Page 68 of Deadly Aloha
“Drowsiness, coughing, impaired breathing, hiccups, nausea, vomiting…” She shrugged. “Just to name a few. Tommy was verysmart to get an IV line in you. That should help. Oh,” she added quickly, “and you might have uncontrollable gas for a while.”
The entire room stopped and stared, including me.
Then Holly giggled. “Kidding. Payback for you not wanting to drink my smoothie.”
I was not the only one to let out a sigh of relief at that. I couldn’t help but chuckle too. “Well played, Holly. Very well played.”
Tommy’s boatwas loaded up and ready to go. Though my back was killing me, I was refusing to take any painkillers. Lu was calling me a moron and a martyr, but I had no intention of dulling my aches. I wanted to feeleverysingleoneof them so that I could make the surviving Bloody Scorpions feel my pain too.
Spirit, Tommy, Lucifer, and I were on the boat. Without knowing if there were any more Bloody Scorpions around, I was not leaving Lu, Holly, or Pua unprotected. They were at Bacon’s house with the other members for protection.
Of the seven Bloody Scorpions who had come onto my property tonight, four of them were dead. The two who had been dragging me out of the house were bound and gagged, my dagger still in one of their shoulders. The last one was only gagged, because binding him was just pointless. He wasn’t going anywhere.
It was nearly dawn, so we had to move fast. Tommy was taking us on a direct route out to deep waters rather than taking an evasive route. At this point, time was more pressing and I needed answers before the sun started to rise.
Not that the Bloody Scorpions knew that. They thought I had all the time in the world to play with them.
When Tommy cut the engine, he hopped down to start to help the others. Rather than using the gaff this time, we’d borrowed the construction crews’ woodchipper. With so many dead, it would be faster than having to go get other chum.
The three still living watched as the four dead were stripped naked and then fed into the chipper. I had no issue feeding people to the sharks, but I was not going to feed them harmful materials like clothing and metal. Tommy had us facing away from the wind so their pieces and splatter went into the open ocean.
“I like this,” I commented to Tommy. “We should get one of these for the future. Can you imagine how much we’d save on chum?”
“Seems like a decent investment,” he said, loud enough for the three prisoners to hear him over the roar of the motor.
Even out in open sea like this, all of us were on alert for another boat or the Coast Guard. Once the four bodies were fed through, I pointed to the one that had the dislocated neck.
“Nice and slow,” I reminded Spirit and Lucifer. I was honestly surprised at the former priest, but he never even blinked when I told him to come with us. It wasn’t like I wanted him for Last Rites or anything like that. I wanted to make sure his faith wouldn’t interfere in our work. Watching me cut the hand off a man he’d once called ‘brother’ was different than feeding a living man through a woodchipper.
The man’s gag was removed first. They stripped him down like the others and then put him in feet first. The man’s screams and pleas started long before his toes touched the blades, but they didn’t stop. Based on the man’s cut, he was low level. Just a rider, muscle. I wanted the top dog, the one who shot me. And I wanted him scared shitless.
When they got to his knees, I gave Spirit a signal and he pulled the man from the shoot. Bloody and screaming, the man was tossed onto the deck. He wasn’t going to last much longer.
“He acts like he can feel it,” Tommy scoffed, disgusted.
My Enforcer had a point. If the man was in pain, it was all in his head. “He really should be thanking me for breaking his neck. That one,” I pointed to the one with my dagger in his shoulder, “isn’t going to be so lucky.”
The man’s eyes went wide in horror.
I walked over to the footless man who looked like a twisted rag doll. Squatting, I tried my damnedest not to wince as the stitches on my back pulled. Tommy had said the one in my side wasn’t very deep and he didn’t think my kidney was in danger, but he still shot me full of antibiotics.
“How many of you are there on the islands?” I asked over his cries.
The man couldn’t move anything below his chin, meaning he couldn’t even shake his head as he tried to answer. But everything that came out of his mouth was unintelligible.
He was giving me a headache. I stood. “Throw him in,” I ordered the others. He was going to bleed to death soon anyway.
I gritted my teeth as I walked back over to where Tommy stood by the raised helm. Per Lu, I was not allowed to lift anything. I was already in the doghouse by getting on this boat, and I knew damn well that the others would tattle on me if Lu asked them if I obeyed. That would have pissed me off if I didn’t know they did it out of loyalty to her and not out of disrespect to me. As I’d told her months ago, I’d rather they liked her more than me anyway.
If there ever was a time when they had to choose between my life and hers, I needed to know without a shadow of a doubt that they would choose her over me.
My headache lessened as soon as the screaming stopped. I let out a sigh of relief. Then I turned to face the next man. “My question’s still the same. How many of you are there?”
Lucifer pulled down the man’s gag. He hit the dagger still protruding from the man with his elbow when he did. I didn’t know if it was on purpose or accidental, but I approved so I didn’t reprimand him for it.
“You’ll kill me if I talk,” he gasped out. “What’s the point?”
“I’m a man of my word,” I swore. “You will not be put into the woodchipper if you talk.But,” I added sternly, “if you don’t answer all my questions truthfully and I have to start questioning him,” I jerked my thumb at the other man, “then you most definitely will be going through the woodchipper.”
