Page 15

All too soon, she was pulling away with whispered words that sounded an awful lot like “He’s coming for you,” Then, she was gone, disappearing around the corner so fast I wasn’t able to get a clear look at her face.

If it wasn’t for the slight relief, I felt I would have chalked it up to me hallucinating.

Elation was the first emotion that rushed through my veins when her words repeated in my head. I naively thought she meant Romero.

That id

ea was wiped out when a guy came strolling around the corner of the building with a thick garden hose clenched in one of his hands, and pushing a bright red wheelbarrow.

Suddenly alert, I scanned the contents of it and a small trickle of worry ciphered into my conscious—not for me, but for the woman right beside me.

Shifting slightly, I found my eyes traveling up the body of a man who was the same size as me, all the way up to his mohawk and then back down to his honey brown eyes.

“Sorry blondie, I’m not allowed to play with you. Boss’ orders.” He winked, completely misinterpreting why I was looking him over. The little smile accompanying his statement had a brittle laugh slipping out of my mouth.

“You should probably move as far right as you can.” He flashed another smile, gently setting the wheelbarrow down.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m prepping them.”. He turned the hose nozzle and then proceeded to spray down the two women. Neither of them reacted beyond quiet whimpers.

They must have really been out of it because the water was scalding, hot enough that steam visibly lifted from their flesh and burst some of their heat blisters, leaving milky pus to run free.

I scooted as far away as I could, just like he’d advised, sucking in a sharp breath when a few drops of water landed on my knee.

I wasn’t expecting what came next but I wasn’t all that surprised, either. It made Tito’s grumbled phrase make a helluva lot more sense. The stick figure of a man put earphones in, pulled a pair of leather gloves on, grabbed a thin knife, and walked towards us.

He continued to pay me no mind, getting straight to work. He started with the woman farthest away, the one with purple hair.

With an incredibly steady hand, he began carefully cutting and peeling the skin away on her face, starting at the center of her chin.

His blade cut clean through, as if it were garnering softened butter. I watched him, torn between feeling sickening awe and repulsion.

With the bloody knife handle clenched between his teeth, he used two hands to lift off almost the entire surface of the woman’s face.

It was gently tossed it into the plastic covered wheelbarrow where it landed with a wet splat. His facial expression was set in a glare of concentration, the woman’s blood not bothering him at all. There was so much. It hung from her barren face like thin strings of long ribbon.

He continued. Every cut he made was specific and calculated. From what I could see, they weren’t incredibly deep, but they were enough to separate the skin from muscle.

He sliced into the woman’s arms, wrists, feet, and chest. I quickly realized the goal was to remove the skin in as few pieces as possible.

Crimson rained down to the ground like a steady waterfall. The sound of dripping blood coupled with him slowly peeling flesh reminded me of snapping Velcro and rain boots jumping in mud puddles.

The visual oddly reminded me of someone having their clothes taken off. My stomach churned, and my throat painfully tightened, but I couldn’t look away.

If the purple haired woman weren’t already damn near dead, she would be completely gone in a few minutes. Perhaps that was a good thing. A lethal infection or exsanguination would kill her far quicker than hanging upside down would have.

When he was done with her, he moved on to the brunette.

The leather gloves he’d pulled on were a dark shade of maroon, and so slippery they squelched every time his fingers flexed.

Maybe I should have tried to thwart his attention so he’d focus on me. Maybe that would have miraculously spared his next target.

I didn’t.

I was never the hero. I was always the villain. I was selfish and unashamedly stingy when it came to self-preservation.

The knowledge that I could potentially have my own bump soon meant a fuck load more to me than either of these unfortunate strangers being flayed alive.