Page 18 of Twisted Revelations

“Okay,” she replied, her gaze fixed on the begging man. She added another drop to the blade, and like before, she moved leisurely. When she sliced him this time, the blade raced across his chest. It ripped straight through his right nipple, slicing it in half. Even after she’d pulled the blade back, his skin continued to rip, the bottom half of his nipple falling away from the top.

I placed my mouth over her ear to speak over the piercing sound of the man’s yells. “Do you see the distress rolling through his body?” She nodded. “He’s breaking. A few more like that and he’s going to give us an answer to at least one of my questions.”

When she sent the blade up his jaw, slicing from the corner of his open lips, it exposed the inside of his mouth and flashed us a snapshot of his molars. The man’s screams turned into a high pitched squeal, his open mouth stretching the ripped apart skin. The gruesome cut caused my brow to lift as I glared at Laura unblinkingly. She stared up into the man’s eyes, blade steady in her hand as she waited for answers.

After Laura had delivered two of the most brutal slashes the man had received, the words, “Greenbrier Hotel,” fumbled across his trembling lips and hissed from the opening in the side of his jaw.

His terrified gaze was locked on Laura, no doubt seeing the devil. When she made a slight movement, he flinched before his hoarse voice broke free. “No-no…no others after the women. Sa-Sa-Santino frequents The Greenbrier Hotel. He’s a-a silent p-partner. It’s where he gathers for meetings and sometimes stays.”

“Answer the other questions,” I urged, my severe tone pausing his sniveling cries. His sluggish gaze remained on my deadly one. He wanted to skirt the other questions because he’d given us the hotel.

“Make the cuts more frequent. If I don’t hear what I need, start going deeper so that he will bleed to death,” I instructed.

“Okay,” Laura responded, not concerned she was about to kill this man.

Hanging on to the edge of life and death, the man’s body was a map of cuts we’d dispensed. Blood had rained onto the plastic below him and formed a pool at his feet. My suit had been destroyed, but it was worth it.

With his blood running on empty and his body shivering with cold, the man started to whisper out something that sounded different from his shrill yelling.

He fought to spit his words past his trembling lips, unaware that he was sitting at death’s doorstep. Without a blood transfusion in the next few minutes, his survival was a pipe dream. However, we had to leave him with hope to keep him talking. The fact that Laura understood as much impressed me.

“1236 Halo Heights,” he repeated, his brain stuck on the words and numbers. After a full minute of him repeating the same address, his body started to convulse, fighting to keep his last bit of life’s energy. “Lu-lu-lu, Sa-sa-San,” he attempted before his tense body jerked against the chains, his tortured flesh oozing the last of his fresh blood that would stop when his heart gave up the fight.

Too far gone to answer my remaining questions, Laura and I stood in place until the man went silent and still. The light in his eyes dimmed as his mouth went slack. His eyebrows fluttered before they dropped and left a portion of white peeking. I took the bloody scalpel from Laura’s hand and placed it on the table before I returned to a position beside her.

“Perfect,” I complimented before I brushed my lips across her smooth brown cheek.

She lurched back like she’d been scalded, slapping at her cheek to knock my peck from her satiny skin. My lips twitched as I attempted to restrain a laugh. Her palm remained against her cheek when she spun to face me, aiming her head so I’d noticed the seriousness in her stern glint.

“The next time you put your lips anywhere near me, you will be picking them up from the floor,” she threatened. “If your twisted mind thinks there’s perfection in death, you’re half past crazy.”

I took her threat and comment about my state of mind with a smile. She stood glaring at me, holding her cheek for a long moment before she relaxed and allowed silence to fill the space once more.

“Now what?” She glanced at me expectantly before returning her attention to the dead man before us.

“You helped me kill him,” I pointed out. “Now, you get to help me dispose of him.”

Again, I expected resistance, disgust perhaps, anything that revealed her compassion, but Laura gave none. She was as broken as me, and I doubted compassion surfaced in her often, if at all.

“Were there really sea lice in that salt water?”

Glaring at her, I couldn’t help a smile. Her acute sense of awareness and inquisitive nature served her well.

“No. There was only salt. It would burn badly enough he’d think something was biting him.”

She was not at all what I had expected, proving my first impression of her wasn’t an accurate one. She caught me staring again.

“I know what that look means, Richie Rich,” she stated side-eyeing me. “Don’t make this situation any weirder than it already is. I’m in love with the sweet taste of pussy and will never cross over to your side of the fence.”

My ego refused to let her have the last word. “First, I don’t believe in never and neither should you. And for the record, Laura, you couldn’t handle me if I texted you instructions.”

My lips twitched with a satisfied smile as I turned to face the body, loving the dumbstruck look my words put on her sassy face.

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