Page 13 of The Player
And just like that, we moved together, gathering our weapons and working as a team. It was what we did best.
Adam was the psycho. Cold, calculated, a get-the-job-done kind of guy.
Devon was itching to add another notch to his reaper scythe.
Colton was here to kill, a joker who used his humour to twist the knife deeper, harder, more sadistically than anyone else, and he’d do it with a smile on his face.
And Tyler was our thief. He had eyes in the back of his head, and he could rip your heart out before you’d even realised he was there. A stealthy shadow, that was Tyler.
And me?
I was the player.
Put me in the game and I’d ace it, time after time.
Some might say I liked to toy with people’s emotions, and they’d be right. There was nothing I liked more than playing with our victims, messing with their heads. A true player doesn’t care if their victims get hurt; it’s all a game to them.
And I loved the game.
I was the best player of them all.
Adam yanked on the other guy’s chains to try and rouse him, then he took a bottle of water from the floor and opened it, throwing the contents into the guy’s face.
“Wakey, wakey, fucker,” he snarled. “Time to get up and start talking. The sooner you talk, the sooner this will all be over, and isn’t that what we all want?”
The guy spluttered as he shook his head, then he glanced to the side and saw his friend hanging lifelessly next to him, with my knife sticking out of his head, and he started to thrash in his chains.
“You’ll fucking pay for that,” the guy snarled, making us all laugh.
“I don’t think you’re in a position to threaten us,mate,” Colton jeered. “You’re about three minutes away from joining your friend in hell.” He nodded over to me. “Will needs a little more target practise, his aim can be shocking. The guy before him”—he gestured to the dead guy—“he caught him right in the dick.” He tapped his skull. “He got the wrong head, you see.”
“You don’t fucking scare me,” the guy hissed, bucking and thrashing harder.
Adam stepped forward, raising his fist and smacking it hard into the guy’s face, making him jolt to the side.
“You need to remember your fucking manners,” Adam growled. “Talk to any of us like that again and I’ll let Devon show you what he can do with his katana sword. That’s a samurai sword to ignorant fuckers like yourself.”
The guy snarled back, blood staining his teeth as he spat onto our floor.
Instantly, Adam stepped forward again and smacked him with another lethal punch to the gut, making him blow out a pained breath.
“Again, learn your fucking manners,mate.Don’t spit your filth all over our floor.”
Adam moved to stand right in front of him, his face close to his as he barked, “Let’s make this nice and easy, shall we? You and your friend here were caught in that house. The one where you’d kept all those women prisoners. So don’t even try to fucking deny it. You’re part of whatever trafficking ring is operating out of there. We know that. Now, what you need to tell us is who the top man is. Where’s your boss? Because we know for a fact, when it comes to food chains, you’re at the fucking bottom.”
The guy grinned like a maniac, then he tilted his head back and spat right in Adam’s face.
Tyler beat us to it and whacked his fist into the guy’s stomach as Adam stepped away, wiping the filth from his face. Colton was next to have a go, grabbing the guy’s jaw and digging his fingers into his cheeks as he told him in a calm and measured voice, “You really didn’t want to do that. You’ve just made things so much worse for yourself.”
“I don’t care,” the guy rasped. “I’m ready to die. And I won’t tell you a fucking thing. I’d rather cut my own throat than help you.”
“That can be arranged,” Devon announced drily. “But just so you know, we have a one hundred percent success rate at getting our victims to squeal like a pig. Our methods are that good.”
The guy rattled his chains again, snarled at us, and shouted, “Well you’re about to lower your perfect rating, because I don’t know a fucking thing.”
“Don’t you?” Colton grabbed his throat, choking him as the guy shook his head. His face became puffy, growing purple as Colton’s grip got tighter. Then he let him go, and the guy spluttered, gasping for breath as he croaked, “They don’t tell us anything. We watch the girls. They send someone to collect the money once a week. That’s all I do. I don’t know anything else. I don’t even know the name of the guy who collects the fucking money.”
“Is that so?” Devon walked slowly towards him, lifting the filleting knife he’d chosen from the altar and pushing it into his cheek. Blood trickled down his face as Devon moved slowly, carving into him and smiling as he did. “You know, I can do this all day. Carving is my favourite thing to do, it’s so… soothing.” Once the knife reached his chin, Devon moved lower, using the tip of the blade to lift his T-shirt and pierce the flesh of his stomach.
