“Slither, don’t fuck with me right now.”
“It’s her birthday.” A tear slipped down his cheek, and his lips curled down at the corners. “Don’t hurt her on her birthday.”
Jesus fucking Christ. Was he hallucinating?
With my palm, I waved in front of his face, but he didn’t react. His eyes seemed glazed, almost disconnected.
I rubbed my hand down my face, shifting from one leg to the other as I tried to figure out what the fuck was happening. I’d tortured and killed enough men to know extreme amounts of pain can cause hallucinations. Pair that with dehydration, hunger, and the psychological effects from listening to his own screams over and over for almost twenty-four hours, it could tip him over the edge right into crazy town.
I checked the IV in his foot, the bag only half empty. I had purposefully set it to slow drip, giving just enough for him not to die from thirst.
There was more piss on the floor, and judging by the stench wafting off him the closer I got, I was sure he shit himself too.
The chains rattled around his wrists. “He came for her. He’s going to hurt her. No, no, no, no, no. Not her. Don’t hurt her. Hurt me. I’m a snake. I can escape. Not her.”
“Oh, my God.” I stepped back until my back hit the wall, and I slid down, crouching as I witnessed Slither’s undoing.
Abruptly, a maniacal laugh erupted from his throat, his entire face lighting up like a clown at a birthday party. “You’re going to die. All of you are going to die. One day. One day soon. Dead. Gone. Dead. Dead.”
I remembered Onyx telling me about Slither and Wraith’s childhood, about how their parents whored them to strange men to pay for their mother’s drug addiction. Was Slither there now, in the past, hallucinating about what happened to them?
His crazy laughter turned into crazy sobs. “Remember what I taught you.” Tears and snot dripped over his mouth. “Turn it off. They can’t hurt you if you turn it off.”
“Turn what off?” I frowned as I witnessed Slither unravel right before my eyes. I lit a cigarette, never taking my eyes off him.
“Turn…it…off.” His words slurred, his voice croaky and soft. His eyes rolled closed, and he leaned his head against his outstretched shoulder. “Turn it off, Dahlia. He can’t hurt you.”
Dahlia. Wraith.
Incoherent mumblings followed—words, sounds, weird facial expressions. Slither wasn’t here anymore. He wasn’t in this room, hanging from the ceiling with a broken leg. At least, his body was, but his mind escaped. I didn’t like it. I wanted him here—his body, his mind, his fucking soul. I wanted all of him here in this room, completely at my mercy.
I snorted. It was fucking unbelievable how this asshole managed a way to escape every goddamn situation where he got his fucking ass handed to him. He truly was a snake, able to shed his skin and slither away.
But not today.
Straightening, I rushed toward him, grabbing his snot and tear stained cheeks between my fingers. “You ain’t checking out on me yet, motherfucker.” Abruptly, I jerked his head to the side and pressed my lit cigarette against his temple, the red-hot coal burning his flesh in an instant.
He screamed, and I fucking smiled as I watched the smoke escape, the smell of burning skin and nicotine wafting around us. It was the smell of cruel justice, the stench of atonement. But his screams quickly turned into a cackle, a blatantfuck youaimed right at my face.
“You can’t hurt me. No one can. Not anymore.”
I flicked the dead cigarette to the ground, the burn wound red and oozy against his temple.
His eyes grew wide, the whites a perfect complement to the crazy goddamn look on his face. “You can’t hurt me. No one can. Never again.”
“Wanna bet, motherfucker?” My fist slammed into his gut—once, twice, three times. He couldn’t hunch over, but wind erupted from his mouth, and groans echoed from his throat. I swung my arm before hitting my fist against his jaw, and I relished the sound of bone against bone. But his laughter didn’t stop. In fact, the more pain I inflicted, the crazier his laughs became, the look in his eyes that of a certifiable fucking psychopath—wild and out of control.
This wasn’t right. This was not what I had planned. There was no use in fucking torturing him, inflicting pain if he couldn’t fucking feel it. And I wanted him to feel it the way she felt every goddamn thing they did to her. I wanted him to experience it—the fear, the pain, the helplessness of being unable to fight back. But while his mind was taking a fucking hiatus from all of this, none of my plans would work. Right now, I could force a motherfucking sword down his throat, and he’d feel nothing.
Frustrated and pissed off, I increased the IV’s flow, his freaky as fuck laughter bouncing off the damn walls. I grabbed my shit and stormed out, headed to the nearest hardware store. But as I swung the door open, I looked right at Manic standing with his arms crossed in front of his chest. “Care to tell me what the fuck is going on here?”
He glanced over my shoulder. “Jesus.”
I was frozen on the spot and didn’t even try to stop him when he brushed past me, walking into the room. “What the fuck, man?”
Rubbing my face, I shut the door. “Listen, Manic—”
“You’ve had him all this time?”