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Hawk took another step toward Garrett, but stopped when he heard the sound of a key sliding into the side door. He spun and crossed the bay in a few short strides, but the door opened, and Shooter stepped into the darkened garage.
“Go,” Hawk ordered. “Leave. Now.”
Shooter closed the door behind him and took in the scene. Instead of leaving he stepped further inside. “What are you doing, Hawk?” he asked quietly.
“He knows where Tildy is.”
“No, I don’t!” Garrett argued.
But Hawk simply nodded at his former lieutenant. “He does. He can’t keep her at his folk’s place. He’s got her somewhere. And he’s going to tell me where that is. And if he didn’t… hurt her… then he might live.”
Shooter’s jaw twitched as he looked back and forth between Hawk and Garrett, then he extended his hand to Hawk. “Give me the pliers.”
Hawk’s eyes narrowed. “He knows where Tildy is!”
“Hawk-”
“You are not going to stop me from finding her!”
“David-”
Hawk took a menacing step toward Shooter, who did not even flinch. Hawk jabbed a finger at him. “You would do this!” he shouted. “If this were Sarah, when it was Sarah, you would have done this!”
Shooter hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. And it would’ve been wrong.”
Hawk stared at the man he’d long considered his brother, but he barely recognized him now. “How can you-?!”
“You’re too close to it, Hawk. You might lose control,” Shooter said quietly. “Plus, he’s your cousin. You shouldn’t have to live with this. Give me the pliers.”
Hawk hesitated but ultimately put his faith in the man that he’d trusted a thousand times before. He handed over the tool.
Shooter pocketed his keys and walked slowly toward Garrett, opening and closing the pliers in his hand, testing them. “He loves you,” he told Garrett. “You’re his family, and he worries about you, whether you see it or not.” He moved even closer. “I was in his position once. My woman was taken from me and I would have moved Heaven and Earth to find her. Would have tortured and killed any man who got in my way, but no one knew where she was, so there was no one to ask.”
“I don’t know where she is!” Garrett insisted, trying to lean away from the menacing Ranger-turned-Biker-turned-Torturer.
“He says you do. And I believe him. He’d tear you apart, piece-by-piece to find her. I know that because it’s what I would do. It’s what I’m going to do.” He leaned down until he was just inches from Garrett’s face. “The difference is, Garrett, I don’t love you. You don’t mean shit to me. So, I’m not going to feel bad after.”
He snared Garrett’s left ear with the pliers and twisted savagely until he screamed.
“I’m not going to let go, Garrett,” Shooter said in a voice that was as calm and deadly as Garrett’s was piercing and panicked. “I’m not letting go until either this ear comes off, or you tell me where she is.”
Garrett tried to remain stoic, but Shooter twisted the pliers again until they cut the skin. Blood poured over the gleaming metal.
“Fuck, fuck, FUCK!”
Garrett instinctively tried to get his head away and, in a splash of blood, part of his ear tore. Shooter gripped it in the pliers and held up the dripping piece of gore in front of the man’s face. “Oh, look, Garrett. Your ear did come off.” He flexed his hand, and the chunk of mangled flesh dropped onto Garrett’s lap. Garrett was hyperventilating, from both pain and terror; his glazed eyes staring at the bloody lump.
“That’s okay,” Shooter said in a soothing voice. “You’ve got another one.”
He moved the pliers to his left and slowly reached out again.
“No!” Garrett bellowed, trying valiantly to break the chains that were holding him. “I took her! Okay? I took her. She- she was fucking up my life! Don’t you get it? She was distracting him. He didn’t want anything to do with me. If she was just… gone… then things would be the way they’re supposed to be!”
Shooter held his hand in midair, keeping the tool just within Garrett’s line of vision. “Gone where, Garrett?”
Garrett looked wildly from Hawk to Shooter. “I… ”
“Gone where, Garrett,” he asked again quietly.
When Garrett didn’t answer, Shooter moved forward.
“The Badlands!” he screamed. “She’s in the Badlands.”
Hawk moved forward, coming up behind Shooter. “Where?” The badlands were huge, and the heat of summer hadn’t broken, despite last night’s storm. The temperature was rising even as they spoke. Hawk couldn’t let himself wonder if she’d even made it through the night. He dug the key to the padlock out of his pocket and quickly unlocked it. He pulled the chains off and threw them onto the concrete floor. He then grabbed Garrett by the shoulders and hauled him to his feet. The man stumbled a bit, but Hawk caught him under the arms. He was close to Garrett’s good ear.
