Page 90 of There is No Devil

He’s watching the screen with exactly the same expression as before, hands clasped loosely in front of him.

I can’t believe those are the same hands that wielded those bolt cutters just … just how long ago, exactly?

“When did you do this?” I whisper.

“Last night. While you were asleep,” he replies.

My mouth falls open. I understand now why he booked that morning show for me—it seemed to come out of nowhere, but I’m sure he pulled the strings behind the scenes.

“Was Randall in Burbank?”

“Close by.” Cole nods.

I’m pulled back to the screen by a fresh round of cursing and screaming from Randall. He was only able to hobble back into position for a moment before falling over again. This time he loses his left thumb.

“Fuck,” I cry, covering my face with my hands. “How long does this go on?”

Cole checks the time ticking away on the video.

“Looks like twenty-two more minutes.”

“Oh my god.”

I don’t think I can watch this.

“Did you kill him?” I ask Cole.

“Of course I did.”

My heart races, the underarms of my shirt soaked in cold sweat. I can’t believe I’m watching this. I can’t believe I’m participating.

I had come to terms with the idea that Shaw had to die, but this is something else entirely. Randall wasn’t a threat to me. This is nothing but revenge.

More screams. Another finger gone.

“Why did you do this?” I ask Cole.

“I told you,” Cole says, his black eyes fixed on mine. “I need to prepare you. You think you know what it means to set yourself against another person. To lure them, to hunt them, to overpower them, and take their life. But you don’t know. You don’t know how they’ll beg and plead. How they’ll do anything to survive. How they’ll stick a knife in your eye the moment you lose focus, the moment you even think about offering mercy.”

Randall is begging and pleading. He alternates between cursing at Cole, thrashing around, trying to escape his bonds, then sobbing and sniveling, offering money, secrets, anything and everything he can think of to save himself.

“What do you want?” he howls. “What do you want?”

The Cole on the screen looks down at Randall: an avenging angel, dark and pitiless.

“I want you to give Mara her childhood back.”

“FUCK Mara!” Randall snarls. “Fuck that little bitch and fuck her mother and fuck YOU! She deserved everything she got. I hope she fucking rots in hell!”

“Wrong answer,” the Cole on the screen says.

What follows is a bloodbath.

I stare and stare, all feeling draining from my body. All emotion, too. I become strangely calm, my head floating above my shoulders, my body a block of ice below.

I watch Cole murder Randall slowly, brutally, with obvious pleasure.

I watch my vengeance unfold in front of me.

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