Page 40 of Marked

His sniffling turns to laughing.

“Just kill me.” He shakes his head. “I’m not telling you anything. You don’t understand. You can get rid of me, but it won’t matter.”

“Why? Why won’t it matter?” I ask, panicked he’s not going to give us any information. And we’ll be no better off than yesterday.

Zack plunges the knife into his uninjured thigh, and Artie goes back to howling. Blood drips from his legs onto the plastic below.

“Who do you work for other than Laurens? Who else was there? Why were we picked?” I blurt out my questions, seeing how pale he’s getting from the blood loss.

If Zack hit a major artery, Artie will pass out soon.

Artie stares at me for a long moment.

“You don’t know how you got picked?” he asks with a twisted grin. “It wasn’t random, I’ll tell you that.” He licks his teeth. “You were there on purpose.”

Anger I’ve never felt before courses through me.

“Why would you want to hurt us? Why?”

“Your mom wasn’t hurt,” he argues.

“Who else is involved?” Zack demands, pressing the knife to his neck so hard, small pearls of blood appear. “Who brought the girls to you?”

“It was someone else. It wasn’t you. Some other guys were there,” I add so he knows I remember at least that much.

He shakes his head.

Zack moves the knife to his face and jams it into his cheek, dragging it up toward his ear. Blood pours down his face as he bellows with the pain.

“Dustin!” he finally yells. “It was Dustin Hastings,” he spits the answer out when Zack brings the knife to his other cheek.

“And who else?” I push. It wasn’t just one guy. I don’t think. If the memories would just get clearer, I could be certain.

“Not positive.” He rolls his gaze downward, like he’s trying to see the tip of Zack’s blade.

“And who the fuck do you work for?” Zack asks, the tip of the blade already cutting into his skin.

“I won’t.” He clamps his mouth shut even while Zack carves this side of his face.

There’s a buzzing coming from the front pocket of Artie’s sweatshirt.

“What’s that?” Zack pulls his knife back and searches Artie’s pockets. He pulls out a cell phone as it buzzes again.

“Got another for you, you got room?” Zack reads the message on the screen and looks up at Artie. “It’s from Vince.” He shows him the screen, but Artie’s not paying much attention. He’s still whimpering from the all the cutting.

I punch him in the thigh, right on the first stab wound. “He asked you a question. Who is Vince, and what is he talking about?” I shout in his ear.

Artie blinks while looking at me through tears and sweat.Gone is the man with the wrinkled smiles and sadistic laughs. This man is sad. Pathetic. And he’s not done paying for what he’s done.

“You’re…you’re sick,” he huffs.

“Who is Vince?” I ask again, softer this time.

“He’s the guy you’re looking for. He took Dustin with him that day. I don’t know who else was there.” He rolls his head to the side.

“Who does he work for?” Zack demands. “We need more names.”

Vince.

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