“Fucking hell,” Marcus mutters, spying the set of legs that peek out from behind it.
I start making my way toward the tub as Marcus slowly scans the rest of the room, walking down the length of a table filled with tools that look as though they’ve been left and forgotten for years.
I find Lucas motionless behind the tub and let out a heavy sigh. “Damn, I’m almost upset that this is going to be so easy,” I say, scanning over his broken nose and the huge bump at his temple with pride. Clearly Shayne is more of a fighter than I had originally thought. Perhaps we can still make something out of her yet.
Grabbing Lucas by the ankle, I drag his heavy body through the pooled blood on the ground and dump his sorry ass in the center of the room where Marcus and I will have uninterrupted space to work our magic.
I’m passed a bottle of water and I don’t waste any precious moments pouring it over his worthless head.
Lucas gasps, his eyes widening as consciousness comes back to him. The moment he sees me hovering over him, panic fills his eyes, though I’m not surprised. Fear, panic, and regret are usually the only emotions we get at times like this. We occasionally get the weak bastard who pisses his pants, but I’m thrilled to not have to deal with that tonight.
Lucas immediately starts to scurry away from me and I slam my heavy boot down over his hand, crushing every fucking bone beneath my weight.
His pained cry is like music to my ears, and I can’t help the wicked grin that pulls at the corners of my lips. Marcus turns to me, a knife in either hand and a stumped expression on his face. “What’s best for a decapitation? Would you go with the sleek, rusty machete or the common serrated knife?”
A laugh bubbles deep in my chest and if it were the right time, I’d even applaud his attention to detail. How else would we stand out from all the others? We didn’t earn our title by slacking off with our kills.
I grin down at Lucas, knowing he’s more than aware of the question floating in the air. “Machete is too easy. Too quick. Go with the serrated,” I tell my brother while keeping my hard stare on Lucas. “It’s a bit messy, but nothing compares to the crunch of bone as you grind through it.”
The machete flies carelessly over Marcus’ shoulder but, keeping in mind that we need to get back to Shayne before she bleeds out, we get to work.
Marcus steps in and crouches down beside Lucas, that same questioning expression on his face as he spins the rusty serrated blade between his fingers. “The only question is,” he says slowly, watching the way that Lucas stares at him in horror, “do we do this face up, or face down?”
I shake my head, the amusement not lost on me. We’ve done this too many times for him to not know how I prefer it done, but nothing is better than watching the color drain from our victim’s face, learning exactly what we plan to do to them.
I slowly walk around him, releasing his crushed hand from below my boot. “Hmmm,” I muse. “Face up, and he’ll bleed out too quickly. He’ll probably be dead before he gets to hear that magical crunch of his spine. Let’s go face down. We wouldn’t want him to miss out on something so exhilarating.”
Lucas sobs, shaking his head. “No, no. Please. I’m sorry. I’ll never touch her again. I swear. Please, don’t kill me. I don’t want to die.”
Marcus tilts his head, capturing Lucas’ tear-filled eyes. “Tell me, did Shayne beg for her life before you tortured her? How about when you slid your knife through her flesh? Did she scream? Beg for you to stop?”
He doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t have to. We’ve put Shayne through enough torment to know exactly how she would have reacted. “You were relentless with her fragile body, and now, we get to repay the favor.”
Marcus knots his fingers into Lucas’ hair and throws him face down into the dirty blood-stained ground. Without skipping a beat, he slams his heavy boot down between his shoulder blades, keeping him pinned. “This is going to be fun,” he murmurs, his tone filled with venom.
Marcus hands me the serrated knife and I crouch down, gripping his hair to keep him still. “Say hi to your brother for me,” I mutter, no doubt in my mind that this asshole is going straight to the deepest pits of hell, where I will one day join him.
Lucas cries and Marcus shushes him. “Quiet now,” he whispers. “You’re going to miss the best part.”
And just like that, I hack the blade of the serrated knife across the back of his neck, watching as his flesh is torn to shreds before listening to the beautiful sound of the blade grinding through his spine.