Page 169 of Beautiful Scars

His head lolls forward, but he lifts it quickly, grimacing at me through now-bloodied teeth. “Please, man—”

“One thing I learned early on about sick fucks like you,” I tell him, releasing his hair and stepping back so I can take a fucking breath and not pass out. “You never stop. It’s like a drug.”

And I’m all too familiar with how addicts think. What they’d do for their next fix.

I kick over the toolbox, and will my hands to stop shaking with wrath as I grab up the Stanley knife that fell out. I click out a fresh section of the blade, snapping off the old one against my thigh. Alex’s gaze darts to it, then back to me.

“No, please!”

“No?” I repeat, my voice thick and hoarse as I struggle to contain my fury. “The fuck should I believe you even know what that word means, you sick fuck?”

“Kill...”

“Get some fucking music on,” I bark at Derek. “Loud.TV. Noise. Anything.”

Alex’s eyes start bugging out of his sockets. “I’m s-s-s-orry,” he says, but now his words are chopped up through a sob. “I didn’t mean t-t-to.”

“What? Rape her?” I have to push the words through my teeth as my jaw bunches. “Or cross the fucking ocean to find her? To take her from me?”

Music starts, the volume getting louder and louder. Hold You by Gyptian. I burst out laughing.

A hand brushes my arm, but I shrug it off.

“Please, I’ll never—” Alex chokes out through a snot bubble.

“No. You won’t. I’m making sure of it.” A shudder of disgust courses through me as I stick my hand between his legs and grab his shriveled-up cock. I’m dimly aware that Derek moves behind him, tightening the gag.

Thank fuck, because when I start hacking my way through Alex’s pathetic little dick with the sharp—if small—blade, the motherfucker starts wailing like a starved seagull. And I don’t just take the wee man.

It all comes off.

A crash makes me lift my gaze from Alex’s barely focused eyes. Derek has stepped back, knocking loose a pan from the counter behind him.

The gag drops into Alex’s lap, obscuring the vein pumping blood into a non-existent cock. He lets out a hoarse yell. But I stop that shit by ramming his flaccid, blood-slick genitals into his mouth and right down his fucking throat.

Behind him, Derek retches.

The sound brings me out of whatever red hell I’ve descended into. I reel back, the buzz in my ears now a high-pitched whine. Alex convulses, short on air, short on blood.

And I watch as he bleeds out.

As he suffocates.

And then my grim smile slides right off my fucking face.

Because Derek was right.

He can’t tell me where Meisie is if he’s dead.

* * *

“...grab his passport,” comes Derek’s voice.

I’m perched on the edge of Alex’s bed, staring at his corpse. There’s a pool of blood that’s collected under his chair with the water we dumped over him. I’m wondering how long it’ll be before it seeps through to the floor below. Because by then, we have to be out of here.

Should already be out of here.

“Kill. Kill!”