They’d left Sacramento at three that morning, dumped the van, picked up another vehicle, hit Reno, then turned down Highway 395 and drove through the Owens Valley. The bleakness of the desert made him want to drive the truck off the edge of the next cliff. A few cars, a few trucks, and nothing. Highway 58 wasn’t much better, and now I-40 cutting through the Mojave Desert as the sun set low behind them made him want to scream and jab a needle in the eye of the bitch riding next to him.
Ethan hated sitting in the car for hours doing nothing. At least she let him drive. He’d have blown his brains out if he had to sit in the passenger seat for fifteen hours.
He’d almost killed himself many times. Karin had stopped him. He hated her for it. Loved her for it. It depended on what memory came back and where it hurt.
“You’re brooding,” she said.
“It wasn’t the same this time.”
“Price was a worthless bum.”
“I’m sorry I got carried away. I just wanted to try something different.”
“It worked beautifully,” she cooed.
“But he died. It didn’t even take that long. I don’t understand how it happened.” And that’s what bothered Ethan most of all. He’d studied and practiced and perfected his discipline. Price shouldn’t have had a heart attack. It took the fun out of making him pay for the months of pain Ethan had endured.
She put her hand between his legs-close, but not quite touching him where he wanted.
“You didn’t make a mistake. You tried something new and he had a heart attack. Maybe he had a weak heart, maybe he was a drug addict, we don’t know. But think of what you discovered! When we’re done with everyone on the list, we should explore the possibilities of serious damage.”
“Nothing’s permanent.” Except memories.
“You don’t know that. Look at what happened to Price.”
“Like you said, he could have been a druggie or had high blood pressure or something.”
Ethan had been a guinea pig. Punctured and pained to perfect the techniques of his captors. He would be better than them. They hadn’t killed him-maybe they couldn’t with the tools they’d chosen-but they had made him want to die. Wouldn’t it be something if Ethan could slide in a couple of well-placed needles and cause a heart to stop? Had he done that with Price? Had he come up with something new? Better?
“I need to practice,” he said.
“You’ll have time. But first, we finish with the plan.”
She touched him there now; he was hard. “Just a couple hours and we can take care of this.”
He squirmed. He wanted her to suck him so hard it hurt. But he would wait.
They drove mostly in silence, though she was tormenting him with touches and kisses and whispers that kept him in a constant state of agitation. They arrived in Flagstaff as the sun disappeared. Here they would change cars again, rest, and tomorrow night take out another of the men who had destroyed Ethan: Frank Cardenas.
He shivered with anticipation. She thought it was about sex. Sure, sex had something to do with it. But more, he wanted to please her. To show her what he’d learned. He knew she enjoyed watching him poke the restrained men. He always asked if she wanted him to continue, and she always said yes. Keep it going as long as possible, until they pushed their victim to the breaking point.
The cabin they’d shared for the last six months was in the mountains above Flagstaff. He parked and got out, stretched, feeling free. The cabin was a large, spacious three-room A-frame with a loft. While he didn’t like being confined, it was okay as long as he could see out the windows.
Ethan turned to her, putting their bags inside the cabin. “Do you want-” he began, but her face had changed somehow …
“What?” he asked her.
“I’m excited about tomorrow.” She took his hands and put them on her breasts.
“You like watching me work.” It pleased him. He didn’t smile much, but now his lips turned up with a rare grin.
She nodded and licked her lips. He cleared his throat and squeezed her breasts again, rubbing her nipples hard with his thumbs. Karin was pretty, older than him, but that was okay. She dyed her hair so often he didn’t remember her natural color-maybe blond-but he liked it now, a reddish brown, long, making her look younger and sweet.
“It was fun, wasn’t it?”
She nodded again as he pushed her against the wall.
“I’m glad I figured out how to stop him from screaming,” he whispered.
“It was a neat trick. I didn’t know you could hit a point and stop the vocal cords from working.”
“It doesn’t work like that. But to scream, you need air.” He touched her neck, his finger trailing down her chest, across her nipples.
“But,” he continued, “if the pain is so unbearable you can’t draw in a deep breath, you can scarcely breathe, you can’t scream.”
“It helped,” she whispered. “We were practically in the open.”
That had excited her, too, that they’d been bold and almost reckless. Almost because she hadn’t left anything to chance. They’d taken care of security, cameras, and had disguised themselves just in case anyone saw anything.
He leaned over and bit her ear, then sucked her lobe. He slid his scarred palm underneath her shirt, down the backside of her jeans and squeezed. She moaned and he lost himself in her.
“Watching men die turns you on.” He rubbed her.
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
“Am not.”
She was lying. He felt her excitement, the forbidden thrills that pain and control and being gods gave them. He felt the power, the power that had been denied him for months. He’d been nothing, he’d been an experiment, poked and prodded and subjected to pain so intense, so vivid, it made him beg to die.
“Kill me. Kill me. Please. God no. No more. Kill me now. Now, God. Don’t!” His plea came on jagged breaths as the man wearing black gloves slowly pushed the ultra-thin needle behind his testicles and made him scream so violently that his vocal cords became raw.
Months of screaming had damaged his larnyx to the point where Ethan could no longer speak without a rasp.
Now he had the power. The control. He would make them all pay. Those who’d left him to suffer. They should have killed him. Why didn’t they just shoot him?
“Ethan.” Her voice was low and he opened his eyes. He hadn’t realized he’d had her pinned so hard against the wall she couldn’t breathe. But she didn’t look scared, never her. Karin wasn’t scared of him.
She should be. Everyone should be.
“Admit it. You watched every needle go into his flesh. The poke. The slow pressure, his muscles tensing. The convulsions. The screams and panic and fear in his eyes.”
“Fear,” she breathed.
“Why aren’t you scared of me?” he asked.
Her blue eyes, only inches from his, stared at him. “Why aren’t you scared of me?”
“You don’t even know yourself.”
“You turn me on.”
“Maybe I do.” He shoved two fingers into her and she shuddered. His thumb pressed on her sensitive pressure point and she couldn’t control her reaction; her arms tightened around his neck as a flood poured through her onto his hand.
“Oh, God, that was too fast.”
“We’re not done, are we?”
She grinned and pushed him away from her. She stripped. He watched, oddly disconnected. His penis had a life of its own, as if it watched and enjoyed the show, but Ethan himself was above it all. Watching his body, her body, reacting to the sight and smell of sex, but without fully participating.
She removed his clothes and took his hard dick in her mouth.
Ten minutes later he was still rock hard and she was frustrated. “Ethan.”