Page 16 of Deviants
He sliced into the woman’s arms, wrists, feet, and chest. I quickly realized the goal was to remove the skin in as few pieces as possible.
Crimson rained down to the ground like a steady waterfall. The sound of dripping blood coupled with him slowly peeling flesh reminded me of snapping Velcro and rain boots jumping in mud puddles.
The visual oddly reminded me of someone having their clothes taken off. My stomach churned, and my throat painfully tightened, but I couldn’t look away.
If the purple haired woman weren’t already damn near dead, she would be completely gone in a few minutes. Perhaps that was a good thing. A lethal infection orexsanguinationwould kill her far quicker than hanging upside down would have.
When he was done with her, he moved on to the brunette.
The leather gloves he’d pulled on were a dark shade of maroon, and so slippery they squelched every time his fingers flexed.
Maybe I should have tried to thwart his attention so he’d focus on me. Maybe that would have miraculously spared his next target.
I didn’t.
I was never the hero. I was always the villain. I was selfish and unashamedly stingy when it came to self-preservation.
The knowledge that I could potentially have my own bump soon meant a fuck load more to me than either of these unfortunate strangers being flayed alive.
I wasn’t afraid of death but I wasn’t quite ready to accept her loving embrace. I wanted to live. I’d never gotten the chance to do that yet. With that in mind, I knew I was going to get out of this. I didn’t know how, but I would. I had to.
The man continued with his work, humming to the beat of a heavy metal song blasting through his ear-buds loud enough for me to hear. Black Sabbath?Seriously? It was almost comical.
I watched him skillfully maneuver around the chains and wondered how many times he’d done this. He didn’t so much as bat an eyelid when he had to lift the section of skin that covered the bump.
“Jesus Christ.” I shut my eyes and looked away, unable to watch, wishing I had something to block out the sound.
“Ugh, fuck.” My eyes flew open when something wet touched my legs. Her blood seemed to gravitate towards right where I was sitting. I hurriedly crab walked further, not stopping until the chains around my wrists reached their limit.
I hoped that she couldn’t feel any of this, that her nervous system was screaming for help and misfiring so many different warnings that her body was shutting down.
I wisely kept my smart ass mouth shut for once, not wanting to draw any more attention to me than necessary. If I were a normal woman, I would have been a hysterical mess and projectile vomiting all over myself.
I wasn’t, though, and I was really happy about that right then. Falling apart was the last thing I needed to do.
Fortunately, he sped through the rest of the process and walked off with his wheelbarrow full of bloody flesh, only acknowledging me with a slight nod.
His process had been so different from the cannibals. Why did he only take the skin? Were there people who only ate human flesh? I found that more disturbing than broiling someone’s arm.
When empty silence descended, I found myself studying the carcasses beside me, doing my best to avoid the brunette’s torso for obvious reasons.
It was morbidly educational to see tendons and muscle mass exposed. They looked like large slabs of raw meat left out to dry. The smell was an entirely different story. It was like cheap perfume had been dabbed on a rotten piece of beef.
The steady blood flow eventually turned into a light trickle, and then a drip.
I eventually had no choice but to shimmy my pants down to urinate on the ground or risk pissing myself. There was nothing I could do about my growling stomach.
No one else came by.
Day turned to night, and I was left alone.
CHAPTER NINE
Every time I shut my eyes and managed to sleep, he was there waiting for me. This time was no different, even when my dozing off wasn’t intentional.
He knelt right in front of me, his onyx eyes boring straight into mine, searing right into the tar black soul that exclusively belonged to him.
His infuriating as hell signature smirk was in place, and made my heart beat off kilter. One look in his jaded eyes made me want to forgive everything.
