Page 15 of Dark Side of the Cloth (The Righteous 1)
Dean had seen the strength of one’s soul repeatedly while overseas. It was only truly exposed when facing death. The experience would either bring out the best or the worst in a person. The way to discover this was to stare someone in the eyes as you took their life. For starters, most people were cowards. It didn’t matter how tall or short, how skinny or fat, what race or religion, or even what gender they were—most people were pathetic.
“What the fuck?” Tim yelled as Dean tossed him into the deep hole. The asshole had slept the entire trip, but it was just as well. He would’ve been tempted to pull over and kill him prematurely if he’d had to listen to an hour of begging.
“No, no, please don’t do this!”
Dean pretended to ignore Tim’s pleading. The weak ones always begged, and in the begging, he always found his opening to extract more information. He just had to listen and wait for the right moment.
“Father, you’re a man of God, a man of the cloth. You’re supposed to forgive me. You’re supposed to be my voice to the Lord. I came to you in good faith that you’d help me, and you promised he would forgive me!”
Dean tossed in another shovel full of dirt and leaned on the handle of the pointed spade as the pungent scent of ammonia invaded Dean’s nostrils. For just a moment, he fantasized about what it would feel like to slice through the man’s throat with the sharp end of the shovel. Would his eyes go wide? Would he clutch at his throat as his life left his body? A shiver of pleasure raced through his system at the thought.
Dean sighed.
“In your current predicament, this information is going to come as a shock, but I’m no priest, and there is no God.” Dean paused to let that sink in for a moment. “However, I have been appointed to be your judge, jury, and tonight, your executioner.”
“You’re not a priest?” Tim stuttered and then began to roll back and forth violently, trying to pull free of the bindings. The plastic of the shower curtain he was still wrapped in made an irritating, crinkling noise as Dean watched the insect wiggle in his web. The bindings were designed to tighten during a struggle, leaving them impossible to escape, but it was always amusing to watch someone try. Dean knelt at the edge of the grave.
“Tell me something.” Tim’s fearful eyes swung up to him. “How does it feel to be the prey and not the predator?” Dean took a deep breath of the cold night air, releasing it into the darkness. “You see, for me, I feel rejuvenated, I feel alive, I feel like I’m exactly where I was always meant to be.”
Dark eyes just stared back at Dean. For a moment, he thought the man had stopped breathing. He was so utterly still.
“Come now. You might as well tell me what it’s like for you. I’m genuinely interested.” He pointedly looked around at the deep dirt prison. “It’s not like you’re going anywhere.”
“Please, please, I promise to change. I promise to get help. I swear to—”
“God? I already told you there is no God. Besides, I saw what you did to the cats in the scrapyard. If you want me to believe that you can change, then you’ll have to do better than that.”
“What do you want me to say? I’ll say anything. I’ll do anything.” Tim wiggled a little closer.
“Alright, let’s make a deal. You tell me what drove you to do the things you’ve done, and I will consider your plea. Remember, I get the final say on whether you live tonight.” He had no intentions of letting this man roam free ever again, but he also had no intentions of telling him that.
Tim licked his cracked lips, and Dean couldn’t help but wonder why anyone would ever trust this man. He’d saw him for the low-life predator that he was the moment he’d laid eyes on him.
Hmm…maybe it said more about himself than the man in the pit.
But he couldn’t just kill Tim when he showed up on his doorstep. He had a code to follow. The Righteous had strict rules, and rule number one was not to hurt innocents, so he had to do his homework first. He had to be certain. Dean had compiled a substantial file on this worm over their weeks of talking, but when the man accepted his help and offered for him to come over. How could he refuse?
Dean smirked as he thought about how he took Tim for coffee, letting him think that he was fully forgiven for the unfathomable things he’d done. And then, Dean planned his next move.
As the silence ticked on, Dean grew impatient. “Okay fine, I guess my decision has been made.”
Dean stood, and Tim yelled for him to stop. He paused and then knelt once more. “You meant what you said?”
His voice was full of hope.Pathetic.“I promise on my father’s grave.”
Tim took a deep breath, his body now shivering constantly with the biting cold. “Alright, fine, I will tell you.”
Dean could almost see the wheels turning in Tim’s head.
“I like their soft skin,” he finally said.
“Go on.”
That rat-like tongue ran over those lips again. Dean’s hand flexed as he pictured ripping it out of Tim’s mouth. The sound of Tim’s imagined gargled screams were like a church choir to his ears.
“Their innocence draws me, their big eyes looking to me for guidance, so trusting, so…you don’t understand, I needed to touch them. They were too beautiful to resist.” The man stopped talking, his eyes staring through Dean as he sunk into his depraved fantasies. “I loved their frilly little dresses paired with those white stockings. It made them look like the perfect dolls that they are, and the rich, young scent of their hair—” The man closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “Yes, the scent of their fresh, virgin pussies. They were perfect—unmarred, or unsullied by this world or another man.”
Tim opened his eyes, and they glittered with morbid darkness in the swinging lantern light. His arousal was so strong that Dean didn’t need him to say another word to know what he was daydreaming about—disgusting. For all Tim’s talk of wanting to get better, of wanting his help, Dean knew there was no help for someone like Tim.
