Soulless (Lawless #2)(55)
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Thia
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The sound of a pipe leaking echoed in my ears, dragging me slowly back into reality.
Handcuffs bit into my wrists. My arms strained above my head as I hung from a pipe that ran across the ceiling. When I could no longer hold myself up, my muscles gave out with a pop as my joints painfully dislocated. My chin fell to my chest. Wide tape covered my mouth, wrapped around the back of my head, pulling on my hair every time I turned my head. With one nostril stuffed up I felt dizzy, barley able to get enough oxygen through the other.
My vision blurred as I tried to focus on my surroundings. Grey. Concrete. An open ceiling with pipes and wires. Nothing on the bare walls. A metal cage in the far corner. In the center of the small room was a blue tarp. Next to the tarp was a red toolbox with a yellow electric drill set on top. It was all so clean.
Sterile.
I pulled on the cuffs above my head with a newfound strength I didn’t have seconds earlier. My legs flailed around uselessly in mid air as I struggled against my restraints.
The door opened and Gus entered the room. When I first met him in the park he’d protected Bear and myself. I’d even thought he was cute in a chubby-cheeked best friend kind of way.
That Gus wasn’t who walked into the room, though. This Gus looked up at me as I dangled from the ceiling, like I was a steak and he was a hungry lion who hadn’t eaten in months.
“I really wish it could be me who gets to have all the fun with you today, but you see, little one, I have to continue playing the role of loyal soldier, so unfortunately for me, I had to call in a substitute.” He stepped up to me and I braced for whatever it was he was about to do, my heart hammering in my chest.
The tape being pulled off was painful, but it passed quickly and I was finally able to take deep breaths. Gulping for air as if I’d been drowning. “Why do this at all?” I asked, after finally being able to catch my breath. “Me, Bear, the MC? Why?”
“I don’t ask why. I do what I’m told. Asking why is not my job.”
“Then what is your job? Who hired you?”
Gus covered my mouth with his hand and pressed his forehead to mine. My stomach rolled. “That doesn’t matter. All that matters now is what’s about to happen to you. My advice? Give into the pain. Enjoy it. The human body is a fascinating machine, and although I don’t get to do it myself, I’ll be watching the video later and I’m sure watching that machine come apart is going to be nothing short of spectacular.” He let go of my mouth and set the tape back in place. “Although I’m sure Bear is not going to love it as much as I will. He doesn’t appreciate the beauty in it, like I do.”
He stuck out his fat tongue and licked my face from my jaw to my eye, and my stomach rolled again and this time I tasted the bile rising in my throat.
Gus stepped back and took one last lustful look at me. “Such a shame, little one.” Before he left the room, he adjusted a camera I hadn’t noticed next to the door. A red light came on. “Maybe, I’ll stay. Just for the first part,” he said, opening the door. “We’re ready,” he called out, and a blond man appeared in the room, shutting the door behind him. He was shirtless, cut and muscular, black and grey tattoos covered one of his arms and all of his chest.
“I don’t like cameras,” the blond man said, tapping the wrench he was holding against his palm over and over again as he looked me up and down.
Gus was evil.
But this guy, with his classic good looks, was the f*cking devil.
His eyes were black and glowing like a demon in a movie and I realized there was no getting out of this. My fate had been sealed. With every step the devil took toward me, the fear I felt increased higher and higher until I hoped I’d die of a heart attack before this lunatic could carry out whatever sick plan he had for me.
The devil set the wrench down by the toolbox and pulled his shoulder length hair on top of his head and tied it with an elastic. He bent his head from side to side, making a sickening cracking sound. He did the same with his knuckles.
Then, he came for me.
While Gus looked on like he was lusting after my blood, the blond devil looked natural. In his element.
Possessed.
He reached up and unhooked one of the cuffs, catching me before I fell to the concrete floor. My arms still raised above my head as they’d become completely useless and disjointed. “Nooooooo!” I tried to scream behind the tape, tears ran out the side of my eyes. He carried me to the tarp and laid me on top of it, binding my ankles together with the tape.
“You can take the tape off. No one can hear her out here,” Gus said. “Start with the teeth. They’re the most painful.”
“Why are you still here?” the devil asked. I was shaking so hard I could hear my jaw rattling.
“Just wanted to watch the fun start.”
“I don’t do audiences,” the devil said adamantly.
“Come on, man, just one tooth. Then I’ll leave,” Gus whined.
“Do it yourself then,” the devil said. Standing up, he tossed him the wrench. Gus’s face lit up and he practically ran over to me. Crouching down by the toolbox he lifted out a metal contraption.
“Just one, and then I gotta go,” Gus said. Ripping the tape off my mouth, he pried it apart using pressure points on the roof of my mouth to force me to comply.