Page 14 of Seven+Four

He makes a habit of dripping innocence and unspoiled naivety, that’s why a number of bastards keep gravitating to him. But they don’t know he was caught a long time ago by the worst of the worst. Me. All I can do is get rid of all those fuckers, using any means necessary. From threatening texts, to finding them new job opportunities in different cities, to getting them charged for wrongdoing—with a hacker and a lawyer in the family, finding and using dirt on people is very easy. I’ll go even further if I have to. Predators kill prey. It’s natural, understandable, there’s no need to justify it. And the world is a fun park full of oblivious prey. My hands never have enough blood on them, and I hate every motherfucker who takes Sari’s attention away from me. I call it…serendipity.

I let the rope loosen around Sari’s neck the last few months, just a little, enough to give him the illusion of being free to move away. When in reality, he’s not, because I’m always there in the shadows pulling the strings. He does a job he enjoys while helping people—which satisfies him—and he has a family who cares for him. And me. This rebellious phase he’s going through will end soon, but in the meantime, I need to change a few things.

First, this house needs to be secure, otherwise my plan for Sari won’t work. Phoenix is close, and with them danger lurks around us. Sari is part of this family even though he doesn’t enjoy the bloody side business like the rest of us do. I will keep him closer. I let him wander for far too long, and now a damn stalker is fucking with him. I’ll end up killing them if they try to take him from me—not even my brothers or Linda will be able to stop me. Fuck that!

I look down at my phone when a gentle ring informs me of a notification. Rami created a monitoring program and uploaded it on my phone so that I can check on Sari’s location. Through the tracker inside his neck and another inside his phone, Serena lets me know every time he moves. He just arrived at work. I tap on his red dot on the map and a live video from the CCTVs inside Bear-Stone Labs pops open on the screen. He’s talking with Michael, getting ready for work; a sad song is playing in the background—he only listens to country music. He’s smiling, braiding his long hair with deft, precise moves as Michael jabbers about something scientific.

He’s so fucking delectable, and I’m starving.

I close the app and check my texts. Raph will be here in twenty minutes to help me with the body. There’s also one from Rague letting me know he’ll come tomorrow to work on the new rooms I’m building inside the house. He owns a construction and demolition company; it was only logical to hire him for the job.

I leave the body behind and descend the last steps to walk around the house. My bio bro must have come from somewhere. He used one of the camera’s blind spots to disappear, but maybe he left a trace. And if he did, I’ll find it.

Two days later, I’m inside the base leaning against a glass wall. The knife I’m tossing flies up before I swiftly snatch it out of the air, repeating the action again and again. My eyes are firmly on the donor in front of me, passed out and tied to a metal chair;blood keeps dripping at his feet, creating a large crimson puddle. I’m giving my ears a well-deserved break from all the jackass’s begging.

We are inside the FUNS room—the Fucked-Up Nasty Shitheads room. Here is where the torture and killing happen. Tools are hanging from the ceiling—axes, bats, a couple of clubs with spikes, nunchaku—that must be Lori’s. More lie on the long table near me where I left Leslie, my Smith and Wesson 9mm gun. The grip is all bloody—I jabbed the donor in the head with it, repeatedly hence him being unconscious—I need to give it a thorough cleaning when I’m done.

I usually don’t use firearms when I take care of a donor, but any kind of torture I deem fit is welcome. How to know what’s the best one? I read their files first, keeping in mind what their preferences are. A doctor who harvests organs and sells them for money will be disemboweled without anesthesia; a serial rapist will be impaled on a cactus then castrated using a rusty saw, his dick flattened with a sledgehammer; a physically abusive motherfucker will get his hands chopped off and then forced to choke on his fingers one after the other. I’m not the Da Vinci of torture for nothing. Number one in our torture record book—doesn’t matter that Raph yammers to the contrary.

After many years in the torture business, I’ve learned a few things—as I forced them out of these shitheads. For most evil scum, the killing per se isn’t the source of pleasure. It’s the feeling of pure dominance, the omnipotent ability to take a life, to produce a fear so great in their victims, it fills them with power and ecstasy.

Pain is not only physical. Mental torture can be equally excruciating—even worse for some people. So I usually start with the latter. Doubt. I look and wait for them to wake upall disoriented—after being kidnapped and drugged—restrained, tied naked to a chair in the FUNS room where the walls are covered in weird plastic sheets and torture tools are displayed all around. I check their reaction, and I play with them, ignoring their anxious questions, smirking or sighing, playing with my switchblade.

