Page 136 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

"Hey, Wadey boy," he says. "Remember me?"

Wade's eyes, already wide with terror, somehow get wider. His good hand claws weakly at the sheets. The heart monitor is doing double time now.

"Cool. Good talk." Whiskey cracks his knuckles. "So here's the thing. My buddy Val here is great at the whole serial killer threat thing. Really. Top tier scary shit. But I'm more of a freestyle guy, so I'm actually gonna improvise."

He leans closer.

"If you ever go near Ivy again, I will personally rip your spine out through your asshole. You'll have to shit through a straw. And I know that sounds anatomically impossible, but I'm a Marine and I've seen some wild shit in the field, Wade. Shit that would make your chewed-up shoulder and your smashed knee—" He flicks Wade's foot. "—look like cute lil paper cuts. I could make it work."

Wade croaks in fear.

I hear voices in the hall. I brace my hand on the door for good measure, spreading my fingers against the wood. "The spine thing is a bit much."

"Not if you shove your arm up there like Kermit the Fuckin' Frog, get a good grip on the coccyx and just—" He mimes a yanking motion with his thumb and fist with a slurping sound that ends in a loud POP.

Wade screams into his own mouth.

The door rattles against my hand.

"Hello? Mr. Kelly? What was that sound?" A muffled voice. Female, beta, and more irritated than distressed.

The handle jiggles. The nurse on the other side puts her weight into it and accomplishes absolutely nothing.

Knock knock knock.

"Mr. Kelly? Can you hear me? Are you alright?"

Wade opens his mouth.

"He's fine," Whiskey calls out cheerfully. "Just having a nightmare about his spine getting yoinked through his ass, Mortal Kombat style. You know how painkillers are."

"Does that even happen in Mortal Kombat?" I ask him, frowning.

Whiskey waves me off. "Details, schmetails."

"Who is that?" the nurse demands.

"You should probably hurry this up," I tell Whiskey.

He ignores me.

"Where was I?" He taps his chin, looking at the ceiling. "Oh, right!"

He leans so close to Wade's face that their noses are practically touching, and Wade tries to shrink into his pillow so hard I'm surprised he doesn't manage to phase through the mattress.

"After your pro-bono spine removal surgery, I will make your life so fucking miserable, you'll wish you'd fucking died. Every time you try to rebuild your reputation, I will be right there with a highlight reel of every shitty thing you ever did in your sad little life. I will humiliate you until we're a hundred years old and you give up the ghost, and the last thing you'll hear isn't angel choirs, it'll be me. With a fucking megaphone. Chasing your ass into hell."

His voice has been climbing steadily throughout this speech. Whiskey has one volume setting, and it's bouncing off every sterile surface in this hospital room like he's performing for the cheap seats.

He doesn't need a fucking megaphone.

More rattling from the door.

"Are you finished?" I ask Whiskey.

"One more thing bro⁠—"

"No."