“Not that we totally can’t!” Dexter added. “We can totally think on our feet!”
“Yup! We can torture him or psychologically scar him. We just thought you had something planned already,” Jude added.
“You didn’t want to butt in…” I said slowly.
They both nodded their heads. The irony almost made me laugh out loud, because that’s exactly what they were doing—butting the fuck in. But at least they weren’t gonna take over.
Rick the Dick groaned a little, and there was a slight ruffling sound as his body moved a bit on the ground. Dexter had tied his arms and legs together, so at least I didn’t have to worry about him running.
“Ok,” I said, standing up and dusting off my hands. “Looks like Rick the Dick is waking up.”
I was about to go grab him, but Dexter ran over and hauled him up. Jude pulled over the chair, and Dexter sat him on it, looking at me.
“Yeah, I guess tie him to the chair,” I said, shrugging my shoulders.
It didn’t look terribly sturdy, but if Rick fell on his head, I wasn’t gonna feel bad.
“You want duct tape or zip ties?” Jude asked, going to look in Dexter’s bag.
“Duct tape can rip hair and skin off with its removal, which is painful but not often permanently disfiguring. Zip ties can cut into the skin, and if applied tightly enough, they can lead to numbness and nerve damage, causing at least somewhat permanent damage,” Dexter explained.
“How permanent?” Jude asked. “It might be fun to maim him.”
“Not sure,” Dexter shrugged. “I killed the hellbound soul after a week. If he’d gotten medical treatment, surgery, and physical therapy, I’m not sure what would’ve happened. Toby just had to wing it on figuring that stuff out for his book.”
“Zip ties,” I decided, cutting off their discussion.
A little extra pain sounded good to me, and I wasn’t gonna ask about Dexter experimenting on rotten souls to get info for his author boyfriend to add realistic details to his books. Toby was sweet, but he was also odd as hell. And bloodthirsty.
“So,” I asked as they finished securing Rick, “are you guys gonna do everything while I just stand here looking pretty?”
“You aren’t standing there looking pretty!” Dexter defended.
Jude smacked him on the back of the head. “Of course you look pretty, Thea. Dexter meant we aren’t gonna let you just stand there.”
“Yeah. We figured we’d do all the not fun stuff, like securing the victim and cleaning up the mess and stuff, and we’ll leave all the fun stuff, like the torture, up to you,” Dexter added.
“Yup. And we can figure out what to do with Rick at the end of it, too. We can drop him off somewhere, or we can get Corbin to wipe his memory,” Jude added.
“Corbin argued he ought to be able to come for that reason alone, but I might’ve thrown a rocktowardhis crow—not like I was gonna hit it—and distracted him, so I won that round,” Dexter admitted.
Jude chuckled, “You’re totally gonna get shit on for at least a week, you know. Probably a month.”
Dexter just shrugged, like it was a price he was willing to pay.
Okay then. I guessed the rest was up to me.
Rick moaned a little bit, and I thought he was probably waking up. That meant it was show time. I’d never had an audience before. I’d never tortured anyone with help, either, so this whole thing was a little weird. There was also one other little problem.
I really hadn’t been planning on letting Rick go when I was done.
Chapter 3
Thea
Ihad run out to the car and changed into sweats and a t-shirt while Rick was coming to, because no one wanted to interrogate and torture someone in a night-out outfit. That shit just wasn’t comfortable.
I don’t care what Hollywood tries to tell you—miniskirts, corset tops, and heels are not action sequence clothing. It’s fucking ridiculous. I wanted to torture the guy, not have my boobs pop out when I bent over, for fuck’s sake. And although there was the occasional woman who could do amazing fucking things in heels—bless their superhero souls—I wasnotone of them. That shit took years of training and wearing heels all the time, and that was justnotme. I was a sneakers or slippers kind of girl. Maybe some kick ass boots. Without heels. Or some nice chonky heels.
