Page 33 of Justified (Ruthless Vigilante #1)

“Okay,” she said, then gave me the number. We waited as the telephone rang several times, then went to the standard voicemail.

I frowned. “This isn’t a good sign, Cecily. Are you sure this is the right number?”

“I swear, it’s the contact number I’ve always used,” she promised.

I waited a few minutes, then tried it again to the same result. I tsked. “Well, this is disappointing.”

“I only have that number. Maybe… maybe he didn’t answer because I didn’t win. I only call when I win,” she explained.

Well, that was something I had to take into consideration. If that was true, then the number was about to become very useless to me. “I don’t like having my time wasted.”

She whimpered from the combined fear and pain and I could tell she was spilling everything she knew, which sadly wasn’t much.

Perhaps she could be helpful in other ways…

like sending the other members of the Killing Game a fucking message in the only language they seemed to understand.

Time to give Mayor Danvers a taste of her own medicine.

I started to pack up my knives, putting them back into my duffle bag. While I packed my things away, Cecily was thanking me for letting her live. She had no idea what I had planned for her. I walked back over to her body still bound to the car’s hood.

I leaned over her, looking down into her face. “You’re thanking me for letting you live, but that is not my intention.”

She shook her head as she started to panic again. “You—you promised!”

“I know. I lied… I do that when I want information from people who think they have a chance of escaping justice. You had quite the fun time killing a nameless man a few weeks back. I’ve got to say, you’re one sick, twisted cunt.”

“I… I didn’t kill anyone,” she lied.

I snorted. “Oh, come on, just because you weren’t in the room doing the deed yourself doesn’t mean you aren’t responsible for his death. You’re certainly responsible for the way he died, that you can’t deny.”

“He would have died anyway, even if it wasn’t me who won that night,” she said, all pretenses tossed aside for sure now.

I nodded. “Oh, I don’t doubt that. But you did win, and you were quite creative with how you wanted him to suffer before he died.

” I pushed myself off the car and walked over to the canister I had brought with me.

It contained the special thing I was going to use to give this chick her just desserts.

I also picked up my blow torch, which was sitting on the floor beside the car. I looked down at Cecily.

“Please, please, you don’t have to do this. I’ll will give you every cent I have if you let me live,” she begged one last time.

“Normally, money is a very good bargaining chip for me. I love money, but I love giving people like you what they deserve more. See, Cecily, I’m Silver City’s vigilante.

This is my town and I’m protecting it from the scum that walks its streets.

Mr. Jingles learned first-hand what it feels like to be tortured to death just like his child victim, by my hands. ”

“Oh my god!”

I smiled. “Oh, I see you are familiar with Mr. Jingles?”

She shook her head. “No! I…I just knew his member name. I swear, I don’t know who he is.”

“Who he was,” I corrected. “He’s very dead now, probably rat food. And speaking of rats…” I shook the canister I held and the thing inside scrambled about.

“Help! Somebody, please help me!” she screamed and thrashed about in an attempt to escape and I let her.

“You aren’t going anywhere, Ms. Danvers.

I brought you here on purpose because I know your screams won’t be heard.

This desolate area of the city doesn’t even have a bus route.

Maybe if it did, this business we’re in wouldn’t have had to go bankrupt, or the businesses surrounding it that are also closed.

No doubt, victims of your corruption, I’m sure. ”

She looked up at me, eyes red rimmed from crying, but now I was starting to see her grow angry.

“You won’t get away with this. Whoever you are, you think you can take on the Killing Game and win.

They’ll take you out and you’ll be someone tied to a chair and betted on.

I hope they make you pay, too. I hope whoever wins makes sure you suffer, you son of a bitch,” she snarled.

“Well, there is the hardnosed bitch mayor City Hall gets to see. I was wondering where she was. I’m not afraid of your comrades.

One by one, I plan on killing them and I’m making a game out of it myself.

For instance, I’m going to kill you the same way you killed your last victim.

Oh, and by the way, fuck you for being a gross ass bitch on this one.

Did you know I had to search a stinking piss and garbage filled alley for this thing? ”

“The alley among the garbage is where you belong,” she shot back.

