I stared, defiant. “You may break me, but I’ll never become what you are.”
“You already are what I am. The faster you accept that, the easier it will be. When you come out on the other end of this, for the first time, you’ll know true joy. You’ve been miserable all your life, haven’t you?”
I didn’t know how to answer that.
“Admit it, Jack. You despise yourself. Your relationships are all unhealthy. You ever wonder why so many people around you get hurt? Ever stop to think that hurting them is what you really want?”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Yet you keep doing it, over and over. Your friends and family are always getting hurt, or dying. It must be because you want it. And tell me something. When do you feel most alive? Most vibrant? Most worthy? Isn’t it when you’re chasing some psychopath? Closing in on the kill? That’s why you became a cop in the first place, isn’t it?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that, or even if I should. Luther was twisting the facts in my life to fit his own warped view.
“You’re bending to the constraints and confines of a society in which you’re an alpha predator, and you need to break free of that. Don’t you want to be happy for once? To sleep peacefully rather than toss and turn all night? You have a will, and the sooner you learn to follow it, the sooner you’ll reach perfection. But enough talk. Let’s get started.”
Luther moved behind the wheeled cart, touching the controls.
“Unfortunately, Phin and Harry burned out the electroshock feature. I have the scene recorded, and I’ll show it to you later. They suffered quite a bit. But that was nothing compared to what I’ll do to you. Happily, the chair you’re in has many other methods for inflicting pain. Why don’t we start with, let’s see…abrasion?”
“I just had natural childbirth, motherfucker. There’s nothing you can do to hurt me.”
Luther smiled his ugly smile. “Oh yes, there is.”
I closed my eyes.
Pictured Phin’s face.
My daughter’s face.
My life.
It hadn’t been a perfect life. That’s for sure. But all of the psychobabble Luther spouted in his half-assed attempt to analyze me was wrong. Dead wrong.
I could admit to being unhappy. I could admit to putting in too much time at the job and not enough time into me. But those were my choices. My mistakes. And slowly but surely, I was learning from them.
I would never be like Luther.
Never.
No matter what he did to me.
Something in the chair beneath me began to hum.
“Are you ready, Jack?”
I opened my eyes.
Bored them right into his.
“We gonna do this, or are you gonna talk me to death, asshole?”
He punched in 4-2-2.
Nothing.
Maybe Herb’s idea that the code was the dead woman’s weight was wrong.
4-3-3.
4-3-4.
4-3-5.
Green light!
The deadbolt opened. When he stepped through the doorway and saw what was inside, something within Phin snapped.
He walked over to the birthing table slowly, reverently. There was blood on the stainless steel, a gooey mess of afterbirth attached to a cut umbilical cord. Phin saw the wrist straps, where the woman he loved had been tied down while giving birth to their daughter.
Phin tried to imagine the scene and then tried even harder to push it out of his head.
The sensation of hate welling up in him was so all-consuming, it threatened to overpower him.
He wanted to save Jack.
He wanted to save his little girl.
But most of all, more than anything, he wanted Luther’s neck in his hands.
Phin understood violence. He’d been around it often, both on the giving end and the receiving.
But he’d never craved violence before.
Phin was going to tear that son of a bitch to pieces and smile while doing it.
“Oh…oh man. Phin…you okay, buddy?”
Harry came into the room, propping up a limping Herb. Phin ignored them, putting on a guise of control, searching for the exit to the room. When he found it, he began to run, leaving his friends behind, anxious to find Luther.
He tore through an open doorway, down a long passage draped in semidarkness.
A door stood at the far end, and Phin burst through it.
Saw Jack, strapped to one of those torture chairs.
Saw Luther, at the control panel.
Luther locked eyes with him, and Phin saw something in his eyes.
Fear?
Maybe. But also something else.
Something like resignation.
Phin launched himself at him.
Luther raised the gun.
Fired.
Missed.
Phin almost on him.
Firing again.
Phin feeling a tug in his right shoulder, but momentum kept taking him forward.
He swatted Luther’s gun hand away.
Made a fist.
Put everything he had behind it.
The punch split Luther’s nose like a rotten tomato.
Then Phin tackled him, pinning him to the floor, raining down blows in a frenzy.
Luther tried to raise the gun.
Phin caught his wrist, leaned down, and bit Luther’s arm until he hit bone.
The gun skittered away.
Phin began to hit him again.
“Phin! Stop! You’ll kill him!”
No shit, Jack! That’s the point!
“Phin! Our daughter! He took her!”
Phin had been raising his fist for another blow, his knuckles bloody and on fire, Luther’s face split open in half a dozen places—
—and Phin unclenched his hand.
Our daughter.
Killing Luther wouldn’t make him talk.
Phin turned, stared at the chair Jack was in.
Now that would make him talk.
He moved to get off Luther, and then saw Luther’s hand snake down to his belt.
Phin immediately immobilized the hand and watched Luther’s puffy lips form a red grin.
It was a feint.
Luther’s other hand had gone for a knife.
Silver, glinting in the light, a wicked curved blade.
It tore into Phin’s side, piercing his kidney, the pain so unimaginable he couldn’t even breathe.
He fell off Luther, the world swirling and fading away.
Turning onto all fours, he quickly looks for the fallen Glock. He spots it a few meters away.
He needs to kill Phin, if he isn’t dead already. Or at least immobilize him.
But if Phin escaped, Harry may have as well.
Luther shakes his head, blood and snot and tears spraying off.
Pain throbs through his skull, but Luther ignores it.
Jack is yelling for her boyfriend, but Luther ignores it.
Harry bursts into the room, and incredibly, he’s got Herb with him, but Luther ignores it.
Luther’s entire world has come down to him and the gun.
Get the gun, regain control.
Then the game can continue.
The game must continue.
It is his life’s work. His masterpiece.
It must be seen through to completion.
More yelling.
Someone rushing at him.
Luther, reaching for the Glock.
Smiling when he grabs it.
Then he turns around and starts firing wildly with one hand, slashing his Spyderco with the other.
This was worse than anything Luther could do to me in this chair, watching my friends go down.