Page 15 of Savior

“Why does Saint want me alive then?”

He walked around me in a slow circle, eyeing my body like a slab of beef. Having spent decades dealing in torture, I knew what he was going for even before he did. With an amused grin, he plucked the cigar from his lips and stabbed it out against the festering wound on my chest. Instead of jerking away, I leaned into the pain, letting the burn work its way down under my damaged skin, keeping me focused.

“You’re the key, Grey. Without you, there’s no war, and you go down like a fucking hero. It brings me back to my original point—nobody wants to fight anymore. Even Saint leaves the dirty work to everyone else. It’s up to men like us to convince them to change their minds. They just need a cause.” He pulled on the rope until my toes skimmed the ground, and regretfully stated, “It’s gonna hurt.”

I clenched my jaw and nodded. “Alright, let it hurt.”

The pulleys creaked and groaned as he jerked the rope, the chains around my wrists stretching until they were taut. I’d been so preoccupied with what had been around my throat that I’d momentarily forgotten the arms shackled to the floor. He wasn’t going to hang me; he was going to tear me in two.

My shoulders screamed in agony, momentarily distracting me from the rope compressing my jugular.

It didn’t last.

Desperate for air, I began kicking my legs wildly, struggling to find something to hold my weight—anything that would relieve the pressure around my neck. My jeans grew warm with piss, but I was too far gone to care. A healing wound on my chest began to tear with the jerky movements, sending fresh streams of blood down my body. Involuntarily, I jerked my legs again, knowing I was only making things worse.

Cobra’s mouth widened into another grin as he gave one last vicious tug, and my right shoulder popped. The excruciating pain sent everything into darkness just as I opened my mouth to scream.

Chapter Three

Mike

“Fred, when’d the other guy show up?” I mumbled, waving my hand toward the back of the bar. I should’ve been sitting in my office, fighting to break Grey’s case. Instead, my ass had gone numb, sitting on a barstool watching basketball highlights.

I didn’t give a fuck about basketball.

I’d been trying to shoot the shit with the old bartender, Fred, but it turned out he wasn’t much of a talker. He preferred to work himself to the bone slinging drinks, over visiting with the lonely guy in the suit.

“Who the fuck are you talkin’ about, boy?” He snapped. “Ain’t no one back here but me. Ain’t no one been here but me.”

I looked up with a grin, my fingers tracing around a heart that had been carved into the battered bar top. “You got me, Fred. That was a good one. I like you a lot, you know that?”

“Drunk as a fuckin’ skunk and it ain’t even five o’clock,” he grumbled before slapping a wet rag against the scarred wood. “That’s what’s wrong with the fuckin’ world today.”

“It’s five o’clock somewhere,” I sang off-key. “Okay, buddy, I gotta take a piss. Watch my tequila, would you?”

I slid off the stool and stumbled toward the back, fighting to remain upright. “Fred, my man, you gotta get someone out here to take a look at your floors. They’re slanted as fuck.”

“Floors are fine, dickhead.”

“Good talk.” I lifted my foot about three inches off the ground before slowly bringing it back down. The wooden planks sloped up like mountaintops in some areas but dipped like valleys in others. It was like climbing and descending Everest just to get to the men’s room.

After relieving myself, I washed up at the sink, keeping my head down. I didn’t need to see the man in the mirror; didn’t need to be reminded of what an epic fuck-up he was.

I pulled the small plastic bag from my pocket and studied the white powder, my mouth already watering at the thought of taking a hit. It was the evidence that never made it into the station during a drug bust last month. Something they’d never known was missing.

The addiction I’d rewarded myself with after a less than banner start to the year.

“Don’t do it,” I warned myself while turning it over in my shaking hands.

I’d bitten my nails down to stubs, the skin around them cracked and bleeding. I forced my eyes up toward my reflection, seeing the wreck I’d become. I shouldn’t have been surprised by the day’s events. My greasy hair hung down past my ears, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been to see my barber. I slowly ran a hand over the coarse hairs of my beard, staring at my blue eyes until I no longer saw myself, but my old man.

Grey.

The urge to pick up the phone and call him was overwhelming; almost as strong as my need to medicate. There was so much left unsaid between us, and while he’d fucked off to god knows where, I was left to wonder what he’d meant by addiction running in our family.

I was stuck with the responsibility of fixing the mess he made yet had no way of knowing how to resist the urge to use again. It must’ve been nice to just leave your problems behind for your family to sort out while you disappeared.

Proving that Red had a sixth sense when it came to me, my phone chimed with an incoming text.

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