Page 64 of Mayhem

“That one was for leaving me there.”

He sobbed something I could not understand as I moved to the next finger.

“That one can be for waiting until you were safe to come looking.”

“Please, please, I’m sorry.”

The blade went beneath the second nail more easily because my hand already knew the angle. Nichlas made a broken sound and kicked against the restraint around his ankles, smearing the blood from his shirt across his thighs when he folded forward as far as the chair allowed.

I gave him a minute afterward.

His breathing needed to slow enough that I knew he was still with me, and I wanted the fear to rebuild between each new thing rather than blur into one continuous stretch of pain. I poured water into a glass and held it to his mouth until he drank, stopping when he started coughing and letting him recover before setting it aside.

“How long are they gone?” he whispered.

I checked the time.

A little over two hours since the elevator doors closed behind the Kings.

“Long enough.”

His face crumpled. “They’ll kill you for this.”

That made me smile. “No, they won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know Malakai is going to look at this chair and wonder why I didn’t pick something easier to clean. Ronan is going to be pissed if you bleed on whatever he considers his. Hunter will probably develop a new vein in his forehead.” I rested the blade against Nichlas’s thigh and watched his eyes follow it. “But none of them are going to kill me for hurting you.”

He shook his head desperately. “I’m protected.”

“For now.”

The words seemed to hurt almost as much as the knife.

I pushed the point through his trousers and into the outside of his thigh. Nichlas screamed again as I sank it only far enough to bite into muscle, then withdrew and pressed my thumb beside the wound until blood soaked through the fabric in a widening circle. He tried to jerk away from the pressure, but the restraints gave him nowhere to go.

When I released him, blood ran down the side of his leg and dripped from the edge of the chair onto the floor.

I watched the first drop hit. Then another as Nichlas stared at it too.

“You wanted to know when I’m going to kill you,” I said, setting the blade down long enough to flex my fingers. “I still haven’t decided.”

His chest hitched.

“That’s the fun part. Maybe it’s tonight. Maybe Hunter walks in before I get bored. Maybe you survive and spend another week wondering whether the next time I smile at you is the last thing you ever see.”

“Echo…”

“I told you already. Death is easy.”

I moved behind him again and reached for the knife. Nichlas started screaming before I touched him, and this time I let him.

hunter

By the time Desmond asked for the Aldrich numbers a second time, I was considering whether stabbing myself through the hand with my mother’s fountain pen would qualify as a reasonable excuse to leave.

I had already given him the quarter’s protection intake, favor collections, the number of active obligations sitting beneath my faction, and the handful of problems that had required more than a phone call to resolve. None of the numbers had changed in the thirty minutes since I laid them out the first time. Desmond knew that. Repetition was less about the information than whether my answer changed when he came at it from another direction.