Page 36 of Dark Side of the Cloth (The Righteous 1)
Once the foot was severed, he quickly cauterized the stump and then picked the severed offering up by the laces. He held it in front of the man’s face, it dangling back and forth.
“You see this? I’m going to cut off a body part to honor every single person you’ve hurt. I want you to remember their faces, remember their smell and how they felt as you brutalized them, and then remember that it all lead you to this moment.”
Dean wouldn’t settle for anything less than true suffering, and a quick death was too kind. He’d done this for more than one of his brothers. He’d gotten used to the stench, the screams, and the desperate pleading in their eyes. They were always torn between the choice of living or losing a limb. His brothers had always thanked him in the end for saving their life, but he doubted his man was going to thank him as he turned his attention to the second leg.
More screams, more begging, and more swearing echoed off the walls of the warehouse. What these walls must have seen over the years? Darkness was present in this place, the sensation of pain and death hovering around the space like a cloak and begging for more.
Only incoherent babble tumbled from the lips of the thing before him. Dean slowly stood and took in his captive. He stared at the top of his head and the balding spot that was oddly shiny before mentally checking if he held any guilt. Not finding any, he smiled. The sides of his lips pulled up, and he began to whistle his favorite tune as he continued his work.
The man was reduced to a blubbering mess as he lay on the floor, wailing incoherent nonsense. Dean appraised his work the missing feet and hands were lined up on display.
“I thought about killing you, and I’m sure you would’ve preferred that. The thing is, I’ve decided I’m going to leave you like this. Maybe one day you will walk again with the use of prosthetics, but you will never touch again, you will never be a danger again, and you will always remember what your sins have cost you.”
Dean knelt down, not really sure if the man understood, and was surprised that he hadn’t died of a heart attack, or at the very least, passed out.
“Most importantly, you will never see or hear again. You will forever be locked inside the horrors of your mind.”
“No, no, no, no…I’m sorry, please God, no.”
“God doesn’t judge you this night.” Dean placed a knee on the man’s chest, pinning him to the floor as he roughly squeezed his chin, pressing his cheeks hard until the man’s mouth looked like a stupid fish. Dean brought that deadly blue flame agonizingly slow toward the man’s eye, the flickering blue along with sheer terror reflected back at him.
“No, please,” the man blubbered.
Dean moved the flame a little closer, and the eyelashes began smoking, the scent of burnt hair curling in his nose. The skin around the eye pinked and would soon bubble. Tears filled and then rolled down the man’s cheeks. He clenched his eyes closed as if that might help.
“This is what it feels like to be the victim,” Dean whispered in the man’s ear.
The stubby arms comically beat at his bicep as the flame touched the delicate skin, melting it away and showing the bright blue for just a moment before it too started to melt. The strong stench of scorched flesh and hair hung in the air like a cloud. The man screamed higher than he had before, as the flame easily ate away one eye and then the other. Dean then did the same to his ears, standing to analyze his handy work once more.
“Emergency vehicles en route, T-minus fifteen minutes until arrival,” Sexy said in his ear.
Dean was tempted to take a couple of extra minutes to cut off the man’s dick, but he knew he didn’t have the time.
“You’re getting off easy, and the police are on their way.”
The man didn’t answer, and Dean didn’t expect him to respond. He grabbed the shackles that had strung the woman up and quickly wrapped the chain around the man’s waist and under his armpits, like a makeshift vest, before attaching the shackles to the chain. Looping the shackles over the large hook, he pushed the lever, and the crank hummed as it slowly lifted the man into the air. Now this man was the one on display as the woman had been. Dean only wished he could stick around long enough to see the look on the cops’ faces.
Would they be happy or disgusted?
Dean was in his Hummer and heading out of town, already planning his next attack, long before the police arrived. A sense of peace filling his body as the town disappeared in his rearview mirror.
One brother down, and one more to go.
