Page 39 of How to Hack a Hellhound
Liam
“Well that’s just gross,” Quinton murmured as Todd peed himself.
I agreed. I had tried to keep bodily fluids to a minimum for my little hellcat since he was apparently squeamish. It didn’t take much to get Todd talking, at least, and Quinton hadn’t seemed to mind the light beating or the various threats of torture.
Quinton was actually rather inventive with torture ideas—he had threatened to cut off Todd’s dick and shove it down his throat, rip out his tongue, pull off each of his fingernails, and cut open his sack and remove his testicles to juggle with them (he had turned around and made a vomiting face at me when he threatened that one, and it had been quite difficult not to laugh).
Quinton seemed to enjoy the threatening part, and my hellcat definitely let his claws out on poor Todd. I didn’t blame him in the least for not wanting to get those claws dirty. After all, that’s what I was for.
“I think we have enough for now,” I stated, wrinkling my nose at the smell of urine and leading Quinton over to the stairs.
Quinton looked at me, raising an eyebrow. “Are you gonna come back down and torture him some more later while I’m sleeping?”
“If you’d like,” I said as we started upstairs. “He’s hellbound, and it wouldn’t be a hardship. And honestly, once he’s dead, the really horrific torture will start. I typically don’t do much wet work—it’s very messy—but if you have any requests or want me to carry out any of your threats, it can be arranged.”
Quinton gagged a little at that, which made me smile. He was so cute.
If he didn’t want to see messy torture, that suited me just fine. I didn’t much enjoy making a mess of things. Psychological torture, like the threats Quinton had given out, had been quite effective, especially since Todd seemed to sense that I would do anything my little hellcat wanted.
With James’s disappearance, Todd had been promoted in the human trafficking ring. His final decision to try to kill me and kidnap Quinton had sealed his soul’s hellbound fate. Unfortunately for us, he hadn’t learned very much in his short time in the more inner circle. He had a contact, just like James, and I could only hope that we could surprise this one and get him in for an interrogation before he went off the grid.
“So what’s next? Going after his contact, I’m assuming?” Quinton asked as we reached the kitchen.
Corbin was lounging in one of the chairs, feeding a crow. He gave us both a nod. “Would you like assistance? Dexter is with Toby, and Jude went over to keep Aiden company. And to steal some baked goods, I think.”
I looked speculatively at Corbin, then turned to face Quinton. He had every right to want to be a part of this, but at the same time, I thought about his mortality. Breaking into a hellbound soul’s home presented a bit more danger than going to a club.
Quinton sighed and rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry, Sexy Stalker, I’m not going to insist on going with you to capture the bad guys. I don’t expel bullets, and tasers and pepper spray do not sound like a good time to me.”
“You got tased? Lucky,” Corbin murmured from the table. “Bullets are no fun, though.”
I ignored him. “I’ll bring him back here if you’d like to be in on the interrogation. Hopefully he’ll have a few more leads for us.”
“I want you to burn it all down,” Quinton insisted. “Every last fucker who had any part in this.”
Corbin cleared his throat loudly from the table, and his crow even cawed. It was a different bird from earlier, I thought. Sometimes I could tell by the caws.
“What do you have to say, Crow Daddy?” Quinton snapped, turning to stare at him.
I tried not to laugh, and Corbin and his crow both looked disgruntled.
“It’s just that human trafficking is sort of like human snot when you get sick. You blow and blow, and more just keeps coming. It’s almost impossible to get rid of it entirely, because more just gets made before you can clean out what was there to start,” Corbin explained.
“Well that’s a fucking gross analogy,” Quinton said.
“Gross, but true. And tracing human trafficking back to its source would require leaving the country. It would also be like trying to trace the origin of the cold from its original infector.” Corbin shrugged and the crow hopped up onto his shoulder, staring at Quinton.
“What the fuck is he talking about?” Quinton snapped, looking at me.
“Chances are that this ring is part of a bigger ring,” I explained. “We can probably trace down the people who areconnected to this area and shut that down, but there are layers. Shutting down this layer won’t shut down all the other layers. The victims are more than likely not kept on US soil—traffickers often smuggle them out of the country.”
“So, what, we shut it down in this area, but then whoever was already kidnapped is just shit out of luck? We can’t save anyone?” he asked.
“Not at all. There are hellhounds in other territories. I have contacts across the globe, and once we start learning who some of the victims are and where they went, we’ll put other packs on it. We’ll work to shut down this layer, and we’ll give the other layers to people who are familiar with those areas,” I reasoned.
Quinton frowned, thinking it over. “You have a list of a couple of the missing guys already from your internet sleuthing. You think they can be found?”
“I do,” I answered. “I think we can shut it down here, recover who we can, and pass it along to the next pack to handle. It’s what we tend to do.”
