Scarred

nine-1

nine

She asked him several times on the journey over to Tulio’s prison what her surprise was and he stayed tight-lipped. Most women wanted flowers or chocolates or expensive perfumes from their boyfriends. Those who were really lucky got jewelry, lavish meals in exclusive restaurants or dirty weekends in exotic locations.

And here she was, sitting next to the man she loved in his beat-up car, being driven to the crappiest part of town expecting, not material gifts, but something that would mean so much more. Except she had no idea what it was.

Archer parked up in the same spot they’d been in the previous night, then went to the trunk to retrieve supplies, his knives, and a length of rope that he hooked up around his shoulder. With his fingers locked between hers, he pointed his knife roll at the lantern still in the back of the truck. “Do you need the light?” he asked.

The green light that had signaled their destination yesterday had helped to keep her calm as it gave her a focus. Did she need him to carry it along the hallway that she knew would be pitch dark? Yes, she probably would prefer it. But that answer wasn’t what came out of her mouth.

“No,” she said and he let go of her hand to grab a stash of plastic sticks, which he stuffed into his back pocket before he picked up a roll of duct tape to loop it around her wrist.

When he joined their hands again, she squeezed. “Just don’t let go of me.”

Slamming the trunk, he led her through the entrance and down the stairs. As they descended into the belly of this building, the darkness grew thicker, and she began to wish that they’d brought the lantern. Maybe he felt her tremble or the sweat building on her palms, but he pulled their joined hands to the small of his back to flatten her forearm along his belt, above the horizontal sheathed knife on his waistband.

“This won’t take long,” he murmured.

Nya hadn’t expected him to stop and she couldn’t see a thing. It was so black that she couldn’t see her own hand in front of her face, let alone his form. So when he did stop, she walked right into him. As if he’d expected it, he brought their joined arms around to position her body in front of his. Instead of opening the door and pushing her in, he turned around, which seemed silly because it was so dark that they couldn’t make eye contact.

“He’s been here all night,” Archer said, keeping his volume low. “He’ll be dirty, he’ll be smelly, and he’ll be desperate. I know you want to be involved. My advice is to watch and learn.”

“I shouldn’t speak?” she asked.

“You can speak. Just keep your distance. Nothing is expected of you in here. You know I’ve got you.”

Rubbing a hand on his chest, she was reassured when it slid lower and she felt the ridges of his abdomen through his shirt. “I’d ask you to kiss me, but—”

Catching her chin in one large hand, he forced it up, and planted his mouth square on hers without hesitation. Visibility was so low that she considered it might have been luck, either that or his instinct knew where her mouth was at all times, even when his sight failed him.

“I’ve always got you, baby,” he murmured, brushing his lips side to side. “Let’s get this over with and go home, okay?”

Nya hadn’t realized he’d reached beyond her until the door opened. The echoing c***k of him splitting the glow sticks startled her. He tossed them past her into the room containing their captive to light up the space with dull neon light.

The room had smelled moldy and dirty when she’d been in here before and now the fetid aroma of stale urine almost made her gag as she turned around and stepped inside. She didn’t have the confidence she thought she would because here was a man coated in his own bodily fluids, hanging off the pipe they’d left him attached to last night. His knees didn’t quite reach the floor and his arms were now above his head.

It wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t nice. On a human level, she felt a twinge of compassion, but she tried to damp it down.

“Still with us, Tulio?” Archer declared, slamming the door so hard behind them that it made the room shake. Nya was still inching forward, Archer strode past her. He didn’t have the same hesitation that she did, but then he’d seen all this before, probably many times. “Not nice, is it? When someone takes away your basic human rights.” Archer kept on going and unwrapped his knives at the side, where they’d been before. “You’ve made a mess.” He took out one knife and then the other.

Watching him being so methodical, she realized that this part of the process was as much about intimidation and psychological t*****e as it was about actually selecting a knife he planned to use.

“Come on, man, speak. Are you still with us?” Archer asked the question, but it didn’t sound like he cared one way or the other.

With the longest knife from his stash, Archer turned around and went towards Tulio, his face covered in disgust. Touching his blade to the bottom of Tulio’s chin, he forced the man’s head up and around. “Tired?” Archer asked. “Sore? How many little girls have begged you for mercy? You put them through worse s**t than this.”

Her compassion faded, in fact, it vanished, poof, just like that. This wasn’t a human being exhausted and in pain, this was a monster. A thug who beat people for money and was complicit in r**e, even if he didn’t take part in the act himself.

Archer would know everything there was to know about Tulio and she was about to find out how far his knowledge extended. “You’re in a sorry state,” Archer sneered, flattening the long blade against Tulio’s cheek and dragging it downward to split the duct tape, freeing it from his mouth.

It was only when the man yelped in agony that she found out he was still alive. “Let me go, man.” As Archer had said, Tulio hadn’t even been here for twenty-four hours. So although he was no doubt hungry and thirsty, he wouldn’t be on the verge of death. “Let me go. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Archer said, hunkering down beside Tulio, while avoiding the dirty wet stain on the concrete.

