Page 261 of The Night Shift
I tilt my head. “What was that?”
“I — I didn’t do anything,” he stammers. “Please, stop — I swear I didn’t —”
I slap him. Hard. His head snaps sideways, and Theo lets out a low, amused laugh behind me.
I reach into my jacket and pull out a photo. “You remember her?” I ask, holding it up.
It takes a second. He’s dazed and bleeding, but eventually the recognition hits. The guilt. The fear. He goes pale.
“Yeah. You remember her.” I slide the photo of Audrey back into my pocket. “You and your now dead friends did some very bad things to her.”
He is shaking.
“No denial. That’s good. Now be better and beg me to kill you.”
He starts crying harder. “W-who…who are you?”
Theo cuts in, voice low and lethal. “Don’t fucking question her. Just do it.”
“If I were you, I’d listen to him.” I lean in closer. “Because I can make it quick. Or I can make it so much worse. The choice is up to you.”
He starts screaming for help and —Jesus Christ. Do men havezerosurvival skills? Ugh. My ears are ringing.
“Theo?” I call sweetly.
“Yes, darling?”
“Let’s get this over with.”
Theo doesn’t hesitate.
Confusion flashes across Spencer’s face. Poor bastard. I hold out his left arm and pierce my scalpel straight through his wrist into the rotting floorboards. He shrieks, a wet, animal sound, and blood pours down his forearm.
Before he can recover, I offer his right hand and look up at Theo.
He winks at me and stomps down — heel first — on the guy’s fingers. There’s a crunch.
A scream so loud it cuts into the night.
Theo twists. Harder. Another crack. Another scream, fractured and raw.
“Please, stop!” he sobs. “Please!”
“Begme to kill you.”
Theo grinds his heel deeper.
Crunch.
“Fuck! Fuck, please! Please stop!”
I shake my head, disappointed. “So weak. No fun.”
Theo presses down with even more force. “Begbetter,you son of a bitch. She’s not having fun.”
Shawn is barely coherent now. Sobbing, bleeding out from his left wrist, delirious from pain in the right. Eyes fluttering. Breath stuttering.
I trace my hand over Theo’s leg, gently. “It’s okay. You can let go now.”
