Page 8 of Fear the Reapers
Without warning, his large hand encased my arm in a gentle, yet solid hold, halting my movements. I whipped my head to face him. He had never grabbed me before and it was so unlike the polished man I knew. The look on his face was cold, dangerous, and lethal.
“Who did it?” He hissed as his sharp jaw ticked and his large body trembled with what looked a lot like rage.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked, brows furrowed in confusion.
I had never seen this side of him before.
“The bruise that’s blooming on your face, Stevie.” He said, his fingers gently grazing the tender flesh. “Who did it?”
My hand involuntarily floated towards his. It had probably gotten worse over the last couple of hours.Shit.I had been in such a rush to get the hell out of there, I completely forgot to cover it up.
“It’s nothing.” I lied, faking a smile as I chewed the inside of my cheek. “I clumsily tripped right into a door knob this morning.”
It disgusted me how easily the lie spilled from my lips. I never wanted to lie to DC, but he had backed me into a corner. Omitting was one thing, but this was a flat out lie and it made me feel awful. But his pity would have felt worse.
“You tripped.” He deadpanned as his sharp brown eyes pierced right through me.
“Yes, so… the usual?”
I didn’t wait for a response. Moving towards the espresso bar, I could feel his eyes probing and assessing me as I made his drink. The force of his gaze made me want to shrivel up into a little ball and confess all of my sins, but involving DC would only lead to more trouble. I was leaving in less than two weeks. I could keep our secrets until then, even if he ended up hating me for it.He’ll end up hating me anyway for leaving without saying goodbye.
DC left the shop without saying another word to me. I hoped that he’d be outside waiting, but after I locked up the shop, there was no sign of him. I told myself that it was better this way. I was only prolonging the inevitable. Maybe seeing the mark on my face gave him an insight into how messy and imperfect my life truly was. He had no room in his perfectly tailored life for the chaos that consumed mine.
Chapter 4
Ezra
Perception was everything in our world. It was the reason this entire town feared us. It was what drove my brothers to deal out brutal punishments, and it was what kept them from teetering over the edge of their sanity. My brothers relished in our reputation and fought with everything they had to keep what was ours.
A different beast drove me. Perception meant little to me, and truthfully, I didn’t give a fuck about what anyone else thought. Dealing punishment wasn’t a necessary evil. It was a means of releasing the darkness within. Inflicting pain was the one thing in the world that made me feel alive.
The basement below Hell’s Tavern was my domain. It was the one space where I could unleash without ramifications or judgement. The heavily insulated grey concrete walls surrounding me ensured no one could hear what went on. It went without saying that if they dragged you down to the basement of Hell’s Tavern, chances were, you weren’t ever coming back up.
Imagine Johnny Santos’ surprise when his own boys dragged his ass down here and left him at my mercy. He should’ve known their allegiance was with us. People rarely exhibit loyalty when up against a wall, and poor Johnny was the poster child for what happens when you trust the wrong people.
Wiping the sweat off my brow, I unplugged the power sander and tossed it aside. Slowly strolling back towards my tray of implements, I smiled to myself as I weighed my options.
“So many choices,” I taunted, grazing my fingertips against the various blades, “so little skin left.”
Grabbing the six-inch filet knife, I tossed it from hand to hand as I slowly made my way back towards Johnny’s hanging body. He winced when saw what I selected and gave him a broad smile in return. I made the right selection.
Everything I did had purpose, from the calculatedly slow stride of my oxfords to the uncomfortably warm, dimly lit room encapsulating us. Every move I made was to elicit fear from people like Johnny.
Genuine fear could make a three hundred pound grown man grovel on his knees. It could make an atheist pray to a God they never believed in. And in the tragic case of Johnny Santos, the fear of losing even more skin pulled gut-wrenching screams from his body.
He thought it would stop me, but his screams only egged me on further. I lived for fear and relished in the pain of others. Hurting a man who deserved it, only made his pain taste sweeter.
I sliced into his skin with expert precision, letting my blade glide through his flesh like a hot knife through butter. Starting with his forehead and working my way down, I sliced his flesh over and over again until there was nothing left to slice. It wasn’t until I’d run out of skin on his chest that I realized his screaming had stopped.
He was still breathing, but his eyes and mouth had stretched unnaturally wide, almost as if the fear had frozen him in place. When I inched closer to him, I could just make out the tiny rasps of breath that would’ve been his screams, had his vocal cords still been intact. Johnny was alive alright, but the fight in his eyes was no longer there.
As I stared at the man bleeding out before me, a small part of me felt for him. Not because of the wounds coating his raw flesh, but because he knew this was only the beginning.
Johnny had seen what my wrath looked like. All of our employees had. It was an initiation of sorts. It was hard for people to fear the unknown, so my brothers and I made it a point to show everyone who worked for us exactly what happens to those who betray The Reapers.
After another hour of slicing, his body had finally given up on him. Too weak to hold himself up, he allowed the chains around his wrist to carry the brunt of his weight as his body rotated in the center of the room. His resemblance to a slab of meat hanging in a butcher’s shop window was uncanny.
As I watched the last bits of Johnny’s life leave his swollen eyes, I placed a blank canvas beneath his swaying body and stared as his blood splatter bloomed across the canvas. Art had always fascinated me, but abstract expressionism was where my true passion lied.
