Page 291 of Heart of Frost and Scars

Seventy-five cuts for each of us.

We don’t hesitate. We don’t flinch. We sink our knives into Rhett’s flesh with excruciating slowness, dragging our blades across his skin, savoring every moment, every drop of blood that spills from the wounds.

We cut in tandem, extending his suffering, each slice going deeper and twisting harder than the last.

I make my incisions with a hacksaw motion, splitting skin and severing tendons.

Monty sticks him with plunging stabs, slow and methodical, pushing hard on his handle until he hits bone.

Kody focuses on the genitals. After cutting away the clothing, he castrates Rhett in pieces, taking his time, shortening Rhett’s flaccid penis one slice at a time. Then he works on the balls, piercing them like pin cushions.

Wolf is just as diabolical. He wields the fillet knife as designed, cutting thin slices of fragile meat. He flays Rhett’s flesh, peeling him with precision, layer by layer, and collects the pieces in a neat pile.

“You’re not keeping that, Buffalo Bill.” I meet his eyes.

“Tell that to Lorena Bobbitt over there.” He points his knife at Kody.

Then he goes back to cutting and counting.

Rhett writhes in pain, his vocal cords blown as he stares at us, trying to reach out with his good hand, grasping at nothing.

Begging is futile.

There’s no mercy to be found in the faces of those he wronged.

There’s no escape.

His screams ebb into whimpers, his body shaking with the effort to cling to life. But there’s no life left in him. Just pain. Just terror. Just the cold, hard truth that he’ll die here, in the place where he thought he could overpower us.

The relief that brings me borders on ecstasy.

As we near the three-hundredth cut, Rhett’s breaths huff in wet, gurgling gasps, his chest heaving with the effort to stay alive. He won’t live for long.

He’s bleeding out, his body a mangled mess of wounds as he chokes on his blood, trying to speak.

No sound comes.

“The final cut.” Monty meets Wolf’s stare. “It’s yours.”

Wolf leans over Rhett, his hand gripping the handle of the fillet knife as he sinks it into Rhett’s chest one last time, slowly, deliberately. The seconds tick by, and he continues to push that blade, millimeter by millimeter, while staring into Rhett’s eyes.

Rhett jerks, a final spasm, before falling still. His eyes stare up at the stars, but there’s nothing left in them.

We sit back and catch our breath.

There’s no triumph. No joy. Just the knowledge that we did what we came here to do.

We leave his remains for the wolves, knowing they’ll finish the job. Enough blood spilled in these hills tonight. It won’t take them long to find us.

Backing far enough away, we wait.

Within the hour, the wolves fall upon the pieces of his body, their howls echoing through the hills.

A fitting end for a man who thought he could kill us.

I turn to my brothers, Wolf, Kody, and Monty, and see darkness in their eyes, the same primal violence that burns in me.

We crossed a line tonight, became something else, something more than human. But we did it together, and we’ll carry this with us, this bond, this blood, for the rest of our lives.

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