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He blinked rapidly, trying not to cry, his body trembling.

“Come on,” I urged.

Rook gave a low snort behind me. Cade cracked his knuckles. Still, Dennis didn’t move. His hands barely lifted from his sides.

“Suit yourself.”

I moved in, catching him square in the ribs. The hit sent him stumbling into the side of the entertainment stand, wheezing as he dropped to his knees. I let him flounder before pulling him up and spinning his body toward Cade.

My brother’s fist drove into Dennis’s jaw twice. He cried out and dropped back to the floor, coughing up bloodied spit and a tooth.

“Please.” He began to crawl across his floor, openly sobbing.

Rook reached down and grabbed him by the back of his shirt, dragging him like a rag doll. Dennis tried to push him away. Rook swung, sending him careening into his beer cans. They toppled, one rolling across the floor, trailing something dark.

Dennis didn’t attempt to defend himself when Xander approached. He slapped Dennis across the face, flat-palmed, precise, and humiliating. We gave him time to get up, but he lay on the floor and sobbed.

“This is one of the most pathetic things we’ve seen,” my brother commented.

I crouched, grabbed his chin, and forced his head up so I could look him in the eyes. “You’re not worth our time, but you’re still gonna wear our mark.”

Cade grabbed his arms and pinned them behind him. Rook held the back of his head steadily. Xander stepped forward and passed me his blade.

I pressed the pointed tip into Dennis’s cheek, carving deep.

One letter. Then another. Blood followed each stroke like punctuation.

I was careful, a true craftsman. Dennis tried to make it stop, mumbled some bullshit about never doing it again, and not meaning it.

I sliced deeper, almost cutting through the cheek.

H. U. N. T. E. D.

By the time he reached the last letter, Dennis was sobbing loudly.

I passed the blade back to Xander, and he moved in to do the forehead.

Another set of letters, shallow but savage, sliced clean across the bone just beneath the skin.

The word echoed in twin displays of ownership, his letters closer together.

HUNTED.

When it was done, Rook stepped in again, quiet as ever. He knelt, pried Dennis’s jaw open, then held it. His protest was muffled as Cade reached into his mouth and gripped his tongue. He pulled, making him wail.

Xander was efficient as always.

He slipped the blade under, and it sliced through the muscle with a quick, brutal jerk.

A wet, garbled shriek tore out of him as the tongue hit the floor with a soft, fleshy slap.

I bent, picked it up with two fingers, and leaned close to Dennis’s blood-slick face.

It was everywhere, all down the front of him and coating the floor.

He was gasping, sucking air, eyes wild and unseeing.

I shoved his tongue back into his mouth. “Swallow your words, Denny.”

His throat convulsed.

Dennis thrashed, weak and frantic, until going still, choking on a mix of his blood and his tongue. We let him drop in a heap, limbs twitching once before going still.

“Welp, that’s that,” my brother summarized.

“Let’s get him settled in,” I instructed, not wanting to linger longer than necessary.

Cade grabbed Dennis under the arms, and Rook took his legs. Together, they hoisted him up and placed him back into his gaming chair like he’d never left it. We put his controller in his lap. Xander slipped his headset back over his ears.

Cade turned toward the closet, and his foot crunched down hard. He looked down and swore. I followed his gaze and started to laugh. A stiff pair of boxers was partially lodged under the end of the bed.

“Serial killer starter pack, that’s what this room is,” he stated, moving forward. He reached into the closet and retrieved the crow’s head. The black feathers were a mess, the beak cracked slightly, but still intact. It had seen better days, for sure.

Cade walked back to Dennis and placed it over his bloodied face. “Now he’s part of the legacy.”

Xander’s eyes swept the room, then the walls. He hopped up onto the bed and carved HUNTED in an empty space with his blade, deep grooves slicing through the drywall. He hopped down as we were finishing up.

The final scene looked perfect and wrong, his room more organized with trash and filth than when we’d arrived.

We filed out the way we came, one by one.

The TV still played in the living room, the same movie with subtitles. Dennis’s father was still slumped in the recliner. He’d wake up in another hour. We left the house, locking it up behind us. The Lincoln sat parked right where we left it.

Xander climbed into the driver’s seat without a word.

Rook slid into the passenger side, and I dropped into the back.

Cade followed, and the car settled under our weight.

We removed all of our gear and returned it to the duffel bag so it could be burned.

None of us spoke as the miles ticked by, each decompressing in our own way.

We returned to the convenience store where the light overhead buzzed like a dying fly.

Xander pulled up beside our PT Cruiser. “Still the same move?”

“Yeah,” I confirmed, climbing out. “We’ll meet you at Vincent’s, then head to Ellie’s.”

“Alright, see you in a few then.” He pulled away.

We returned to our ride. Cade leaned back in the seat with a covered yawn. “That was nice, but I kinda wish he would’ve at least swung once.”

I cracked a faint smile as my phone powered on, the screen bleeding light across my face. “I was thinking we should’ve bent him over and used that lava lamp.”

Cade slid me a look, one brow lifted. “Now I’ve got regrets.” He shifted into gear and pulled out of the parking lot, one hand gripping the wheel.

I checked the time. It was still too long before I’d see her again. Even now, her image burned behind my eye. God, I missed her. I missed her in the way you miss air when you're drowning.

I had accounted for everything leading up to this weekend, except Dennis. He’d been an interruption I couldn’t ignore.

Now that he was gone, we had a schedule to get back to, faces to see, and ink to be gotten before I could get back to my girl. But first things first, it was time to ditch this fucking car.