Slow Agony (Assassins, #2)(76)

I stood in front of Marcel, my arms crossed over my chest. I poked him. “Wake up.”

His eyes opened.

I turned to Griffin. “He’s awake, baby.”

Griffin’s lips curled into a smile. “Good.”

I had a knife too. I held it in Marcel’s face. “You’re wearing too many clothes.” I slit down the front of his white t-shirt, cutting it off of him.

“You letting blondie undress me, huh, Griffin?” said Marcel.

I stood up. I slashed Marcel’s throat. “You don’t get to talk.”

He gurgled. Blood gushed out of him. His eyes got big with pain. And then dull.

Griffin sighed. “Now, we’re going to have to wait for him to wake up again.”

“Oops,” I said.

*

Griffin was giggling. He was tossing a gun back and forth in front of Marcel’s face. Marcel was covered in blood. He’d healed, but that didn’t mean the blood went away. “It’s just too much fun watching you die.”  Marcel shut his eyes. “You might think you’ve won, Griffin, but the fact that I meant this much to you only proves—”

“Shut up.” Griffin jammed the gun in Marcel’s face. “Open your mouth.”

Marcel didn’t.

Griffin grabbed him by the back of the neck, forced his jaw open and shoved the gun into his mouth. “Suck it hard, you f*ckwad.”

He pulled the trigger.

Blood spattered the concrete behind us.

*

“Did you know that Wolfman carved words on my body?” I ran the knife over the planes of Marcel’s stomach.

“He did like to do that.” Marcel’s voice was haggard. It was late afternoon. We’d been at it for a while.

“What do you think I should write on yours?” I whispered. I let the knife slice into his skin. “Wolfman wrote his name on me. Should I carve my name into you? You want to know what it’s like to be marked, Marcel?”

*

Marcel was screaming.

Griffin’s hands were at Marcel’s crotch. He had a knife. There was a lot of blood.

“You’re not going to grow another one of those,” Griffin hissed.

*

It was dark in the cellar. We had the overhead lights on. Marcel was still tied up, but now he was a bloody mess on the floor. His eyes were closed. He was curled up, wincing away from my foot as I kicked him.

“You killed Naomi,” I was screaming at him. “You shot Griffin’s mother. You killed my baby. You did unspeakable f*cking things to Griffin.” I crunched the heel of my shoe into his nose. “There aren’t enough ways for you to die!”

He had stopped moving.

“Doll,” said Griffin, “I think you drove bone back back into his brain.”

“Oh,” I said. I looked at him. “Does that mean it’s going to take him a long time to heal?”

“Probably,” he said.

“Dammit,” I said.

*

“Please,” Marcel whispered.

Dawn was stealing into the sky.

The basement floor was drenched in blood. Some of it had dried stiff and brown. But some of it was still fresh.

It was all over me. On my hands, my clothes, my face. It smelled tangy and rusty.

“Finish it,” Marcel said. “Please finish it.”

Griffin was standing over him sneering. He had a foot on Marcel’s chest. “You have to do better than that. Beg me. Beg me to kill you.”

Marcel’s eyes were glassy and empty. “Please kill me. Please.” His voice had a tremor in it. He sounded like a little boy. It was hard to believe that the same man who’d taunted us just days ago could be so easily reduced to this—sniveling, pathetic, weak.

I laughed at him. “Who owns who, Marcel?”

“You own me,” he groaned. “I’m nothing. Please, for God’s sake, end it for good. I can’t take it anymore.”

Light from the window, from the early morning, illuminated Griffin.

He was spattered with blood, brandishing a long, wicked blade. He was smiling like a jackal.

I swallowed.

Suddenly, I felt sick.

“You do belong to me, Marcel,” Griffin said. “And if I want to play with you for longer—”

“No,” I said. “Just kill him.”

My stomach clenched on itself.

I ran up the steps, heaving.

I vomited on the porch, over the railing. The sun was coming up in the distance. The sky was splintered with beautiful streaks of purple and pink. I gazed at it, still feeling ill.

I looked at my red-stained hands.

I started to shake.

I stood there, watching the sun rise, trembling, clutching the railing so tightly that my knuckles turned white.

Eventually, I heard Griffin coming up the steps.

“Is it done?” I said, not looking at him.

He came up behind me, running his hands over my shoulders. “It’s done.”





Chapter Sixteen


But it wasn’t done, not really, because we had to bury the bodies. We found sheets in Naomi’s closet to wrap the bodies in. I was glad to wrap up Marcel. I didn’t want to look at him again. I didn’t want reminders of what we’d done to him. He looked small, somehow, lying on that sheet. He was a big, muscled man, but he was naked and bloody and dead, and he didn’t look particularly threatening anymore. Then there was the fact that we had to gather up the... pieces of him. We’d taken some fingers and a few toes. Of course, Griffin had cut off Marcel’s...