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Lucien and I enter the room, joking around and pushing each other. Our fathers wait on the side of the room. Bastian is chained to the floorin the center of the cell. He is skinny and bruised. Fucker should have been dead by now honestly.

I place my hand in my pockets as I approach Bastian. I kick him swiftly in the ribs, and he groans in pain. He coughs as he tries to spit, but nothing comes out.

I pull out my gun as I grab him by the hair and face our fathers. I press the loaded gun into his temple.

“Tell me again, why the fuck are you here?” I shout the question at Bastian.

He doesn’t respond. I dig the gun in further.

“ANSWER ME!”

He coughs up his answer, “A rat.”

“And rats get exterminated,” I say calmly as I point the gun directly at Alaric and pull the trigger.

The bullet flies into Alaric’s head swiftly, as Lucien rushes to my father. He injects the drug into his neck and keeps his gun pointed at his face, keeping his distance.

My father’s legs buckle as he leans on the wall.

“What have you done! WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE!”

My father tries to charge towards me and collapses to the ground.

I stand over him, kicking him onto his back. I have waited for this moment my entire life.

“It’s called Rocuronium. You can’t move, but you will listen and see everything. Pretty cool. We wish we had known about this one before. It would have been pretty fun for you to torture people with it.”

I chuckle as I remove his gun from his holster. Lucien comes over with the Ambu Bag and begins to pump manually, keeping my father’s oxygen flowing, so the drug doesn’t kill him before I can.

“It will last for 30-60 minutes. The great thing is that Lucien here will keep your lungs pumping so you can stay alive to feel everything I am about to do to you. Then again, I could inject you again and make the punishment last longer. After all, mine has been going on for 25 years.”

I slip my knife from my pocket and cut through the clothing that covers my father. His eyes are open, and his facial expression remains the same, blank. I trail the knife lightly over his chest, letting it break the skin slightly.

“I remember when you got this tattoo. You told me it was because you loved your family and would always put them first. You made me choose. You made it incredibly easy for me to choose, though. After all, my little whore gave me the idea to seek revenge against you. She made me realize that once you’re gone. It will just be the two of us. Forever.” I begin to carve off his tattoo that he doesn’t deserve to die with.

“Maybe I will frame this tattoo. As a reminder of the piece of shit I will never be.” His eyes look wild. He wishes he were dead, but we aren’t done yet.

I begin to remove every tattoo that covers his body, and all he can do is watch. I will strip him of all that he once was and leave him as nothing. The way it should be.

It takes me 30 minutes to remove all of the bastard’s tattoos. Lucien looks like he is about to pass out from all the manual breathing he has been providing. I decide we can end it now. I take my blade and cut vertically up my father’s chest, exposing him to the elements from the inside out. His eyes are lost. Black.

I then allow Lucien to remove the bag from his face. He will only have about 2 minutes before his lungs give out, but he will feel all of the pain until then.

Before we go, Lucien stalks over to Bastian, who passed out on the floor, and put a bullet in his head. If there is one thing we know how to do, it’s how to kill a man.

* **

Lucien and I make our way back to his house. He needs to get cleaned up before he visits Astra, and I need to check on Evelyn. She hasn’t talked to me at all today.

“I’m worried about Astra.” Lucien has a hint of sadness laced with his words.

“Is she back to her old self?”

“Yeah. She has been drinking again. I also found a bag of pills in her nightstand last week. She claimed they were old, but I know shes fucking lying. “

He pauses for a second, his jaw tensing.

“I know she is hurt right now, but I can’t keep saving her.”