Page 82 of Devour

None of them talk. They look at each other, then at the floor. The one with the arm wound is shaking, but he keeps his mouth shut.

Tate sighs and stands up from the chair. “Priest.” He points at the one he wants—the dipshit who looks like he’s about to fucking piss himself.

Priest steps forward and grabs the guard by his zip-tied wrists, dragging him away from the line. The man fights it, but he’s no match for Priest. He shoves him onto his back and puts his boot on the man’s chest.

Tate stands beside him. “I’ll let Priest start with you. We’ll consider this part of his training.”

Priest chuckles and cracks his neck before focusing on the guard. “Which hand do you jack off with?”

The guard stares up at him and doesn’t say anything.

“I’ll just start with the right then.” Priest crouches and grabs his pinky finger. “Odds are he’s right handed, right guys?”

Priest snaps the man’s finger. Then takes his knife and slices off his thumb while he’s still screaming about his pinky.

The man is wailing, feet kicking and trying to move from Priest’s hold. Priest picks up the severed thumb and rubs the pad of it on the man’s bottom lip. “Are you ready to use this mouth for talking, or do you want me to see how many of your severed fingers I can fit inside? Maybe your dick too?”

Tate grins, obviously approving of Priest’s fucked-up creativity.

“No. Please.” The words come fast through labored breathing. “It’s a membership. The men pay monthly. They get a client code and book through the system. We don’t know their names, only codes and time slots.”

“Who set it up?” Tate asks from the chair.

“I don’t know. I swear to God. There’s a few of them. We get paid in cash every two weeks.”

“Who are they?” I ask.

“I don’t know their names. The last one drove a black Mercedes.”

I look at Tate. That’s what David Carter was driving when he brought the girl.

“Keep going,” Tate says. “I think you know more. And you’ll piss me off less if you just tell me what you know.”

The guard’s eyes dart to the others on the line. Two of them are staring at the floor. One is staring at Priest’s knife.

Fox steps over and stabs one of the men in the eye. He clutches his face and screams. “Anyone else feel like they might have something to say? We want fucking names.”

The one next to the man starts talking as soon as Fox steps in front of him.

“The one with the Mercedes is David Carter.”

We fucking knew that already.

“And now the others,” Tate says.

“Randall Hawthorne.” The man blurts out, eyeing Fox.

The name sounds familiar, and I’m trying to remember where I heard it.

“And the third?” Fox asks, wiping the blade on the stabbed man’s shirt.

“Travis Keller. He built the booking system and manages the client side.”

That name sounds familiar too. But I can’t put my finger on it. Crew just returned from helping the women into the van and is already pulling out his phone, typing away. He’ll run them both and get everything we can.

“How many other locations?” Tate asks.

The man shakes his head. “I don’t know. They don’t tell us shit about anything beyond this building. But I’ve heard Travis on the phone talking about shipments to other sites. At least two more. We don’t know where they are, I swear.”