Page 167 of Beautiful Scars

“Going somewhere?” I ask, using my chin to point behind me.

It’s a studio apartment—one big room for the bed, the kitchen and whatever space you’d want to designate as your living area. The only other door besides the entrance leads to a closet-sized bathroom. The stink coming out of there is eye-watering.

The apartment is in shambles, and that was before we tossed the place. But everything of interest was already on the bed—busy being packed into a suitcase.

Alex snarls at me.

So I backhand him.

I click my fingers, and Derek passes me a lit cigarette. Alex’s gaze follows it to my mouth and he glares as I take a drag.

“Where is she?”

His snarl turns into a sneer. “Who?”

I tilt my head, shaking it. “Wrong answer, mate.”

Derek comes up behind him and loops a shirt twisted into a thick rope around his head. He yanks it, and it slips between Alex’s teeth, effectively gagging him.

I step up to him and extinguish the tip of the cigarette on a patch of dry skin on his pec.

His yell is muffled.

“Where is she?”

Alex shakes his head as well as he can with Derek gagging him, eyes widening with realization. “I ‘on’ ‘ow,” he pushes through the gag.

“Did you forget where you put her?”

Again he shakes his head, sending droplets of water flying through the air. “I ‘on’ ‘ave ‘er!”

“Well, someone must,” I say, calmly lighting another cigarette. “So tell me, Alex. Who has Meisie?”

Alex keeps shaking his head. My eyes move past him, to Derek, who loosens the gag a little. Alex spits it out and starts babbling.

“I don’t know. I don’t have her, man. She wasn’t there.”

“I don’t know what it is, but I’m having a hard time believing you.”

Derek tightens the gag a second before I leave another burn mark against Alex’s quivering stomach. “How about you think very hard, make sure you’re not forgetting something?”

But the fucker just keeps shaking his head.

I light the cigarette again. Derek’s arm muscles bunch as he pulls back on the gag. Alex gets another three burn marks—inner elbow, thigh, neck. He’s tearing up, but looks more angry than anything else. Soon as Derek loosens the gag, he says, “I don’t have her, okay, you fuckingpoes!”

I light a fresh cigarette. Again. But this time I’m looking at the lighter. Fuck the cigarettes. His eyes follow the flame. “I was gonna take her, okay? I was.” He licks his lips, his words almost running together now. I take a long drag, the embers on the end of my smoke glowing red-hot. “But I don’t know this fucking place. Drove around for hours before I found that fucking castle. She was gone when I got there.”

“See, I’m hearing you,” I tell him as I slowly crouch beside his chair. Derek yanks back on the gag until Alex’s head is nestled right against his solar plexus. “But you’re not saying the right words.”

Alex lets out a muffled yell as I touch the flame of the lighter against the skin under his chin. It stinks. His eyes water, or perhaps he’s started bawling like a fucking baby, who knows? He starts rambling, unintelligible through the T-shirt until Derek loosens up.

“Please, please!”

I cock an eyebrow, and Alex hurriedly lowers his voice.

“I swear, I don’t have her. Please, you have to believe me.”

This is getting old. And perhaps Alex sees something in my eyes, because he starts yakking again as I rummage through Derek’s toolbox.