Page 6 of Cinder
We’re in a junkyard on the outskirts of town. Just the two of us. The air is heavy with the stink of rust, old motor oil, and decay. The night lit by a full moon casting an eerie silvery light over the rusty skeletons of forgotten cars piled two-stories high. The night is still. No crickets. No wind. Just the occasional drip of dew sliding down the old wrecks and onto the sodden ground.
In front of me is a man chained to an old chair, his shirt covered in sweat and blood, his pants soaked with piss. Blood drips from his bruised and broken face. One eye isswollen closed. The other filled with blood from the open wound through his eyebrow that sends a steady stream of the crimson stuff over the ridge of his eye socket and down his face. His nose is sideways, his teeth broken. All gruesome wounds but not fatal. They’re not going to kill him.Iam going to kill him. But not until he gives me what I want. A location. Specifically, where he buried her.
“This is not going to get any easier,” I warn him.
He looks up through his one eye. He’s exhausted. But he’s not ready to give in.
But what do I expect from a piece of shit who likes to hurt women. No, not women.Girls. Because his victims were only sixteen.Kids. Two of them.
The thought sends another bolt of rage through me, and I drive my fist into his broken cheek bone.
Six months ago, Eugene picked up Carina and Beth, two sixteen-year-olds who were hitchhiking to an out-of-town party. It took them two weeks to find Carina’s body buried in a shallow grave two counties over. But Beth’s remains haven’t been found.
Eugene was arrested. The evidence was strong. CCTV footage captured him picking up the girls in his truck. Other forensic evidence says there is no doubt he did it. But an error in the chain of custody saw him get off on a technicality, and he walked free.
The justice system can’t do anything.
The police can’t do anything.
Lawyers can’t do anything.
But the Knights of St. Boniface sure as fuck can do something.
I asked Beast to let me do this one alone.
Because I like to spend time with my prey.
Like to fuck with them a little.
Like to make it that much more terrifying by letting them know they are alone with a man who feels his Viking roots to the core and isn’t afraid to channel his forefathers’ penchant for gruesome executions.
“Now, I’m going to ask again. Where is Beth?”
Eugene smiles. It’s a cold, smug, bloody smile of broken teeth and defiance, and the darkness inside of me smiles back.
Because that same darkness knows it’s time to come out and play.
I pick up the sledgehammer leaning against an old wreck and stand in front of the pathetic asshole.
The asshole’s smile fades real quick.
“I’m not going to lie, Eugene. This is going to hurt.”
Hauling the sledgehammer up in the air, I bring it down on his hand and it flattens like a pancake. Bone and blood and skin become one meaty mess, like a homemade hamburger patty at the end of his wrist. Eugene howls like a baby. But I’m not finished with him. I bring the sledgehammer down on his hand once again, because I saw Carina’s crime scenephotos and I can’t get the vision of the dead girl out of my head. This time Eugene vomits on himself.
I drop the sledgehammer and lean down, screwing my nose up at the smell of piss and vomit.
“I’m going to remind you that you have two hands before I ask you one last time. Where is Beth?”
His silence tells me he mustn’t value the use of either hand, because now I’m going to take it too.
I straighten and lift the sledgehammer.
“O-okay…o-kay…” he splutters.
“Okay, okay, what?”
“I-I’ll tell you where she is.”