Maybe this was part of the reason he’d left Tulio n***d, because although he’d urinated, the bacteria-ridden fluid wouldn’t be festering in fabric and creases. Tulio didn’t seem like the modest type, so he probably didn’t see nakedness in itself as t*****e.

“You don’t show mercy, why should I?” Archer said.

Moving around in a similar curved route to the one she’d gone before, Nya got closer while still maintaining enough of a distance that she could observe the scene without feeling like she had to participate in it.

“Sad state of affairs, you here, trussed up like this, what would your buddies think?”

“You got me, man. Yeah, you got me. I know it. Please, you’ve proved your point. Let me go.”

“I don’t think you know what my point is,” Archer said. “But if you’ve got it, man, I’m all ears. You tell me, what’s my point?”

“You’re pissed,” Tulio said. “About the girl, the one they offed.”

His casual attitude sent a surge of anger through her. “They didn’t just off her,” Nya snapped and took three involuntary strides towards the two men. Even Archer hadn’t expected her to speak, but he stayed in his crouch and twisted his upper body toward her.

“You tell him, Sweets, is that our point? Are we pissed about that?”

“No, that’s not our point,” she said, happy to clarify it for him and for the slime ball who seemed to think he was better than those he tortured. “Our point is that he doesn’t deserve to live. He doesn’t deserve to breathe. He has no compassion. No understanding of what it is to be decent to other human beings. Our point is that karma f*****g works, and if he can go around treating everybody else like a piece of s**t, like his own personal toys then that’s how he should be treated. Why does he think he’s better than—”

“I don’t!” Tulio cried out and he was lucky that his head went back when it did.

Archer got to his feet, and with one swift kick, got the guy in the gut. “You interrupt her again, the next one will be to your skull,” Archer said, prodding the tip of his blade into Tulio’s thrown back head. “Get to your feet!” Archer turned his back on the man who was coughing and whimpering to come over to her with that cold, blank look in his eyes. He tossed an arm around her shoulder. “Anything you want, Sweets. You want me to cut him open?”

She didn’t know if he was asking her aloud to scare the guy, or if she was supposed to be the pressure valve, a failsafe, that would prevent him from doing something permanent. At that moment, Nya understood his detachment because her own compassion had fled.

“I want to know who pulled the trigger on the men outside Sizzle,” she said. “I want to know how many men he’s killed.”

“That would be an interesting fact,” Archer said, redirecting himself so that he could face Tulio, though his arm never left her shoulders. “Answer the lady.”

“I don’t…” Tulio said, coughing again, but trying to get to his feet to hold himself against the pipe that was his only support, using his arms that had to be in agony. “I don’t kill people, man, that’s not my gig.”

“So it’s just r**e you’re hired for?”

“I didn’t touch her. It was those other fuckers who killed her.”

“Blame everybody else,” Archer said. “You’re just lucky, I know enough about you to know exactly what you do and who you do it with.”

Archer held the knife toward her, flipping it around to present her with the handle. Nya took it, though she didn’t know why she needed it. Maybe Archer just wanted rid of it because he started towards Tulio again.

Clearing his throat, Archer projected his voice when he spoke again, “I know what your big secret is, my girl here told me there were ways to kill a man without murdering him. And the only way we let you live is if we know you know you’re our b***h now.”

“Whatever you want,” Tulio said with hope bursting into his tone. “Whatever you want.” He tried to scramble around further so that he could see Archer who was staying just out of their captive’s eye line. Tulio had to twist all the way around at an awkward angle to even attempt to get a look at the couple. “You want me to work for you? I’ll do it. I’ll round up bastards and bring ‘em to you. I’ll beat ‘em for you.”

Her man wasn’t impressed or tempted. “I do all our dirty work. It’s the only way I can be sure it’s done right and that my lady is protected,” Archer said. “The most I’ll need from you is information, which you’ll give me any damn time I ask.”

“Yes, yes, sure, I’ll be your ears, I’ll be your eyes. I’ll tell you everything I see. Everything I hear.”

It was funny how a man’s morals went out the window, how his integrity dwindled when he feared for his life.

Nya had a g*n pointed at her head once, but she’d held onto what was important to her. Archer had told her, in no uncertain terms that he’d sacrifice himself for her, and here was this sniveling fool promising to sell his soul for just the vague possibility he might be allowed to live.

“But see it’s not enough for me,” Archer said. She was in awe of how he took everything in his stride. He spoke to Tulio in his calm, condescending tone, like he could’ve been talking to someone in a coffeeshop or at a ballgame, not like he was talking to a piss-covered, blood-stained cretin tethered to a metal pipe. “Letting you walk away isn’t enough of a guarantee. I don’t need you scared that this will happen again, ‘cause I know you’ll be looking over your shoulder and to be honest, I can’t be bothered chasing you down. You’re a f*****g pain in the a*s, and that’s how you lost your finger. Every day you see that stub, you’re gonna remember what happened here.”

“Yes, yes,” Tulio said. “I’ll remember. Now let me go.”