I laughed. “You’ve got a pair of balls on you, despite being a woman, that’s for sure.” I slipped on the thick oven mitt I swiped from Nancy’s home, then opened the canister. I shivered in disgust as the large, furry rodent inside crawled its way out onto the car’s hood.

“Oh god, get it away from me,” she shrieked, while continuing to thrash about.

“Oh, this nasty-ass rat grosses you out too?” I taunted.

“Well, fuck you for using it. How do you think I felt having to search one of them out so I could torture you with it? I fucking hate rats. But you know what? I’d rather touch this filthy-ass rat than you.

” Using the mitt, I grabbed the furry creature by its tail and suppressed more shivers of revulsion as it struggled and squirmed.

I placed it on her stomach, then covered it with the metal canister.

“No! Ahhhhh, get it off me, get it off me, no!” She screamed bloody murder, but I wasn’t going to give her a break.

“Do you know what it feels like to be eaten alive by this little critter? Can you imagine what that man went through as the rat ate a hole in his gut in order to get away from the heat inside that bucket?”

“Please don’t! I’m begging you, please no! I swear, I’ll never go back to that site, I’ll do good,” she begged.

I ignored her. Just a few seconds ago, she was talking mad shit, but now her fate was in her face and she was that scared little girl again. I wasn’t backing down whatsoever.

“First the rat panics and scurries about, trying to get away. But once it realizes it can’t break free of the canister, it goes for what it can break free of.

Your flesh. It starts to scratch at it at first, but when the heat becomes too intense, it starts to use its teeth as well.

It burrows itself a little hole inside your body until it eats its way out to freedom.

You’d be surprised by how fast it does it, too. ”

“Please don’t! I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” she cried.

Again, I ignored her. “It took that guy you murdered five minutes to die from the rat that killed him. Can you imagine what he felt that entire time? Five minutes must have felt like five years.”

“I’m sooooo fucking sorry. I was wrong,” she confessed. “Please, don’t do this to me. Please get it off me!”

“Well, you won’t have to imagine. You’ll know first-hand,” I said, then leaned forward. “I wonder how long it’s going to take you to die.”

I fired up my blow torch as Cecily’s full-on panic mode hit another level.

The car rocked with her as she struggled to break free.

She was slobbering, screaming, and crying as I held the canister to her body, keeping the rat trapped while I added the heat from the blowtorch.

You could hear the rat begin to scurry as the canister grew hotter.

I was glad I had the oven mitt, it kept my hand from burning as I did my duty.

The squeaks and squeals of the rat were matched by the loud, desperate sounds Cecily was making.

After a few more seconds, I could tell the rat was starting to make its own escape plan.

Cecily’s eyes closed tight as she screamed while the rat ate at her flesh.

She begged again, over and over, for me to let her live.

She begged for forgiveness and even prayed to God.

I found that ironic, maybe if she had had a better relationship with God, she wouldn’t be getting eaten alive by a rat now.

As for me, no forgiveness would be given.

You reap what you sow; and I was dealing out an eye for an eye.

I could tell by how she cried and struggled that the rat was really doing a number on her.

Blood began to seep from under the canister and the squealing of the rat sounded more muffled.

I kept the fire on the canister and watched as Cecily grew weaker and her whimpering died down until her body ceased its movements.

Before long, her head fell to the side and I watched as the light left her eyes.

I removed the canister to see that the rat had eaten its way inside of her torso.

It chewed through skin, intestines, and organs in order to get away from the heat.

Self-preservation was a motherfucker. It had to have been one of the grossest things I’d ever seen, but at least this time I managed to keep down my meal.

Well, I hadn’t had a meal, but if I would have had one, I wouldn’t have puked it up, that was all I was trying to say.

I turned my blow torch off and began packing my shit away.

I was going to leave her body just like it was.

But first, I needed to leave my calling card.

I carved the name “Cobra” into her left cheek with my knife, then took off my costume since I was nowhere near my car.

I had to get back to it and in order to do that, I couldn’t look like some damn masked hero on the bus.

I had female clothes with me and, as much as I hated having to do it, I transformed into the form of a woman I had used when I went undercover to recover some computer information a few months back.

The clothes fit perfectly and I was ready to go. I picked up my bags and left the scene. I had to walk about six blocks to a bus stop, but I managed to get back to my car thanks to public transportation. I drove home and all I wanted to do was sleep.