Whenaskedthe donors have described theunclear circumstancesand scary environmentas the cause of profound fear, and a sense of deep apprehension. Fucking A.

Then the part where I start working on their body comes. Everything becomes clear when I tell them they got caught. Watching the realization in their eyes is quite entertaining. The physical pain makes them plead their innocence, usually threats are made, often there’re attempts at bribery—like this fucker here tonight. That’s the boring part, like I would ever let them go. Preposterous.

This donor here is a particularly nasty fella. He lures people into his car—usually those living on the streets like homeless beggars, teens running from home, the mentally disabled—enticing them with the promise of money or a hot meal, of protection. He drugs them and then dumps them in the middle of a forest where he hunts them like animals. He uses different weapons, but always goes for the kill; the list of his victims is long. Don’t know why he turned out this way. Don’t care. I just want to make him suffer. The dirty police officer and the corrupt lawyer friend who in the past covered for him and accompanied him on the hunts are being picked up by Rague at the moment.

I take a long, deep breath. Blood and fear, that tangy new plastic smell from the flowery sheets covering the walls and floor—courtesy of Rami who likes to give the place a hint of creepy cuteness—sweat and salty tears. It’s refreshing.

One man’s hell is another man’s paradise. My paradise.

I look at him. I already chopped off each one of his fingers, carved the wordPREY into his chest—which had been particularly satisfying—and stabbed him in the legs, arms, and shoulders. All things he did to his victims.

I could cut off every other appendage on his body until he turns into an unidentifiable lump of writhing meat. A little slice and dice is always enjoyable. Could use a rake to disfigure him, give him a Freddy Krueger mask. Skin him alive in front of a full-length mirror, starting from the ankles up to his neck.—a show is always entertaining. Fillet him from head to toe with no mercy. So many choices. We are all flesh and breath. So easy to break.

There’s no time, no space when I’m torturing, only me and the screaming fuckers.

I feel particularly gruesome right now—more than usual. My thoughts move to my bio bro and the headless corpse he left at my lake house, Jasper Pendelton. It turns out he was one of the shitheads on my donor list, a pimp with a tendency to rape hotel maids and busboys—hence the Ritz key card I found in his suit—and then blackmail them to work for him and sell their bodies. He had some plastic surgery done, that’s why I couldn’t recognize him—a new name, a cover job while still doing the same shit.

I am extremely pissed at Rami for not realizing what was going on and for being incapable of stopping my bio bro from bypassing Serena at every turn. But I’m downright furious at my bio bro for stealing one of my fucking donors. Nobody takes from me and lives to see another day. If you cross me, I’m gonna enjoy your slow suffering before ending you. But…I’m also curious.

The few memories I have of my family aren’t pleasant ones. My father was an abusive drunk truck driver, who killed my mother out of jealousy and ended up in jail. We were dropped at my uncle’s, who took us on only to pocket the monthly childcare checks. He sold us to those scientists not long after to cover his debt with loan sharks.

When I turned eighteen, I wanted him to be my first kill, but both him and my father were dead already, and my bio bro was in the wind. I’ve been searching for him, though. I can’t feel any kind of affection or longing, just as he can’t toward me—being a psychopath. So why is my elusive bio bro leaving these corpses? What’s his end game?

I’m still furious about him stealing my donor, and I want to repay him in kind…and stabs! I grab the knife’s handle and swing it in the air, imagining that stupid white mask in front of me.

The donor suddenly jolts in his chair, his eyes are still closed. That’s too bad since it’s time to off him. My gaze falls on the bucket near the sink across the room, some cold water will definitely jazz him up. I move away from the glass wall but quickly change my mind as I toss the knife one last time in the air. When the wooden handle falls back in my palm, I tighten my hold around it and swing. The blade slices the donor’s face, opening a long wound on his cheek.

“Ahhh!” he screams, his eyes frantically flickering around until they fix on my face. The pain filling them is rapturous. I need more.

“Please. Don’t kill me,” he gurgles. He’s lost a lot of blood; his complexion is turning pale, and he’s shivering like a baby deer.

After he murdered more than thirty people in cold blood, he’s afraid to die. Go figure.

“Death is too easy, shithead. It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.Hurting you is what I’m here for. As simple as that.”

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