Page 85 of His Favorite Color is Blood
Zero was touching him, and Misha was helpless to stop him from doing so. He couldn’t even move as those invading fingers slowly stripped away all the dignity he had regained throughout the last few weeks.
“I missed you,” whispered Zero, and his voice sounded oddly intimate, almost like a confession, “You suffered so beautifully for me.”
Misha choked on a sob and wouldn’t look up, but it didn’t seem it was required from him.
The movie started.
In the cool glow of the car’s headlights, Tomas was hanging head down like a pig ready for slaughter. Misha was there too, facing away from the camera, unyielding to the man’s protests. It was almost as if the disabled man in the wheelchair were a stranger Misha couldn’t recognize, and the disguise Grim had forced on him back then only fueled this lack of connection between the Misha from a few days ago and the cringing, scared maggot that he was reduced to now.
When Grim faced the camera for the first time, Zero’s fingernails dug into Misha’s stump, making him tense from the sudden pain. “I can see you think you’re the new Lady Godiva. But I can’t say you didn’t honor our agreement either,” he said without much emotion to his voice.
“I couldn’t be Logan as I did that,” answered Grim from much too far away for Misha’s liking.
Back then, Misha managed to watch the torture without much emotion. He’d believed Tomas’s death was justified. The man was a pervert who escaped the law, and sacrificing his life to save an innocent was the least he could do. But now, watching all the blood and listening to the cries was like a barbaric spectacle Misha didn’t want to have any part in. With a hot, intruding hand roughly fondling Misha’s stump as he struggled against tears, he realized he saw too much Zero in Grim’s actions in the video. He too was covered in blood, and even if he didn’t get hard from inflicting the torture, watching Grim’s usually loving hands taking a life with little to no remorse was a sickening experience. By the time the film ended, Misha was a shivering mess.
The silence that followed was like a void that sucked in all emotions that remained in the sane part of Misha’s brain. Zero let go of his stump and clapped. He stood up and removed the flash drive from the slot before closing thecomputer. The screenshot disappeared from the wall, and Zero leaned against the windowsill, looking over Misha’s head, as if Misha had outlived his usefulness to him already.
“You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”
“What do you think?” asked Grim, and this time, Zero didn’t make any demands and only nodded in acknowledgment. Both the goons walked over to the door they all earlier entered through, but the men still pointed their rifles at Grim, as if he were a bloodthirsty lion that needed to be put down if necessary. Misha’s heart skipped a beat. Was this the end?
He shuddered when Zero looked at him again, but then, the man who haunted Misha in his darkest nightmares casually left his side and walked across the ballroom to join his men at the door.
“I’m impressed. It’s not often that someone outsmarts me. Other than at the card table. I’m a terrible gambler,” Zero said with a sharp laugh. T4 opened the door for him while the other goon stood there motionless, ready to pierce them all with bullets at his master’s command.
Misha took a deep breath, completely lost. They were getting out of this alive? It only then occurred to him that no matter what he was telling himself, he only came here because of guilt. His body never trusted Zero’s promises. It never believed they would see the light of the next day. He relaxed into the chair, boneless after the endless minutes of crippling anxiety that had gnawed at him since the phone call.
Grim stood where Misha had last seen him, hands in his pockets, face focused but not too tense. Had he somehow known all along that Zero would keep his word?
Dennis’s muffled cry tore Misha’s attention away from the door, and he looked at the young man shivering on the wiggly chair, his wide-eyed gaze tearing through Zero like sharp spikes. Misha opened his mouth to comfort him, but breath froze in his lungs when a ray of light caught a glimmering line that stretched in the air, ripping the chair from under Dennis’s feet just as the door closed behind Zero with a loud bang that was followed by a rattle of metal.
Misha’s body shot roots into the floor as Dennis first fell and then rapidly stirred in the air, swinging on the thick rope like a wild rabbit desperate to get away from the leg-hold trap. His shoulders went up, and all the tendons and veins in his neck pressed against the skin as he frantically wiggled his legs over the floor.In his wide eyes, Misha saw the certainty of impending doom that was so visceral that he couldn’t bring himself to move.
Grim screamed and rushed over, grabbing Dennis around the thighs and lifted him up, easing the hold the noose had on Dennis’s neck. “Misha, come here!” he shouted.
It was as if the glass bubble that grew ever thicker around Misha was smashed by this one sentence. He wheeled over and pushed his lap underneath Dennis’s feet, bumping one of the wheels against Grim’s leg.
Misha tightened the wheel brakes and looked up with heat spreading in his face again. “Put him on the seat and go. I’ll help Dennis untie his hands. If you don’t get him now, you never will.”
Misha listened to his own ragged breathing as he looked up into Grim’s eyes, which flashed with understanding. That must have been his actual goal behind following Zero’s instructions, and now that Zero took the incriminating footage, Grim had no time to lose. “Please, go. I’ll take care of it.”
Grim exhaled and pushed Dennis at Misha, who grabbed the tense ankles and placed them on both sides of his thighs. Dennis’s hands were pale under the tight knot of rope around his wrists, but it wasn’t something Misha couldn’t handle.
As soon as Dennis was stable, Grim ducked and reached underneath the seat of Misha’s wheelchair. Misha twitched when something moved beneath his ass, but when Grim’s hands emerged with two serrated blades, he gaped at him, unable to comprehend what just happened.
“They had been there the whole time?”
Grim winked at Misha and touched the blades against each other as his eyes lit up. “I’m gonna bring you his head,” he whispered before darting toward the other doorway at one end of the ballroom, which was still open.
Misha took a deep breath, holding on to Dennis’s trembling calves as he followed Grim with his gaze until he disappeared from sight. His heart thumped with excitement and fear, but with the battered, naked body in his hands, there were different priorities. He could reach Dennis’s hands without changing his position, and he dug his thumbs into the rope, intent on freeing him as quickly as possible. As soon as Dennis managed to pull out one hand, he grabbed the noose, yanked it off his neck, then stumbled forward, and rolled onto the floor, shuddering as his stiffened fingers pulled at the makeshift gag. He whimpered when the tape tore off his skin, and he curled up, frantically massaging his wrists.
Misha’s stomach turned, and he unlocked his wheels, moving over. “I’m so sorry. We’re gonna take you to a safe place. You’ll see a doctor.”
Dennis’s eyes turned toward him, haunted by things Misha could imagine all too well.
“I know,” Misha whispered and shuddered when his voice echoed across the empty room. “He did it to me, too.”
Dennis looked away, curling up in an attempt to hide his nakedness. Misha quickly pulled off his hoodie and offered it in his outstretched hand. Dennis hesitated, but then abruptly tore the garment out of Misha’s grasp and pulled it on. Misha didn’t even hesitate and offered him the sweatpants as well, as he wore boxer shorts underneath anyway. Dennis pulled them on, turning his face away from Misha.
