Page 99 of The Hangman's Rope

“I know,” I said and my voice broke on a little sob. “I know, and I promise not to think any differently of you if you promise not to think any differently ofme.”

“Shit,” he muttered and he held me so tight I felt my bones begin to flex and creak and Ilikedthat. It hurt in such a good way… made me feel safe and secure and like nothing bad could ever touch me again.

“It takes a long time for a man to strangle to death,” he whispered. “It’s not a pretty sight. You need to go, you go, okay?”

I nodded against his chest and he helped me around to the front of the forklift. There was a pallet on the forks, and the man who’d hurt me sat bruised, bloody, face swelling into something almost unrecognizable in places. Lips torn, eyes puffy, and looking like so much tenderized soft meat and I felt my shoulders go lax, and a small smile ofrelief,paint my lips.

“It’s him, I promise you,” Hangman said evenly and I nodded.

“I know,” I said. “I would recognize that mark on his shoulder anywhere…” I pointed to the wine stain birthmark under his skin.

He was nude and looked ravaged, stripes and welts across his body from where Hangman had likely removed his belt and lashed him.

I swallowed hard as Reaper flung the rope up and over one of the nearest branches. His arms were tied behind his back, and Grim roughed him up onto his feet.

They marched him several feet away and stood him rounding him to face me.

“Why?” I asked him, before I knew the word would even escape my lips.

He glared at me, his sclera darkened with blood in one eye, as he spit yet more into the dirt at his feet. He looked angry, but resigned and I suppose it was probably too much to hope that he would tell me.

Reaper slid the noose around his neck, Grim walked the other end to the tether to the forklift and hooked the hook at the end of the rope through a hole cut in the end of one of the forks.

“Tell me why, and I’ll opt for quick,” I told him. “You won’t have to suffer anymore.”

“Fuck you, you fucking—” he grunted and wheezed going to his knees as Grim had rounded and socked him in the solar plexus. He choked and tried to get a full breath, but he would likely never have one again.

“Come with me, baby.” Hangman led me back to the running forklift and pushed me up into the cab. He took the operator’s seat, pulled me down into his lap, and said, “Let’s just end this.” He showed me which lever to pull when I was ready.

I pulled back on it, and he worked the pedals and the forklift started to roll back, the slack taking up in the rope.

Calrose Pierce struggled to his feet, ahead of the tightening rope, and eventually, not even that was enough. He rose, higher and higher onto his toes and then he was airborne, his feet scrabbling for purchase in the dirt below him. Still, we crept back, and still he rose higher, head tilting, neck stretching, wheezing, choking, drying to pull in breath as the rope creaked and grew ever taut under the weight of his pulling body.

He hung, suspended, kicking, and struggling and Hangman stopped the forklift, braking, and putting both arms around my waist as I sat on his knee, my own arms around his shoulders.

“I expected to feel something,” I said as I watched with a sort of detached fascination as Cal struggled and kicked and his body and mind began to panic with his lack of breath.

“You might later, you might not,” Hangman said and he sounded sad. “If you do, just know I’m not going anywhere, Sweetpea. We’ll get through it, just like we’ve gotten through everything else.”

I swallowed, my eyes glued to the dying man dangling above us. “I feel more guilty about not feeling bad or guilty about killing him than I do about actually killing him,” I said.

“That’s normal,” Grim said, drawing up beside the forklift and leaning against it, arms crossed over his chest.

“It gets easier every time,” Reaper said, staring dreamily up at the man’s suffering.

“I don’t want there to be a next time,” I said softly. “I don’t need to watch the rest die.”

Hangman sighed heavily and it was with something like relief.

“Truth, baby,” he said and he always said that when he was about to tell me the stark honest truth and he feared that I wouldn’t like it.

“This is the only one who will die for what they did, isn’t it?” I asked.

“The rest will learn their lesson, don’t you worry about that,” Grim said.

“What will their lesson be?” I asked and I worried vaguely about how detached I felt from the reality in front of me.

“They’ll be missing pieces before we’re through,” Reaper said.

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