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That isn’t Midnight’s way.

His way is a bloody journey to brokenness before he even opens his smiling mouth to ask a question. He wants his fun. And he wants his toys so shattered, so ruined, that they will beg him to ask the questions, beg him to let them give the answers, just so they can die.

I’m well on my way.

Another fist hits my face — Irons, this time — and I feel my jaw shift in a way that sets joints grinding, bones bending, and teeth shifting. My spit thickens with blood, with mucus, with everything dripping down the back of my throat from my shattered nose. I swallow some, spit the rest on the floor near Moose’s feet.

He chuckles, grabs me by the throat, and squeezes. I feel my eyes bulge in their sockets and my pulse pound in every vein in my face. Moose brings his face next to mine and stares into my eyes, his face a mask of fury, derision, and anticipation.

Mostly anticipation.

If my eyes could move right now — not held by pressure, by the pulsing, swelling in my veins and the bruises threatening to crush my eyelids shut — I bet I’d look down and see that Moose is hard.

He wouldn’t be the only one. Because Midnight’s here.

“You will not provoke me, Wraith. I’m enjoying this too much. We’re going to take our time with you. And even when Irons and me, when we’ve had enough, Midnight’s still here. Then we’ll just step aside and let this sick motherfucker do his thing. You’ll be a fucking stump when he’s done with you. A bloody stump just begging for us to finish you. And maybe we will — maybe, you beg right, you give us everything we ask for, we’ll let you off. We’ll be nice. We’ll bring your girl here, let you see her, and let her watch as we finish you.”

He release my throat and I pull in a deep gasp of air just as he rams his meat-hook sized fist into my solar plexus.

I vomit blood and bile down the front of my chest.

He laughs.

I spit up more blood.

And think of June.

Hold onto her image in my head. Her smile. Her laugh. The way her voice broke as she found out I was going to take Moose’s deal, the look in her eyes as I tied her to the bed and left her.

She was right.

She was right all along.

And I was too caught up in being me, just me — because there was no fucking New Dylan, never was — and thinking I knew best, that I was in control, that I had the fucking answers, to just fucking listen to her.

But maybe now, even though she isn’t here, even though she’ll never know, I can be the man I should’ve been all along. New Dylan, doing whatever it fucking takes to give New June a chance at the life she wants.

They’ll break me. I know that.

They’ll batter me, they’ll cut off digits — fingers, toes — and they’ll remove skin and other parts of me, until I’m screaming and no longer human, just a fleshy, bloody mass of pain ready to give them anything they want in exchange for an exit.

I know it; they know it.

This road has only one destination.

But what they don’t know is just how far I’m willing to go. How long I’ll hold on for the woman I should’ve listened to from the start. The woman I should’ve loved the right way. June.

At least I can give her a chance at the new life she wanted.

At least I can give her enough time so that maybe she can escape.

Maybe she can start over. Maybe she can get safe.

Maybe I can be the man she deserves.

Just once.

Just this one fucking time.