by Lydia Pax
Chapter 13
True to Locke’s word, Damage walked out of the bar dead drunk and stumbling to his bike. He was almost asking to be mugged, if such a thing could truly be asked for.
Helen was, naturally, of the opinion that it couldn’t. But then, after hearing about Damage’s exploits, she was happy to make any excuses she could for misfortune landing on him.
Misfortune came in the form of Tank and Beretta, the heavy-hitters of the small crew. Beretta had a wrench in his hand, tapping it against his thigh.
She watched more than she heard. They were far away enough for the sound to be lost in the thick stones of the alley.
Beretta approached Damage as he tried to get on his bike. They were underneath a tall lamp, some of the only available light in the dark parking lot of The Last Stand. Holding his attention so, Damage didn’t see Tank circling around to one side. Damage mouthed off something to Beretta and started swinging.
Tank, though, caught his arm and swung Damage’s face down onto the fender of his bike. Damage stood back up, circling one way and then the other, and Beretta opened up on him with the wrench.
Into his belly, first. Then his arms—Damage brought them up to shield his face. They bloodied quickly, breaking open from the rough edges of the monkey wrench. When he stopped letting them up, Beretta went after his face, popping him open and spilling teeth.
Helen thought it would stop there. She found herself strangely captivated by watching him work. He was a maestro of violence, knowing exactly where to hit, no wasted motion, no shorted movement.
It hit that soft little part of her that wanted to be led—because though he was hurting another man and she was not fool enough to think otherwise, another part of her only saw decision after decision, made effortlessly in the moment.
She'd always known he was strong. Always known he was built for violence. But it was a different animal entirely to see it in motion. She'd thought this first when he'd killed those men at her apartment—but of course, that had been in the heat of the moment.
This seemed planned.
Everything he did hurt Damage one way or the other, and soon the Copperhead was on his knees, blood spilling from his face and mouth.
Beretta tried to keep going—kicking at first and then raising the wrench again—and then Tank stopped him.
There was a struggle for a moment. Beretta was lost in his rage, full of fury at Damage for reasons that Helen didn’t know, couldn’t know. The same kind of passion he’d lent to her when he kissed her showed there, his fire burning in the night when he lost his temper with Damage.
It was in witnessing him—all that rage, all that violence—that it was quite evident to Helen all the reasons she had left him in the first place.
Making decisions so quickly? That drew her toward him like a magnet. But all that fury? It was like the magnet was flipped around—keeping her suspended in orbit around him. The life he led scared her. She wanted it for herself; she had always fantasized about it. But it still scared her.
One afternoon, deep in the fling with Beretta, she had stopped at a gas station. While there, she saw a biker chewing out his old lady—really laying into her, waving his hands, screaming. The woman, quite pretty, just stood there and took it, her shoulders slumped. The biker stormed off inside to pay, and when he returned, the girl meekly wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him and apologized.
Like it was her fault that he was an angry buffoon.
Helen couldn't shake that image. She left Beretta two weeks later, but it was that altercation that stuck with her, that drove her forward from then on. She felt that no matter what she did, she would be becoming someone else—entering into a life where she absolutely didn't belong—if she stayed with Beretta. She would lose herself in him and everything he was, and he would take advantage, like Randall had taken advantage, because that was what men did.
The night before she left him, he'd made some allusions about her wearing a vest sometime—and that was that. She had to get out before it was too late. Be a good girl, stay on the average track, eschew the extraordinary and dangerous in favor of the regular and mundane. It was the only way to save her soul from being burned up by his passion.
Tank had trouble calming Beretta, but finally Beretta relented, releasing the wrench in his hands and shoving it into Tank’s chest.
Ace stepped forward as Beretta walked back to the group. “Hey now,” he said. “We wanted him alive—”
“I know,” Beretta held up a hand. “I know. Shut up, already.”
Beretta got on his bike. Helen followed him.
“No,” he said. “Leave me be for a while. I’ll meet you back at the motel.”
“What happened there?”
Beretta looked at her, his eyes sad and still full of fury.
“Said I ought to back off or he’d cut me up like he cut his whores,” said Beretta. “You better go save his life. I did a number on him.”
He got on his bike and rode off onto the highway. