Page 96 of Reacher
“Fine. I’m still going in ahead of you though, just in case.”
He pounded his fist on the heavy door twice, and someone pulled it open. All kinds of smells hit me right away, and I didn’t even want to think about what I was smelling, because it wasn’t just blood. It smelled like a public bathroom too.
“Has, what’s up?” Stitch poked his head out, just as Has stepped aside, and let him see me.
“Jesus fuck. Are you out of your damn mind?”
I heard him mutter one word. ‘Probably’. The next face to appear, after Stitch disappeared inside again, was Reacher’s.
“Jesus, woman. You don’t want to be here for this.”
I fixed him with a glare, my hands on my hips. Again there was a pinch of pain, but not anything I couldn’t handle.
“You know I need to be. You said I could witness it.”
He grimaced, lifting a hand to his face, before he rethought it. His fingers were bloody, and his knuckles were cracked and bleeding.
“Oh my god. You need to let me patch you up.”
Has-Been cursed behind me, but I ignored him.
“Woman, I’m kinda in the middle of things, so you can patch me up later.” He leaned back into the room and muttered something, then pushed the door wider.
“You can watch, but you stay outside the room. Those are my terms, woman.”
I nodded, not wanting to step any closer, because there was a lot of blood, and Raoul was barely recognisable. His face was badly beaten, bleeding, and sagging slightly, like he struggled to bear even that small weight. His eyes were swollen almost shut.
I didn’t focus on his body, which was strung up by two manacles holding his arms above his head.
“Has he told you what you need to know?” I asked Reacher, as he turned to head back over to his victim.
“Oh yeah… almost immediately.” He smirked at me.
“So why isn’t he dead yet?”
Torch stepped into my view from the other side of the door.
“Because it’s my turn to play now.”
I caught the same reaction from Reacher, Stitch, and Has-Been when I turned to look at him. Horror. Wariness.Disgust.
“Can I get started, Pres?” I heard a hissing noise, and then a whoosh, like something caught fire, and that’s when I noticed the blowtorch in Torch’s hand. Suddenly I wondered if I was about to see the reason for his road name.
“Oh Jesus.” Has-Been backed up out of sight, and I looked at him.
“I’m not fucking watching,” he said, his hands up defensively.Oh god.
I turned back to look as he approached Raoul, the flame lifting to the man’s face. As Raoul started to scream, I backed up too. That was too graphic, too violent, and too disgusting for me to watch. Less than a minute later, Reacher and Stitch left the room too, and both looked almost shell-shocked.
“Let’s go, woman. I need to get cleaned up.” I noticed then that there was blood on most of Reacher’s clothes. His cut was absent, as was Stitch’s, and he, too, was splashed with blood.
I swallowed hard. “At least he’s paying for what he did.”
Has-Been made a gagging sound.
“We’re all fucking paying now. Fucking hell, I think I can smell it.” He hurried up the stairs, and Stitch followed just as quickly. I glanced back at the door.
“Is he killing him?”
