Page 184 of Drown My Sorrow

I turn my head and find Beau standing there in the shadows. I consider his words carefully and let my smile out.

“Yes, we’re done.”

Iwalkslowlyinfront of the board members. They are sitting, but, this time, it’s different.

We’ve got our masks on, and they are tied to chairs in a building that’s going to be demolished soon. They are all in blindfolds and can’t see anything, but that’s all part of the fun.

Keagan paces around and through them, brushing his fingertips on shoulders and keeping them on edge.

“Now, I want information, and I’m going to keep breaking bones until I get it.”

“We don’t know anything.” The man who shouts has messy orange hair and cried like a little girl on the way here.

“Break a bone,” I say coldly.

Beau swings a bat down on Peter Walley’s hand. He howls not at all the way a little girl would.

I don’t think they believed I was serious, but they do now.

“Now start talking,” I say calmly and twirl my own bat around, letting it whoosh in the air.

The person nearest to me flinches.

“Let us go!”

I wait, but they continue to wail. Clearly, they don’t understand what’s going to happen here.

“Two more.”

Beau and Keagan move around, picking two more people and swinging the bats down on their hands.

The screams go on for a long time, but, eventually, they die down.

“The next person I choose won’t get a broken bone. I’m just going to cut something off.”

I wait.

“SPEAK!” I roar.

They cower, they flinch, they sob and gasp, but then someone clears their throat.

And they start talking, and they tell me everything.

Istandinthecrowd of reporters outside Alpha Labels. Phones start going off, one after another. I don’t move or stop smiling.

The woman beside me breaks free of the group and throws up violently.

She got shown a video of her child bullying another student, while she’s too busy fucking the parent of her daughter’s best friend. She has an hour before it goes viral. It will ruin her.

The man beside me sways wildly. He embezzled funds for his gambling habit.

The problem with being a reporter is you need to be squeaky, and everyone has secrets. They don’t want the world to find out about them, but no one can bury them deep enough, and we have not been idle these last few weeks.

I open my phone and start scrolling. In minutes, I’ve got the first retraction and apology.

Simon Dates raped a girl in college. She was more than willing to throw him under the bus for her story. I send him the article that will go live in five minutes.

He runs.

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