Page 7 of Ripple Effect, Vol. 4

An ache throbs in my chest—one that both angers and intrigues me.

I don’t like seeing her hurt.

Leaning forward, I kiss the split in her lip and lick the salty blood from her cut. Eyes riveted on her, I carry her out of the room and down the stairs with her body curled into my chest. Small and delicate. Fragile. And yet, she isn’t.

“Rip,” she mumbles with a slur, “M’sorry. N’my fault.”

Probably thinks I’m mad about the drugs.

Once outside, I cross over to my car and slide her into the back seat, careful not to disturb her wounds. Her eyes are drowsy, heavy, and I stroke her hair to bring her attention back to me.

“Stay put. I’ll be right back.”

“Rip … Th’hurt me.”

“Don’t you worry. They won’t ever touch you again. I’m going to take care of everything. You’re safe. Dylan. Go to sleep.”

She gives a nod and slips back into an almost comatose state.

Inside the bed of the trunk, I set down a clear plastic tarp and grab a large red gas can, hauling it across the street. I stalk back inside the house, up to the bedroom and nab my supplies, filling the bag. I’d already removed the bits of flesh and washed the tools I used on Enzo, pouring bleach over the metal prongs of the wood plank.

Across the carpeting and floor, I dump the gas, entering the bathroom where I dump the rest of it all over Enzo’s mutilated body.

A panicked moan escapes Randy as I approach. He’s fallen in and out of consciousness over the course of the last few hours. Some time during Enzo’s torture, he’d awakened, making slurred, animalistic sounds as he watched, unable to move a single muscle. Drool seeps out of his mouth, trickling down his cheek and he falls back into unconsciousness.

Crouched over him, I smack his face around. “Gotta take my girl home, get her cleaned up.” I light up a cigarette and blow the smoke in his face, before shoving it back into my mouth. “Wash your fucking filth from her body. So I’m going to take you to my favorite place, and we’ll pick this up later.”

I unlock the chain binding him to the radiator, hoist his limp body over my shoulder and stand outside the bedroom. One last drag of the smoke and I flick it into the room where it catches the fuel and, within seconds, flames follow the trail to the bathroom.

Carrying Randy out of the burning house, I smile with satisfaction on the way to the car. Not every day a man gets to wipe out a major player in the game.

So long, Rook.

* * *

The building where I keep Randy is nothing special, but it’s secluded, boarded up, and the basement is the perfect place to carry out my work. If I could bring every target back here, it’d eliminate the headache of evidence. I fasten Randy to a table where a large vise clamp sits at the end of it, and secure him, cranking it just enough to hold him in place.

He’s conscious now, eyes wide, already pissed himself once.

A day or two and he’ll have reached the crazed stage, screaming into the black nothingness for hours.

He’ll realize I’m not fucking around.

I leave him there on the table and exit the basement, making my way out of the building to the car where Dylan shivers, asleep in the back seat.

Cranking the heat, I steer the car out of the empty lot and head back to my place.

Taking her home.

7

Dylan

My head throbs, pounding against my skull in an unrelenting beat of agony, and over the sound of blood pulsing in my ear, Rook’s voice echoes inside my mind.

You want this, baby girl? Huh? Wanna see how this feels first? Wanna get fucked with pliers?

I suck in a sharp breath at the same time my eyes flip open.