Page 17 of Twisted Revelations

The surprise that flashed in my expression was brief, but I’d failed to extinguish it fast enough.

“Oh!” She pointed at the bottle. “Because I’m from the hood, I’m not supposed to know my periodic symbols?”

Guilty. This was the second, maybe even third time I’d misjudged her, attempting to place her into my preconceived views.

“You’re right, but it’s not just salt. I’ve added an extra ingredient that will give his pain sensors more bang for their buck,” I informed, causing her curious brows to lift and the man to squirm.

“Microscopic sea lice,” I revealed. “When….”

She lifted her hand, cutting me off. “Did you say sea lice? As in, tiny insects that are going to get under his skin with that salt and bite the fuck out of him?”

The man started screaming “No!” repeatedly at this point. Whether it was her intention or not, her statement had the man about ready to piss himself and me biting the back of my lip to conceal the laugh that threatened to escape.

The man’s gaze was locked on me as I pointed at the bottle of liquid, loving that he appeared ready to talk now.

“When I cut him, this will burn like the devil’s holding a flame thrower set on Hell against his skin. The salty liquid and lice will eat into the opening and attack the pain sensors. It aches like a construction worker is jack-hammering his way out of your body.”

Laura’s eyes lifted from the blade in my hand and met mine. Her low tone sounded, “You’ve had this done to you.”

It was more a statement than a question, her putting together pieces I didn’t know she’d discovered. She was clever, listened well enough to pick out clues, and pieced together problems like an expert puzzle solver.

I nodded my confirmation before turning to the man and sending the blade across his abdomen, leaving his mouth wide with surprise, and his body frozen in shock. The cut wasn’t deep, but blood seeped to the surface and painted his pale skin. It presented the two-inch gashed I’d gifted him with.

The man started to wiggle like a hooked fish out of water, making the chains grumble with solid thumps. His gut-wrenching yells followed and filled the room when the burn lit up his pain sensors.

“I don’t know. I don’t know. Oh! God! Please don’t do this,” he begged.

I’d lurked around the warehouse for twenty minutes before I’d found Laura. In that time, I’d observed who was in charge, who gave the orders, and who was most likely to know the whereabouts of the big fish we were determined to catch. This man had been the lucky winner.

Another drop of liquid fell and skated across the blade, pink from the blood left behind. I delivered two more quick slashes to the man’s body. One landed across his thigh and the other opened his forearm. His yells vibrated off the plastic-covered walls as his body bucked hard enough to make the chains clink and rip the skin from his bound wrists.

Blood ran from his wrist down his arms and appeared like long rips were being formed. His pleas and yells went on for a full minute before they ceased into throaty whimpers.

I’d done this enough times to know the average person broke around number fifty, at which point their pain would lead them to believe they’d been set ablaze. It was also when the pain started to eat at your mentality and blur your thinking.

This was my preferred method of torture because, like Laura had concluded, I’d been through it. I knew every stage of the pain like I knew my own name. And so far, they’d always talked.

At cut number twenty-nine, the man pissed himself. The putrid liquid mixed with his blood and spilled to the floor, causing Laura to take a step back to keep from getting splashed. The man yelled loud enough to rattle the walls. I’d assumed his shrieking yells would touch her compassion and weaken her resolve, but I’d been wrong.

The strong scent of blood mixed with urine tightened my throat. Laura didn’t appear at all affected by the sight of the bloody man or the smells that tunneled through our nasal passages like a bulldozer.

I spun the blade backward in my hand and handed it to her. She’d been quiet, assessing, and I believed, enjoying the scene. The man’s mental abilities were breaking down faster than I had expected. The idea of lice crawling under his ripped open skin and eating into him had his mind in knots. His eyes had grown wide enough to pop from their sockets.

The plastic-covered floor, ceiling, and Laura’s coveralls were painted in splashes of blood. She wasn’t disturbed by what she witnessed, which was perplexing, but given what I’d seen of her so far, made sense.

A quick study, she approached the table, not forgetting to add a drop of liquid to the blade. She turned to the man, glaring into his eyes before lifting and holding the blade in midair. The man screamed his throat raw at the sight of the blade waiting to eat through his flesh.

He begged, but his words were wasted as his eyes bulged with terror. The blade sliced across his lower abdominals. His cries were filled with pleas for mercy, but the cut hadn’t delivered the desired effect. She’d cut him too deeply.

She stiffened at my touch but didn’t protest when I stood behind her and took her hand in mine, even as my warm breath coated her neck.

“Your cut was too deep,” I whispered. Laura had the devil in her, and she wasn’t shy about letting him out to play. She only allowed me to touch her because I’d invited her into my sick playroom.

My lips flirted with her ear this time, taking advantage of the situation. At close proximity, her scent cut through the rusted odor of blood and the ammonia stench of piss. Despite all she’d been through tonight, the smell of warm cotton candy drifted off her.

Concentrating on teaching her, I kept a firm grip on the hand she held the blade in.

“Keep the cuts near the surface, that way the liquid seeps into his pain sensors. Go too deep, it’ll hurt, but not enough to make him talk,” I pointed out.

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