Butch walked slowly around and out of sight. With furious paddling, V tried to get himself repositioned to face the guy, but his toes couldn’t quite manage good purchase on the floor — which was another success of the cop’s strategy. To fight and squirm and get nowhere just heightened the terror.
On a oner, it was lights-out.
Jerking uncontrollably, Vishous tried to fight, but it was a battle he was going to lose: With a quick yank, the mask went tight around his neck, secure and going nowhere.
Mental hypoxia set in immediately. There was no oxygen to be had, none coming through, nothing—
He felt something on his leg. Something long and thin. And cold.
Like a blade.
He went utterly still. To the point where his previous exertions swung him back and forth on the chains above him, his body a statue suspended by twin strings of metal.
V’s inhales and exhales inside the hood were a roar in his ears as he zeroed in on the sensation below his waist: The knife traveled slowly, inexorably upward, and as it went, it moved to the inside of his thigh. .
In its wake, a liquid trail welled and eased down over his knee.
He didn’t even feel the pain of the cutting as that blade headed for his sex: The implications were that much of a sucker punch to his destruct button.
In a flash, past and present mixed, the alchemy ignited by the adrenaline pumping through every vein he had; he was instantly ripped back through the many years to the night when his father’s males had held him down in the dirt at the Bloodletter’s command. The tattoos had not been the worst of it.
And here it was, happening again. Just not with the pliers.
Vishous screamed around the ball gag. . and kept at it.
He screamed for all he had lost. . screamed for the half male he was. . screamed for Jane. . screamed for who his parents were and what he wished for his sister. . screamed for what he had forced his best friend to do. . He screamed and screamed until there was no breath, no consciousness, no nothing.
No past or present.
Not even himself anymore.
And in the midst of the chaos, in the strangest way, he became free.
Butch knew the moment his best friend fainted. It wasn’t just that those dangling feet went still; it was the sudden relaxation of all that musculature. No more straining in those huge arms and massive thighs. No more pumping of that big chest. No more ripped cords in the shoulders or down the back.
Butch immediately took the spoon he’d gotten from the kitchen off V’s leg, and likewise stopped pouring the lukewarm water out of the glass he’d grabbed from the bar.
The tears in his eyes didn’t help him loosen the hood and pull it free. Nor did they make removing the immobilizer setup simple. And he struggled with the ball gag especially.
The corset was a bitch and a half to get loose, but however desperate he was to get V down, it was vastly easier to take everything off when he had a three-sixty to work with. And soon enough, the brother was bloody, but unencumbered.
Over at the wall, Butch released the winch and slowly lowered Vishous’s tremendous, inanimate body down. There were no signs that the change in altitude registered, and the floor made an impact only so far as it collapsed V’s loose legs, those knees bending up as the marble rose to greet his butt and torso.
There was more blood when Butch released the cuffs.
God, his friend was a mess: The gag’s straps had left red welts on his cheeks; the corset’s damage was even more pervasive; and then there were the wrists that were torn ragged.
And that was in addition to the condition the guy’s face was in, courtesy of whatever he’d slammed the thing into.
For a moment, all he could do was brush V’s jet-black hair back with hands that shook like he had palsy. Then he looked down his friend’s body, to the ink below the waist, and the flaccid sex. . and the scars.
The Bloodletter was a shit beyond measure for torturing his son as he’d done. And the Scribe Virgin was a useless planker to have let it happen.
And it had killed Butch to use that horrible past to crack his friend wide.
Except he hadn’t wanted to beat V physically — he wasn’t a pussy, but he did not have the stomach for that. Besides, the mind was the most powerful weapon anyone had against themselves.
Still, tears had been rolling as he’d taken the spoon and put it against the inside of that leg — because he’d known instantly the extrapolation that would be made. And he’d been well aware that the lukewarm water would really cement the dislocation from the present.
The screaming had been muffled by the gag and the hood. . and yet the no-sound had pierced Butch’s ears as nothing else could.
It was going to be a long, long while before he got over this: Every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was his best friend’s body jerking and spasming.
Scrubbing his face, Butch got up and went to the bathroom. From off the shelf in the closet, he grabbed a stack of black towels. Some he left dry; others he wet with warm water at the sink.
Back beside Vishous on the floor, he wiped off the blood and fear-sweat from his best friend’s body, rolling him from side to side so there was nothing missed.
The cleanup took a good half an hour. And several trips back and forth to the sink.
The session had lasted a fraction of that.
When he was finished, he gathered V’s tremendous weight in his arms and carried the guy to the bed, laying him out with his head against the black satin pillows. The sponge bath, such as it had been, had left V’s skin with a rash of goose bumps, so Butch taco’d the brother, untucking the sheets and rolling them up and over him.
The healing was already happening, the flesh that had been scraped or cut reknitting and erasing the marks that had been made.
This was good.
As he stepped back, part of Butch wanted to get on the bed and hold on to his friend. But he hadn’t done this for himself — and besides, if he didn’t get out of here and get drunk fast, he was going to lose his motherfucking mind.
When he was sure V was settled, he grabbed his jacket, which he’d had to shove off onto the floor—
Wait, the bloody towels and the mess under the hanging unit.
Moving quickly, he swiped over the floor and then grabbed the load of damp-and-weighty and took it in to the hamper in the bathroom — which made him wonder who the hell did the housekeeping here? Maybe it was Fritz. . or maybe V did the Merry Maids routine himself.
Back in the main room, he took a second to double-check that all the evidence was gone except for the glass and the spoon. . and then he went over to see if V was still asleep. . or in that semicoma.
Stone. Cold. Out.
«I’m getting you what you really need,» Butch said softly, wondering if he was ever going to breathe right again — his chest seemed as constricted as V’s had just been in reality. «Hold tight, my man.»
On his way to the door, he got out his cell phone to dial — and dropped the damn thing.
Huh. Looked like his hands were still shaking. Go fig.
When he eventually hit send, he prayed that the call would be—«It’s done,» he said roughly. «Come over here. No, trust me — he’s going to need you. This was for the two of you. No. . yeah. No, I’m leaving now. Good. Okay.»