his work. “Now where was I?”
“Blow torch,” grabbing my frappe, I push myself onto the workbench and get comfortable, we’re going to be here a while. I shoot a few texts back and forth with Ciara and then Scott, checking in to see how Robbie is doing. Apparently, my creamy roast carrot soup went down a treat.
Opening the scrabble app on my phone, I get to work amusing myself, only looking up when the screams become painful.
Aiden, who is holding the torch to what’s left of the feet of the guy in the chair, gives me an apologetic smile, stops the torch for a split second to tell me where my noise cancelling earphones are, then gets back to work.
No one ever tells you that the smell of burning flesh is like nothing else in the world.
Burnt hair, charred meat, and coagulated blood are not scents for the easily nauseated.
The skin melts from the bones, dripping like candle wax onto the concrete floor.
That’s just his feet. I’d say he’ll look like a pillar candle that has been left to burn for too long by the time Aiden’s done with him.
Is that bone?
Aiden places the torch down; my guess is he’s getting bored. He approaches the workbench, picks up a bottle of water, and takes a long drink before turning back to the man slowly melting away in the chair.
“Did you kill him?” I ask, noting the lulled head and slumped shoulders of his victim.
Aiden smirks, “Nah. He’s just having a little nap.”
Picking up a hunting knife from the table, he turns his gaze to the men huddled in the corner. “Eenie, Meenie, Miney,” his knife bounces between them, stopping on the brunette. “Moe.”
“No, please!”
Pushing down my headphones, I reach out and tap Aiden’s shoulder. “Babe?”
He turns to me with a grin, the knife still in his hand. “Yes, bug?”
“Who’s chunky?” I nod to the out-of-place body.
Aiden chuckles, “an insurance policy.”
Really? He’s not going to tell me.
“He smells like piss,” I add, scrunching my nose in disgust.
Aiden rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah, some of the lads may have relieved themselves on him.”
I’m not even going to press further. I don’t want to know. If Raven and the rest of the macabre gang decided to humiliate this guy by urinating on him, I can only imagine what he did to piss them off—no pun intended.
Aiden’s beautiful face turns back to his victims, and I know I’ve lost him for at least another hour. I should get him tested; when he’s hyper-focused like this, I could run by him on fire, and he’d barely bat an eyelid.
He rolls the knife’s handle between his fingers, a dangerous glint in his eye as he steps for “Moe.” Aiden is clearly practised with a blade, not that I haven’t seen him dissect before. It has become almost routine over the last couple of weeks.
I’m mid-slurp when a long piece of skin floats to the ground like a discarded ribbon of fabric. “Wow!” I say around my straw, sucking up more cream than coffee. “It’s a good thing I’m not squeamish.”
I’ve learned to only bring coffee here. I made the mistake of bringing some grapes two days ago, put a nice juicy one in my mouth, and right before I bit down, Aiden scooped out someone’s eyeball inches from me. He got hit with a projectile grape in the side of the head a second later.
“How many nerve endings in the forearm?” I ask over the screaming.
“Five branches of the radial nerve,” Aiden replies, not missing a beat. His blade slices a thin layer of skin from “Moe’s” kneecaps, then takes a nice chunk of turkey bill from under his chin.
“Wanna do me next?” Aiden turns with a scowl; I drop my chin to my chest to prove a point. I have a fat roll I’d like gone. “What’s that? An inch? I can’t see.”
“Katie…” he growls, but I can tell he’s trying not to laugh.
I grin and stand up, patting my stomach. “Or if you’re feeling generous, I’ll take the Kardashian.”
“You’ll sit the fuck down before I shove that blade up your arse.”
“Handle first, I hope; I’ve read Den of Vipers.” Taking a few steps forward, I lean to the side, glancing at “Moe,” then spring upright as Aiden marches for me. “Though I can’t see you stabbing yourself for shits and giggles, other people, yes, but…”
His lips fuse with mine in an attempt to shut me up. “What do you need? What dopamine fix do you need to get so I can work?”
“I don’t know,” I mumble against his lips. “Getting tea bagged first thing this morning is still weighing heavily on my mind, and not just because of your sopping balls slapping against my chin.”
“Katie…”
“I want ice cream.”
“Done,” he spins on his heel.
“Do you have a Ghostface mask?”
He slowly turns back to me, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Why?”
“I’m sure TikTok unlocked a new kink.”
He lifts his chin until he’s looking at the ceiling, suppressing a laugh. “If I get the mask and promise we can get ice cream on the way home, can I please?” He gestures to the remaining survivors in the room.
“As long as I don’t have to clean it up. Too many textures.”
“Deal,” he turns his back on me again, most likely praying I shut the fuck up and let him work.
“Babe?”
His head snaps up, a look of annoyance flashing across his face. “What now?”
I give him a large, toothy grin. “Love you.”
He all but snarls it back at me.
We know the two dead bodies were not the person who stabbed Robbie. I know my little festering rat is not the man who did it or his companion a few doors down. I know Tubby over there is definitely not the masked attacker, which means one of the final three is the poor bastard.
Screams echo throughout the warehouse, and I find my noise cancelling headphones again.
Robbie is thankfully recovering back at Aiden’s house in Foxrock.
The coward that shanked him though, well, if the other two are lucky, the man being flayed alive right now is the perpetrator, and they can be given a swift death.
If not, they better start praying for a miracle because Aiden’s punishments are getting progressively crueller as time goes on.
I tap away on the phone for a little while longer; I’ll only have this until we leave here, then, like every other burner, it will meet a malicious end.
Ciara keeps tagging me in posts with Vivenne Westwood wedding dresses, I can’t help but smile at the shimmering, virgin white gowns fit for a Disney princess.
Huge, dazzling, and perfect. I glance up at Aiden, who is tugging a wad of muscle and fat from “Moe’s” left arm, his eyes gleaming with sadistic pleasure.
I always wanted to feel like a princess on my wedding day. I just never knew my Prince Charming would be so skilled at dismemberment.