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He looks at me, his brows furrowed in confusion.
“Really? Is the mask not enough of a hint for you?” I ask, pointing at the mask in question with the pliers and he shakes his head. “You bad guys really are dumb nowadays, huh? Thinkveryhard. Devil mask,” I say pointing at the mask again. “Who could you have been talking about tonight that could go around wearing a devil mask and being a total badass doing it?”
I watch his eyes widen when he finally puts two and two together and starts to laugh once again.
“You?” He asks as he takes a breath. “No. No way thatyouare the Queen of Hell.”
“No? Okay. How about I tell you a story,” I say, hitting him on the nose with the pliers and smiling as he hisses in pain before going back to the trolley and grabbing the bolt cutters, a knife and the blowtorch. I sit down by his feet and pull off his shoes and socks.
“Once upon a time there was a princess that lived with her father, the evil king. He was mean to the princess and would take his anger out on her every time something went wrong in the kingdom. One day, when the princess came back from her studies she found the evil king meeting with four evil men from another kingdom,” I tap each of his toes with the pliers. “Her father,” I say, placing the pliers on top of his big toe, “told her that she was to go with the evil men.”
I grab his big toe with my hand and pull the toenail out with the pliers, smiling as he screams.
“The princess didn’t want to go with the men so she tried to run, but one of them grabbed her and dragged her back to Hell,” I grab the next toe pulling that toenail out too, “The men said disgusting things to the princess,” another toenail. “And when she tried to run again they hurt her, damaging her mind.”
I pull the final two toenails and place the pliers on the floor beside me, picking up the bolt cutters and waiting for his beautiful screams to quiet down before I continue.
“So do you know what that princess with the newly damaged mind did?” I ask, tapping the top of his foot with the bolt cutters. “She killed every last one of the men, taking the kingdom, and left behind a special symbol so everyone would know who they had unleashed on the earth that night,” I chop each of his toes off with the bolt cutters in quick succession. “Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead.”
He howls in pain as I light the blowtorch and hold it against the blade in my hand to heat it. I don’t actually know if someone can bleed out from having their toes chopped off, but I don’t want to take the chance that it could happen and then have him die on me before I’m done with him. As his cries start to die down I place the blade against the bloody wounds where his toes used to be, scrunching my nose at the smell of burning flesh as he screams again.
I pull the knife away from his foot and place it on the floor beside me, picking up the pliers and turning, continuing with my story when he starts to quiet.
“When the princess finally came to her senses she was covered in blood not knowing how it got there. She stared up at the prince, her guard. He took one look at her and he shattered her heart just as thoroughly as the evil men had her mind.”
I pull the toenail from his big toe before grabbing the bolt cutters and smashing them down on top of his toe, obliterating it the same way Clay had my heart that night. The agonised scream from Sullivan’s mouth is like music to my ears and my lips lift in a wide grin. I lift the bolt cutters and my grin drops as I frown at the smushed bloody mess on the floor that used to be Sullivan’s big toe.
Okay,maybeI used a bit too much force when I slammed the bolt cutters down. But thinking about what Clay did that night tends to make me kind of angry. I slam the bolt cutters down on the next toe as if proving my own point and he screams again, making my smile return.
What? So I’m still a bit salty about everything that happened that night. I guess it's a good thing that part of my story is over.
I look up at Sullivan from my position on the floor. His screaming has stopped but he's a blubbering mess, tears and snot running down his face as he mouths words I can’t hear, so I jump up and walk round to his head.
“What's wrong, Philip? Don’t you like my story?” I lean forward and can still barely hear what he’s saying through his blubbering, but there is no mistaking the words he is mumbling. “Are youpraying?” I ask through a chuckle. “Tell me something, Philip. Do you really think the gods will save you from me after the things you have done?”
He doesn’t answer me, so I go back to my place on the floor in between his feet to continue with my story.
“Where was I? Oh, that’s right, The Arsehole Prince,” I say tapping the top of Sullivan’s foot with the pliers. “So, the arsehole prince ran away and the princess went on a rampage killing all the evil men she came across. Then, a year later she finally found the man that sent the four evil men that broke her mind. So she sliced the skin off his body and turned it into a beacon to everyone else that the skin trade was not welcome in her kingdom.” I pull the toenail from his middle toe and his mumbled prayers stop as he screams once more.
“Stop… Please stop. I believe you. I believe you!” he cries out.
“Aww, but I didn't even get to the best part yet. You see, for five years no one ever tried to revive the skin trade in the princess's kingdom. Until one night, just before the princess was due to leave on an important trip to another kingdom, two ogres tried to kidnap her not knowing who she really was.” I pull the next toenail. “She killed them, of course, and left for her trip the next morning.”
I pull out the last remaining toenail to the sounds of his cries and then stand, grabbing the trolley and pulling it to the top of the cross, looking down at him. His eyes are squeezed shut as tears continue to run freely down his face, his mouth open as he gulps in ragged breaths.
“Eww, you look an absolute mess. You really needed to have a higher pain threshold if you were planning on doing something you knew was going to piss me off. Now, we’re getting to the good bit, so listen carefully, Philip,” I tell him, tapping him on his wet cheek with a large knife before dragging it across his chest, making shallow cuts as I speak.
“When she got to her destination she found it was the home of four arsehole princes, including the arsehole prince that broke her heart. But that wasn’t all she found,” I drag the blade across his chest to just over his heart.
“You see, it turned out that the kingdom had been taken over by four evil kings who thought that because they were so far away from the princess’s kingdom she would never find out what they were trying to do there. They didn’t realise she had business in their kingdom and was living right under their noses, finding out all of their dirty little secrets and making the most awesome, badass plan that included lots of arse kicking, torture and the most gruesome deaths for the evil kings.”
I lift the hilt of the blade, pressing the tip into the skin covering his heart, hard enough for a drop of blood to become visible around it. I drag the knife down, scoring his flesh and watching the blood well up in the shallow slice as he whimpers.
“W-what do you want from me?” He cries when I place the blade back on his chest to repeat the action.
“I want your pain,” I say, not even needing to think about my answer. “I want your agony, your desperation, and your pretty, pretty screams,” I plunge the knife into his shoulder and smile as I’m rewarded with one of those very screams. “But most of all, I want you to remember that no matter how good you bastards think you are, I amalwaysbetter.”
I leave the blade in his shoulder and walk back round the cross, pulling the trolley with me. I stop when I reach his feet, opening the large orange case that houses the nail gun. I have never used one of these before, so I scan the little booklet that’s inside before picking up the small gas canister and clicking it into place.
