What is this man doing with pictures of these ghosts?
And what the hell is going on? I actually didn’t feel like I was involved, until this.
I move over to our new friend and stare him down. I want to kill him, but I want answers more.
“My name is Desmier Volkova, but you already knew that.” I’m only telling him my name because where I come from, it’s polite to give a man the name of his killer so he knows who sent him to hell. “I won’t hesitate to fuck you up if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”
Xiou gives me nothing. He doesn’t even blink.
“That’s all we’ve been getting from him.” Zakh looks at me with sternness. “Silence and a few snide remarks here and there. I’m trying to find something that will make him talk.”
“Good luck with that,” Xiou mumbles, but he’s looking at me. I keep my gaze trained on him, too.
“You don’t know me, friend,” Zakh spits. “I don’t need luck. I just need time, and you are running out of yours.”
Xiou switches his gaze from me to Zakh momentarily before he’s looking at me again.
“He might not know you, but he knows me. He was following me after all.” I tap the side of my head with my gun and smile like the psycho I am. “I’m going to give you a chance to tell us what we want to know. If you don’t take that chance, you get to discover the real me.”
Xiou doesn’t look fazed by my threat. I didn’t think he would, and I already know he’s not going to talk for me. If he didn’t for anyone else, I won’t be the exception.
“Who are you working for?” That’s the best place to start and, like I guessed, I’m met with his silence. “Why do you have those pictures? Did you follow all of us? Me? My wife? My mother? The Butyrskayas?”
My question garners no response from Xiou. He’s little more than a stone statue with a heartbeat. Pretty soon, he won’t even have that. It’s time to up the game.
“Not gonna take that chance?” I try to clarify.
When he doesn’t answer, I cock the hammer on my gun and shoot him right in the top of his left leg. That gets a response from him.
He howls with pain and shakes against the chair. Blood spurts from his thigh and flows onto the floor, joining the blood already there.
“Have you changed your mind?”
Still no answer, so he gets another bullet in the same leg, then I shoot him again in his other leg.
Now he’s shaking, and sweat mixes with the blood that was already caked on his face.
“Anything yet?”
“Fuck you,” he growls. “You won’t get shit from me.”
I fire a bullet in his arm and he cries out like a wild animal trapped in a snare.
At this rate, I’ll kill him and end up with nothing. But I think that’s what he wants.
I’ve shot him in non-vital places, but he can still bleed out if he continues to lose this much blood.
That’s okay. I have other methods of torture up my sleeve, and I can keep this fucker alive all month if he’s willing to play like this.
While he’s panting, I throw a punch in his face, cracking his nose. I keep going until his front teeth fall into his lap.
He’s a bloody mess, as are my knuckles, but I’m not tired.
What I am is fucking annoyed. I’ve been at him now for at least an hour, and the suspense of not knowing what the fuck is going on could well kill me.
“Fucking talk!” I sound like a ravenous beast unleashed from the darkest place in hell.
“Fuck… you.” Xiou coughs blood.