Page 42 of Mindeater

Ryx

Present—Age 23

The Telex fucker squirms, his face wedged between my boot and the chopping block.

I’ve been torturing him for weeks, and he still won’t cough up what I want to know. He’s missing all ten fingers, six toes, and his legs are broken. I’ve ripped out sixteen teeth, clipped his left ear, and now I’m about to take his head.

“Last chance,” I warn, digging my heel into his throat.

“Rebel scum,” he grunts. Stubborn. Worthless.

Just like all of them.

“Kane,” I bark.

My right-hand man and friend approaches, the axe already sharpened and ready. “Should’ve done it weeks ago, boss,” he mutters before spitting directly into my prisoner’s eye.

“Don’t get too close.”

As weak as this one might be, if he touches Kane, he can get in his head. I’m the only one allowed to touch the leeches. Tossing the axe by my feet, he takes a few steps back and folds his arms. I reach into my pocket and pull out my tin of rolled smokes. Popping one between my lips, I light it. As I take a deep inhale, letting the tobacco fill my lungs, I press harder. If I could stand it, I’d be skin on skin just so he’d feel how weak he truly is.

But it’s been years since the last time I willingly touched a leech, longer since I could tolerate the reaction.

I flick some ashes on him, take another drag, and decide. “I’ll be sure to hang your corpse so whoever sees it knows they’re next.” The cherry of my cigarette meets his cheek, singed flesh curling with the fumes. He bucks under me, screams, then cries like a bitch.

Kane laughs.

He loves this part just as much as I do.

I stomp the beta's head, step off, and retrieve the axe. Snow crunches under my boots, the bitter chill freezing his tears on his skin. Dazed and knowing his time is up, the leech closes his crusty, swollen purple eyes one last time. I bring the axe down, the blade sharp, but severing a head isn’t as easy as it looks. I keep hacking and hacking until only bits of sinew and bone remain. Scruffing his hair, I use it as leverage and make the final cut.

“One of these days, you got to let me do it,” Kane muses as I toss the head into the snow.

“Ranged is the only way you’ll take one out. You know that.”

He shrugs. “A man can dream.”

I huff out a half laugh and push the body off the stump. “Any word from Tilly or Lake?”

“No,” he grumbles. “Getting worried.”

I nod and glance back at the camp. “I’ll tell him that we have to go.”

“He won’t like it. You know how he is about you going out there.”

“I know,” I whisper. “But…they’re our people. If something happened, their families should at least get to bury what’s left.”

“I’ll load up the truck.”

He walks off, and I stare down at my most recent kill.

I expected more, honestly. After watching the rest of his group getting slaughtered in this place, I figured he would want to save his own skin. That’s what leeches do, after all. But this one wouldn’t utter a word no matter what I did to him. Maybe I have to get more creative. Show them what I really am.

He won’t like that either.

Sometimes, the benefits outweighed the consequences. I need to find my way back to New Grove. I don’t care how I find it or who I have to kill.

There’s something I need there.