Page 19 of Natural-Born Cullers

“Fuck.” Ferg thumped into Noah’s shoulder. “Get your lard ass off the cable, you fuckwit. Go get it back on its feet. Check that we didn’t lose the fucking feed.”

Noah scurried up and over to the tripod, and Alec’s heart pounded so hard against his chest. Ferg shook his head, adding a few mumbled curses as he distractedly stroked at Cane’s cheek with the spoon.

“Keep a hold on those fear levels, boys.” A look came Alec’s way off Ferg. “Don’t make me fuck you again just to get us in the mood again.”

A thud came from over by the tripod, heavy, like a sack of potatoes going down, leaving Ferg frowning into the darkness over in the corner. The red light haloing Cane stopped a few feet from his cage, so none of them could see much beyond it where the tripod lay.

“Fuck’s sake. Now what?” After releasing the tension on Cane’s hair, Ferg got to his feet. “Noah, I’m gonna throw cutting off your dick in for free for losing the feed, you useless cuh—”

Something hit Ferg’s forehead, jerking him back a touch and widening his eyes just before blood and brain erupted out the back of his skull. He hit the floor a moment later, and silence settled so quickly.

Shuffling, the sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor… Noah was shoved face first over Cane’s cage a moment later. No sound came from Noah’s bulk, but the deep in and out of his chest said he was still breathing.

Alec didn’t care—someone had stopped the bastards, and with a gun, it maybe said police. The sound of a rock smashing into phone said the live feed was now out of commission too.

Cane shook where he knelt, but his struggles turned as wild as Alec’s with someone else being there and able to get them out.

As Noah landed on top of Cane’s cage, his hand fell down close to Cane’s face, and Cane’s snarls calledfuck yes, babyas he guessed what was going on with Noah, even if he couldn’t see it. Maybe arrested? But if so, why wasn’t the man bloody talking, calling out arrest?

Wearing a long black gothic coat, a man stepped into the red light. Hair was spiked, colour undiscernible, but darker at the roots, more like Cane’s two-toned hair. Slender, with lace gloves to match the dark style of the coat, Goth looked like someone Cane would naturally gravitate towards at a bar.

Alec jerked the cage to get Goth’s attention, to get them out, and a look came his way.

It shut Alec up because, like Ferg, a mask covered everything but Goth’s eyes, but here an eagle was painted across the black mask, all neon and catching the light in that look.

Wrong. The whole look was just so… wrong.

Alec was dismissed in the next moment, and where Cane still jerked and writhed in his cage to get free, Alec no longer made any move, breathing becoming quiet.

That was no copper there.

Goth tugged out two pairs of handcuffs and snapped them around Noah’s wrists, tethering him to the cage. A dog collar came next, and it wrapped Noah’s throat. Noah grumbled at the contact but didn’t really start to rouse and jerk on the handcuffs until a padlock slipped through the collar and cage, keeping his head as immovable as Cane’s.

Noah was left facedown and spread-eagle across Cane’s cage as though he was due serious medieval remedy for a back injury.

“Ferg…?” Noah mumbled, stirred, then tried to look behind him. “What… what’ya doing, mate? The cable… wasn’t me fault. This… this not funny.”

Noah twisted his head every which way, then finally found… Ferg. Or more the blood pooling around Ferg’s head as he lay unmoving on the floor.

“You…” Eyes widened, the pupils blown wide, Noah tore his look off Ferg, tried to look around again. “Please, mate. Just… just tell ’em it wasn’t me fault with the feed. You—” Noah’s voice broke. “I… not—”

A knife came out of Goth’s pocket, and collar to tail, the back of Noah’s shirt was sliced open.

“Hey… hey.” Noah started to writhe, and just beneath him, Cane went still. Alec gave him a very quick shake of head to make sure he stayed so damn quiet and still now as Noah’s shirt was cut away completely.

Goth. He looked too focused, too caught in the moment, where he was close to touching the right note in a piece of art only if everyone stayed damn quiet in the room and didn’t dare disturb him.

The knife dug into Noah’s back, and such a cry of agony hit the air, Noah writhing under the onslaught. Goth never lost concentration as he cut a line from shoulder to shoulder, then, head tilting slightly, he took his time shaping what looked like a leaf design down the one side of Noah’s back, from what Alec could see. Then it seemed he started on the other side, all the way down to the small of Noah’s back.

A hum came, some song Alec should have recognised but… skin. The knife slipped under the skin, detaching it from muscle, first one side, then maybe the other before both sides of skin were folded back towards the spine like folded pages in a kid’s shaped play book, but both equally skinned from Noah’s back completely like his shirt.

Noah didn’t move anymore. Blood dripped from his hand onto Cane’s cheek as the knife went back in Goth’s pocket.

A pair of scissors came out next, such damn strange ones. Alec had worked a few months at a butchers, just on the tills when he’d needed to bring in some extra cash for a beerfest with Cane. The butcher back there had kept a similar pair for cutting up poultry. Blades were curved and tapered to get at hard-to-reach places, and these…?

A crack went at a bone, followed by another… another, all the time the hum to a song given a beat only by a hard pant for air off Cane.

Noah stopped breathing at one point, Cane’s cage now swimming in blood as Cane drowned in it, and eventually the poultry scissors were laid to rest carefully on the back of Noah’s neck.

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