Page 64 of Shadows of Justice

Magnum swaggers up to me, his soulless, single eye boring into my own. He has a punch dagger in his hand—a long one, like the head of a spear—and uses the blade to brush the hair back from my face.

“I think she has something to say,” he rasps in his thick accent.

“Well, let’s hear it!” Trismo says joyfully, pointing the bat at me.

Magnum unclips the ball gag and it falls away, followed closely by the torrent of bile that’s been threatening to choke me for ten minutes. I flex my sore stomach as hard as I can, sending its meager contents to splat onto both of these fuckers’ shoes. The strain on my body hurts, but it’s damned satisfying.

Trismo makes a sound of disgust and starts stomping his feet and rattling off angrily in Spanish. A smile curls my lips, one I also see mirrored on the American, standing off a ways and observing. Magnum’s one eye lights up, looking like a pathological kid in a candy store.

So swiftly that my blood-deprived brain needs a minute to process, he slashes the punch dagger’s blade into the skin of my thigh. The irrevocability of it is so jarring, I can’t help the scream that tears from my lips. My body wracks with tremors, the adrenaline that courses through my veins colliding with my fear in a poisonous wave of energy. The pain envelopes me and I feel sick, like I drank eight cups of coffee on an empty stomach. I would definitely puke again if there was anything left.

Magnum disappears from my field of vision, taking up a spot behind me. I can’t see him, but I can feel him there, the excitement rolling off his greasy body in sickening waves. Just knowing he’s back there with the punch dagger makes me want to curl in a ball, thoughts of it sinking into my back playing through my mind like a movie scene I can’t turn off.

Trismo’s mouth is turned down in disgust. He approaches me, black eyes like endless pits. He swings the baseball bat in a circle, the weapon making a whirring sound in the air as it passes close to me. The wood is stained in different hues of burgundy—old and new blood creating chilling artwork of sadistic violence.

He stops an inch from my face, breathing me in, unhurriedly watching me tremble. My resolved slipped, but I don’t want to gift him anymore fear. I pour every ounce of hatred into my eyes, imagining him burning to a crisp with the force of my fiery anger.

“You know why I use a baseball bat, puta?” He pushes a string of hair out of my face. “Guns, knives, they serve a purpose, but using them means that the fun is over too quickly. I’d much rather savor it.” Trismo puts the bat in between my legs, rubbing it roughly back and forth “I don’t want our time together to be over too quickly, Esmeralda.”

Sarcasm drips over my fake name on his lips. I suck in a sharp breath when he drives the bat so hard against my vagina that my vision momentarily goes white, the pain overwhelming me in a crushing grasp.

“I know you’re not a hooker, so, who are you?” Trismo asks me, steadily increasing the pressure on the bat. My vision goes spotty again, so many parts of my body screaming in pain.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I grit out, panting. Trismo grips my jaw, his finger pressing into my cheek wound.

“Oh, I really would." He smiles. "And I think you’re gonna tell me. So, why don’t you just cut the shit, and say it? You’ll feel so much better once you stop lying and just be honest.”

Ain’t that the truth.

Magnum runs the blade of his punch dagger down my back and over the plains of my ass. I clench my jaw to keep my teeth from chattering.

“You’re wasting your fucking time, asshole,” I growl, nostrils flaring.

White-hot pain slices through my skin, my back arching. I feel the warm drip of blood leak down. Magnum chose a spot to slice near my right shoulder blade this time—if I had to guess.

“Still think you don’t want to be honest?” Trismo croons. My eyelids flutter, my heaving breaths coming so fast I think I might be hyperventilating.

“I think . . .” I start, and Trismo raises his eyebrows, “I think that those teeth make you look like a fucking jack-o’-lantern.”

All is quiet in the room for a moment, and then Trismo starts laughing with that maniacal Ray Liotta laugh he has. Magnum starts snickering too, and even I laugh as well, my own sanity slipping through the cracks.

Trismo backs up a step, his mouth curled in a large grin as he regards me.

“Fine. I love it when they make it fun,” he says, raising his arms. “If you won’t tell me, that cock-smoking whore out there will, and I’ll bet I won’t even have to use my bat. She’s already being worked over with other blunt objects, if you know what I mean.”

That makes my breath catch.

Sugar.

I start to thrash against the chains again, not caring that the action rains droplets of blood down my face. “You motherfucker! Don’t fucking touch her!”

The men laugh at my fury, like I’m nothing more than an angry cat caught in a net. Trismo rears back and swings, cracking the bat against my right hip. I hear the crunch of bone and scream so loudly my throat might bleed.

“Your name!” Trismo yells in my face. “Who sent you?”

I can hardly hold up my head, my consciousness waning. I start to feel like I’m under twenty feet of water, the men’s voices distant as they speak to each other. I’m going to pass out again.

My eyes flutter shut, the velvety darkness reaching up to gather me in its arms. It feels serene, warm. Like home.

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