Page 73 of His Favorite Color is Blood
“What?” Misha blew a strand of hair away. “Am I dirty?”
“No,” Grim said, his face serious. “I just thought that you’re gonna be hurt if you kill that scum. I’d rather that I’m hurt. I’m gonna kill him for you, birdie. Don’t be afraid.”
Misha’s heart began thudding again, and as much as he wanted to tell Grim that he was fine, that he could go through with it, all he had in him were eyes glossing over and “Thank you …”
Grim kissed him and curled up closer.
Chapter 23
Grim
Grim smeared his facewith streaks of dark mud. After he kneeled in front of one of their car’s side mirrors, his features gradually disappeared, muted by the thick layer of brown paste that he massaged all the way past his collarbones. Misha was behind him, covering his back and sides with irregular strokes that spread the mud over skin to hide any potentially identifying scars. With Tomas already hung down from a rusty balcony in the second floor of the old house, there were moans and pleas disturbing Grim’s peace, but he didn’t mind. It made him queasy to document a kill on camera, and so he needed any incentive he could get, including annoyance with his soon-to-be victim.
And worst of all, Misha had to at least feature in the video as well. If everything went according to plan, they’d destroy the short movie later, but Grim preferred not to take chances. He glanced at his lover in the mirror.
Misha still had a healthy flush to his cheeks, but it was getting paler by the minute. Misha was a survivor. He would probably be able to go through with the kill if he needed to, but if Grim could spare him one more trauma, and leave at least a part of Misha whole, he’d do so.
“Just be in the picture once you start the recording, okay?” asked Grim and picked up more mud before turning toward Misha and smearing it over his smooth cheek.
Misha winced but didn’t say a thing. Grim didn’t want Misha to desensitize to these kinds of scenes. He loved the vulnerability still left in him, even after all that he’d been through, and he’d be sad to see it gone.
Grim took his time, ignoring the pleas for mercy as he covered Misha with mud and then adjusted the blanket in Misha’s lap. They took Tomas’s shoes and put them on the footrests of Misha’s wheelchair so he wouldn’t be immediately identifiable as an amputee in the video. Once Grim was finished, he took a black scarf from his bag and tied it on Misha’s head like a bandana, covering his longish hair. Even in the worst-case scenario of Grim being recognized, Misha couldn’t be. He would not survive another kind of prison.
As he squeezed Misha’s hand, his gaze trailed to the pudgy figure of Tomas, which swung three feet over the ground like an enormous pendulum.
Misha’s eyes were wide, but he was calm when he put the camera on a low, partially crumbled wall and wheeled closer to Grim once the red light went on. It was showtime, and Grim wasn’t happy about that at all. Killings were usually intimate affairs between him and his victim. He thought of himself as a nocturnal predator, hunting his prey down until it was caught in his trap where it could be consumed in the dark. Yet he was now stuck in front of the bright lights from the car.
Tomas’s eyes opened wide as Grim approached with all his knives strapped in visible places on top of his clothes. If Grim were to give Zero a show, so be it.
His eyes wandered to the man’s useless, thin legs that were now partially uncovered after Tomas’s sweatpants had been pulled to his knees by gravity. Nausea was settling in Grim’s throat as he stepped closer, knowing he would break one of his fundamental rules the moment he put the knife against Tomas’s skin. Of course, he could have searched for another victim, but they were low on time, and that fucker was no innocent himself.
Grim punched his stomach.
Tomas uttered a broken moan, and another stream of tears streaked down his cheeks, spilling over short stubble. Grim just needed to forget how different Tomas was from his usual catch, and it would all be fine. The flabby flesh around Tomas’s midsection was no different from Gary’s, and while Tomas suffered because of his own disability, the experience didn’t make him any more compassionate toward the children he targeted.
“Please, I can get you money out of my accounts! Just let me go …” he cried, trying to uselessly wiggle in the air.
Grim kept silent, not wanting his voice on tape, but he leaned down and looked straight into Tomas’s eyes, pulling on the hair on top of the man’s head. Tomashad two choices now: accept his fate and give himself time to make peace with whatever he believed in or struggle until his death, which would end up with him hurting much more than if he’d just let Grim do his job in peace. Grim knew the drill better than anyone. His eyes briefly trailed back to Misha, but the red dot of the camera distracted him from that sweet, mud-covered face.
They weren’t completely true to Zero’s demands, as he wanted their faces uncovered, but he had said nothing about “makeup.” Grim and Misha were like that girl from an old fairytale, who came to see a prince both naked and clothed when she covered herself with a fisherman’s net. With the flare Zero had for spectacle, Grim suspected the bastard would appreciate their creative approach on some level.
Tomas, on the other hand, did not. He had to be gagged after he got an up-close look at Grim’s serrated blade. Once Grim drew first blood, once Tomas’s flesh opened up to him, everything became much easier. All the issues that had held Grim back dissolved, replaced by the rush of adrenaline, the dark excitement, and the flood of red.
He made even, beautiful cuts all along Tomas’s torso, opening him up like a fish for grilling. He was completely focused, lost in the world where red blood stuck to his forearms, and its coppery scent gave him a high like nothing else in the world could. Tomas was in agony, but once his body got tired of the struggle and he spaced out, Grim criss-crossed his blades against his throat and then opened up his blood vessels to bleed him like the pig he was.
Only a gasp from behind reminded Grim that Misha was here with him, at the edge of the world between light and shadow, his face expressionless as he watched the blood drip down Tomas’s face and form a puddle on the ground.
Grim relaxed once he saw the camera was off. Misha slowly put it into the bag strapped to his seat. “Misha?”
“Yes?” Those big attentive eyes came back to Grim, and they didn’t hold even a shadow of judgment or disgust.
Grim swiped the bloodied knives against his pants and put them back in the sheaths, slowly picking himself up. “You okay, birdie?”
“Yes. I focused on what he did. When I see you do what you do, I see the faces of everyone who hurt me in the eyes of the person you kill. It makes me feel good. I don’t know what that says about me.” Misha reached out and squeezed Grim’s hand.
Grim couldn’t help a smirk spreading on his face as he kneeled and nudged Misha’s cheek with his crusty nose. “You’re killing them by proxy.”
“I’ve seen so much sick shit in the world that I can’t find even a hint of compassion for the type of scum that is out there. Those who have no mercy for others don’t deserve to get it when it’s their turn to suffer.” Misha entwined his fingers with Grim’s gloved ones, marking his own hands with Tomas’s blood. The sight was more of a turn-on than Grim would have expected, but with the pleasant afterglow of the wild sex they had only an hour ago, he was still satisfied.
