Page 46 of Cole: Bloodlines
Easier? His looking like Ezra would make it easier? How?!
Henry and the boy gasped in terror when Henry’s dad picked up a pair of large shears. Daniel ignored them both as he went about cutting the jeans and T-shirt off the boy’s body, then sliced through his underwear and pulled them loose, leaving the panicked boy naked on the table.
His dad stepped back. “He’s all yours. You know what to do.”
“Wh-What?” Henry breathed harder. “I-I don’t… I can’t…”
“You can,” his dad insisted. “You like dick. Touch him, get yourself worked up, then go to it. I know you’ve never done it before, but it isn’t rocket science. You just put it in and pound the hole, the harder the better. Make him scream, it’s like a drug. Before long, you’ll be addicted to those screams.”
Henry stared at his dad in horror; how did he go to work as Sheriff and fool everyone into thinking he was sane… when he so clearly wasn’t.
“I-I can’t, Dad,” Henry choked. “Please don’t make me… please don’t…” Henry prepared for another strike of his dad’s hand, but it didn’t come. Even so, his dad wasn’t happy.
The man picked up a large blade, and the boy on the table broke into another fit of cries and screams, thrashing against his restraints.
“No, Dad… don’t…” Henry shook his head, tears flooding his face.
“I’m not.” Daniel jerked him against the table and shoved the knife into his hands, clamping his larger hand around his. “You are.”
“No, Dad, no!” Henry cried out. The boy writhed and bucked against the table, screaming for help.
“If you’re not going to fuck him,” his dad growled. “You’re at least going to kill him.”
The restrained kid thrashed like he was having a seizure, the panic rolling his eyes into his head as he gagged on his own screams, saliva foaming from the corners of his mouth.
“Do it now!” his dad snapped and squeezed Henry’s hands around the knife handle so hard his knuckles cracked—and stabbed the blade into the kid’s heaving stomach. Henry and the boy screamed in unison. His dad forced him to drag the blade up the kid’s stomach, tearing open his flesh, ripping into his guts. The boy gagged and choked, only the whites of his eyes showing now. His body convulsed and arched away from the table as blood and guts poured out of him, drenching Henry.
Henry was screaming, trying to tear free and let go of the knife, but his dad clamped his hands on the slippery handle. When he finally released him, Henry fell to the floor in a pool of the boy’s blood, shaking and wailing. He scooted frantically away from the table, hands and shoes slipping in the blood.
His dad walked over and squatted down as Henry crammed bloody fists into his mouth, muffling his screams, his eyes wide and blank, his breath surging through his nostrils.
“Finish him.” His dad dropped the knife on the floor beside Henry and stood. “Then I’ll show you how to clean up the mess.”
The man walked up the stairs and left the cellar.
Henry couldn’t move, his breath hissing against his bloody fists, as the boy twitched with life, watery gasps hitching in his throat. He was suffering… like the woman last night.
Feeling his soul drain from his body, Henry crawled to his feet and picked up the knife. He saw nothing and felt nothing as he ended the boy’s suffering, releasing him from the nightmare… while Henry’s was only just beginning.
CHAPTER 19: RUDE AWAKENINGS
Thoughts of the boystayed with Cole as the two men led him back down the metal staircase and deeper into the factory. Of all his repressed memories, the boy was the one he had buried the deepest. Looking so much like Ezra, thecleanupprocess nearly destroyed what was left of Cole’s sanity. To this day, he still didn’t understand how he hadn’t gone crazy.
The massive structure was a maze of twists and turns, where one could easily get lost, with no windows and some passages blocked by collapsed ceilings and debris. They stopped outside a large metal door. “Henry and I need to have a private conversation,” the Mangler told Byrne. “Please excuse us.”
The deputy looked at his dad with raw bitterness, possibly mixed with pure hate. “I have better things to do than join your tea party,” he muttered at the older man and walked away.
Cole watched him go. “Trouble in paradise?” Cole mumbled as he turned his eyes on Daniel. “Seems kind of tense between you and him.”
The Mangler rested his hand on the door handle. “How much did he tell you?”
“Enough,” Cole said. “He hates me because you…favorme over him. At least, in his mind.”
“No, he’s right.” Daniel smiled and pushed open the heavy door, the corroded hinges protesting sharply. “He was a disappointment from the start. Refused to learn and always made a mess.”
“I didn’t learn, either,” Cole whispered. “I hated the things you made me do. I didn’t want to be like you—he does.”
“Your difficulty in learning was my fault,” Daniel said. “I pushed you too hard at the beginning. Your brother was a killerfrom day one. You weren’t. I should have realized that you needed to be eased into it.”
