Page 66 of Graveyards & Greed

I nodded. “Fenn, do you have the lattes?”

Declan held up his hand. “I’ll get ‘em.” He came back carrying a drink holder with four enormous light caramel-colored, ultra-sugary, decadent drinks.

One of them was half empty, and I raised an eyebrow. Declan pointed to Fenn.

He shrugged. “They looked good. But Jesus, it was too rich and sweet. My stomach hurts.”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s the whole point.” Grabbing the half-empty drink, I poured it over Carver’s face. “Wake up, asshole.”

He gasped and sputtered awake, blinking his eyelids to keep the sweet, milky liquid out of his eyes. The chains rattled when he tried to move his arms. “What… what thefuck?” He licked his lips, and the taste of sugary caramel seemed to confuse him.

When he realized his hands and feet were restrained, he came awake in a rush and started yelling and struggling. I watched to make sure the chains held as Kilian leaned in and flicked him hard on the forehead.

“If you want to know what’s happening, be quiet and listen. I have things to do today.” That seemed to do the trick.

I peered down at him. “Hello, Carver.”

The man’s eyelids went wide, then narrowed into mean little slits. “You fuckingbitch, you torched my bike! I told LeBaron we need to shove a crowbar up your ass until you bleed like a fuckin’ stuck pig, use your holes to cum and piss in, then slice you up good before we slit your goddamned throat.”

“Sounds like a good time. Come and get me, big guy.” I gazed down at him with a bored look. He bucked against the restraints again, but they held firm. Good.

Clenching his teeth, he sneered at me. “I told Eightball we should’a cut up that whiny little girl we fucked, and sent her to you in pieces instead of lettin’ her live.”

My insides seized in rage and horror, but I slowly brought my hand to my face as if checking my cuticles. I didn’t want Carver to see how his words affected me. “So you raped Camilla too?” I asked softly. My cousins went still at my words.

“Yeah, you worthless bitch, I did. Tightest little ass I ever had.”

I studied him impassively. “Do you think it’s smart to admit to child rape while you’re lying naked in a coffin enjoying our hospitality?” He was technically in a casket, not a coffin, but I doubted he’d care about the difference.

Carver started rocking back and forth and spewing filth at me. “When my brothers find me, we’re gonna come back here, kill your fucking family and your employees, and torch all your businesses to the ground. Then I’ll give you to our prospects to play with for a few days before we shove that crowbar up your well-used ass.”

Fenn turned to me, his face blank but his eyes glowing with rage. “New plan. He’s not leaving this box alive.”

“Agreed,” Declan murmured, and Kilian nodded.

Fenn already knew my answer. I felt heart-sick at the thought of sweet Camilla getting gang raped by these evil, putrid pieces of shit. And that’s exactly what Carver would be when we were done with him.

Leaning in, I held up a caramel latte and smiled. It must have been a scary smile because he suddenly stopped screaming threats at me. “Would you like to know what we have planned for you?”

He eyed the drink in my hand, probably wondering if we planned to ‘Starbucks’ him to death. I didn’t give him time to answer. “I’m going to give you this drink—and several more like it—over the next week or two. Fenn says they’re delicious.” I glanced up and motioned to my cousins. Between them, they quickly had Carver’s head immobilized, and Fenn shoved the tubing down his throat.

Carver gagged and tried to whip his head around, but they held him tight. When the tubing slid down his esophagus, I ripped off a long piece of duct tape and attached the funnel to the end of the tube. Slowly, I poured the first latte into the funnel and down his gullet. His throat worked, and he tried to thrash his head to dislodge the lube, but Kilian placed a large foam cutout around Carver’s head to keep him immobile. I fed him one more, then we poured the remaining drink over his body.

To speed up the process, Declan had purchased a bag of steer manure at the local garden center, and we lined the inside of the casket with it. The manure smelled like ammonia and rotten eggs, and I couldn’t imagine using it in a vegetable garden, but Ezra swore it grew the best-tasting tomatoes.

Before we closed the lid, I looked down at Carver. “This is going to be a long process, but your body will slowly putrefy, then rot. Flies and maggots will burrow in every one of your orifices, and you’ll become worm food from the outside in. While this is happening to you over the next week or so, we’ll be taking videos and photos of the process. We plan to send them to your ‘brothers’ so they can see you decomposing and putrefying while you’re still alive to experience it. See you in Hell, you evil fucking child rapist.” I slowly shut the casket as I stared into his wild eyes.

Over the next week, we rotated who went to the storage container to open the casket lid, pour whatever ultra-sweet, milky latte we’d purchased over Carver’s body, and funnel the rest of the sugary drink down his throat. By the third day, the flies and stink were so bad, we had to wear odor-reducing masks to even enter the container.

Carver lasted eight days, and Declan vomited outside the container on the last day. By then, Carver had defecated multiple times, and the smell was overwhelming. The flies, wasps, and maggots were even worse.

Kilian edited a time-lapse montage video of Carver’s demise before the prick finally succumbed, and by the eighth day, we were all ready for it to be over. Kilian started the video of Carver bragging about gang-raping Camilla, editing our faces and voices out.

As I stared down into his wriggling, dead, bloated face through my mask, I wondered if he’d actually died of asphyxiation at that point. It was too bad we couldn’t send OutKast a sample of the God-awful smell.

Chapter 26

Drakos

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