Page 113 of Caged
“Who are you? What do you want?” Harrison demands. Still some fight in him, I see, but that will be gone soon. Sweat leaks from his oily pores as I straddle his lap.
“Where did you dump Kasey’s body?” I ask, my tone hollow and metallic from the voice changer. It’s possible Barrett lied to us, so I figured it’s best to get a second opinion.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he snaps, trying to maintain his insipid disposition, but if the profuse beads of sweat streaming down his temples could speak, they’d be squealing just like his buddy Barrett had squealed when I snapped that bear trap around his dick.
“No?” I coo mockingly. “Well, if you’re not going to talk, I guess you’ll have no use for your tongue.”
I jam my hand into his mouth, snatching his tongue before he has a chance to react.
“Blade,” I request, trading my gun for a carving knife. Gabi obliges and takes up the task of holding the gun to Harrison’s temple now that she’s finished with the duct tape.
“You like staying silent, don’t you Harrison? Pity.”
“Wait,” he squeals like the little bitch he is, but I don’t let go of his tongue. “Beebe Lake,” he manages, and I’m thankful I have on surgical gloves. His rank breath is hot against my face as he pants, and I know if I look down, I’ll see that he’s pissed himself. The smell makes it obvious. What a fucking pussy. How quickly these men fall once outside of their protective Sigma bubble.
“Beebe Lake is a large body of water,” I respond. “Where, specifically, did you dump her body?”
I yank his tongue further, ready to slice.
“Sackett footbridge,” he lisps.
“Hmmm,” I growl. “Three women are dead and yet you stay silent. Consider this a blessing, then,” I say as I slice through the thick tendon of his tongue, severing the front half.
Blood sprays, then gushes from his mouth as Harrison screams. Such a sweet sound, but the sound of him choking on his own blood is sweeter.
I lean over and pull on the door handle. Gabi does the same from the backseat, careful to collect all our accessories. We each pull a can of spray paint from our war bag. Gabi runs to the other side, while I work on the driver’s side. Finished, we toss our things into the car, and Gabi gets behind the wheel while I fish out my coup de grâce.
“Bye bye you piece of shit,” I mutter to myself and revel in the satisfying crunch of my baseball bat shattering his windshield to pieces.
55
KIEREN
Present Day
“Where the fuck are all these sirens going?” I ask Jace, not expecting an answer. He shrugs as we pull to the side of the road to let another police car pass.
“Follow it,” I say curiously.
“I thought we wanted to get to the hospital?”
“Humor me,” I grunt. Instinctively I take out my phone to scroll through social media to see if any students have posted about the commotion, but everyone seems to be in the dark and speculating.
Multiple flashing emergency vehicle lights barricade a parking lot on the east side of campus. “Something must have happened in there,” Jace notes. “I can’t get past.”
“Park the car here, let’s go on foot,” I order.
“Here?” Jace asks skeptically. “This isn’t a parking spot.”
“Park on the side of the road and put your hazards on. Who cares?” I shout as I slam the car door shut. Jogging across the street toward the parking lot, I snake past firstresponders unrolling caution tape until I reach what appears to be the natural border of the scene. Students stand shoulder to shoulder, and even though I’m a head taller than most of them, I shove my way through.
“Holy fuck,” I stammer, coming to a halt. An SUV I recognize as Harrison’s is fifty feet in front of me, surrounded by police officers and firemen. An ambulance has pulled as close as it can get given there are still other cars in the parking lot. Four men work together to pull an unresponsive body from the driver’s seat and onto a gurney. Blood coats Harrison’s mouth and chin. His shirt and top of his pants are stained red.
“Is that Harrison?” Jace gasps behind me, finally catching up. I nod, barely able to process what my eyes see. The windshield of his car is smashed inward. Splinters jut out like spiderwebs from the point of contact, and if I had to guess, I’d say the person who did this used a baseball bat.
“Say their names,” Jace reads aloud, and then whispers a stunned, “Jesus Christ.”
Gawking, I look over at him. In minutes, I know images of Harrison’s spray-painted SUV will be plastered across social media.
