“I really wish it could be me who gets to have all the fun with you today, but you see, little one, I have to continue playing the role of loyal soldier, so unfortunately for me, I had to call in a substitute.” He stepped up to me and I braced for whatever it was he was about to do, my heart hammering in my chest.

The tape being pulled off was painful, but it passed quickly and I was finally able to take deep breaths. Gulping for air as if I’d been drowning. “Why do this at all?” I asked, after finally being able to catch my breath. “Me, Bear, the MC? Why?”

“I don’t ask why. I do what I’m told. Asking why is not my job.”

“Then what is your job? Who hired you?”

Gus covered my mouth with his hand and pressed his forehead to mine. My stomach rolled. “That doesn’t matter. All that matters now is what’s about to happen to you. My advice? Give into the pain. Enjoy it. The human body is a fascinating machine, and although I don’t get to do it myself, I’ll be watching the video later and I’m sure watching that machine come apart is going to be nothing short of spectacular.” He let go of my mouth and set the tape back in place. “Although I’m sure Bear is not going to love it as much as I will. He doesn’t appreciate the beauty in it, like I do.”

He stuck out his fat tongue and licked my face from my jaw to my eye, and my stomach rolled again and this time I tasted the bile rising in my throat.

Gus stepped back and took one last lustful look at me. “Such a shame, little one.” Before he left the room, he adjusted a camera I hadn’t noticed next to the door. A red light came on. “Maybe, I’ll stay. Just for the first part,” he said, opening the door. “We’re ready,” he called out, and a blond man appeared in the room, shutting the door behind him. He was shirtless, cut and muscular, black and grey tattoos covered one of his arms and all of his chest.

“I don’t like cameras,” the blond man said, tapping the wrench he was holding against his palm over and over again as he looked me up and down.

Gus was evil.

But this guy, with his classic good looks, was the fucking devil.

His eyes were black and glowing like a demon in a movie and I realized there was no getting out of this. My fate had been sealed. With every step the devil took toward me, the fear I felt increased higher and higher until I hoped I’d die of a heart attack before this lunatic could carry out whatever sick plan he had for me.

The devil set the wrench down by the toolbox and pulled his shoulder length hair on top of his head and tied it with an elastic. He bent his head from side to side, making a sickening cracking sound. He did the same with his knuckles.

Then, he came for me.

While Gus looked on like he was lusting after my blood, the blond devil looked natural. In his element.

Possessed.

He reached up and unhooked one of the cuffs, catching me before I fell to the concrete floor. My arms still raised above my head as they’d become completely useless and disjointed. “Nooooooo!” I tried to scream behind the tape, tears ran out the side of my eyes. He carried me to the tarp and laid me on top of it, binding my ankles together with the tape.

“You can take the tape off. No one can hear her out here,” Gus said. “Start with the teeth. They’re the most painful.”

“Why are you still here?” the devil asked. I was shaking so hard I could hear my jaw rattling.

“Just wanted to watch the fun start.”

“I don’t do audiences,” the devil said adamantly.

“Come on, man, just one tooth. Then I’ll leave,” Gus whined.

“Do it yourself then,” the devil said. Standing up, he tossed him the wrench. Gus’s face lit up and he practically ran over to me. Crouching down by the toolbox he lifted out a metal contraption.

“Just one, and then I gotta go,” Gus said. Ripping the tape off my mouth, he pried it apart using pressure points on the roof of my mouth to force me to comply.

It wasn’t the first time he’d done this.

The blond devil stepped back and looked down at us with an annoyed look on his face. He was obviously pissed that Gus was taking his sick work away from him. “I got shit to do so hurry the fuck up,” he snapped.

“I’d love to take my time, little one. But this is going to have to do.” He pushed the wrench into my mouth and clasped onto one of my molars. He didn’t just start to yank on it, he started pulling slowly, building the pain, setting each nerve on fire, prolonging the inevitable as he pulled harder and harder until I felt as if my entire jaw was being ripped from my skull. I screamed so loud my chest hurt. Warm copper flooded my mouth.

Gus sat back, his chest heaving up and down. My bloodied molar between the tongs of his wrench. “That was fucking fantastic.”

“Great. Now get the fuck out or I’m leaving,” the blond devil spat.

“Fine,” Gus said, standing up and setting the wrench down on the tarp. “Just make sure she screams, she was adamant about that.” The devil nodded and knelt down next to me again, picking through the toolbox. I started to choke as the blood dripped down my throat. He pushed my head to the side so the blood could run out of my mouth, the spreader bar painfully tearing into the flesh inside of my mouth.

How could someone so beautiful be so evil? I thought, but then I remembered something Bear had said.

He looks like sunshine. Blond hair and blue eyes. The kind of looks you’d see on one of them TV shows all the teenagers like these days. But that kid’s got the devil in him. Only human lives he values are his wife Abby’s and now his kid’s. Jake’s the only person in the world who scares the shit out of me. You know, besides you.

It was my only chance. It had to be him. One of the tattoos on his chest was the name Bee. Maybe short for Abby? “Jake,” I said. But I was tired, so very tired, and with the spreader in my mouth it sounded like, “Gggggggech.”

He ignored me and shuffled through his toolbox and that’s when I realized it was over.

I was going to die.

I love you Bear.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Thia

WHEN JAKE TURNED back around he was holding a box cutter. He looked from me to the instrument in his hand. He slid his thumb up and down on the handle and watched the blade as it retracted again and again, as if he were in some sort of trance.

“Air Air!” I screamed, trying to shout Bear’s name to Jake, but it was too late. There was no decision to be made. My fate had been sealed. There was no drawing him back from whatever murderous place he’d gone.

A car backfired somewhere outside, or maybe a motorcycle. Whatever it was, it got Jake’s attention. The creases on his forehead relaxed, and his eyes focused. He dropped the box cutter to the floor. With an angry roar he pulled a gun from his jeans and cocked it.

“Noooooooo!” I screamed, trying to roll away from him like there was somewhere I could go. Somewhere I could hide.

There wasn’t.

He fired, the sound of the shot echoing through the room like a shrill scream in a cave, ringing my ears. I waited for the pain. Or the nothingness.

It never came.

“Shut the fuck up,” Jake whispered, and it was only then I realized I was still screaming. He looked over his shoulder toward the door and paused, listening for something. I noticed the camera had been the target of Jake’s shot. “Fuck!” he said, running his hand through his hair.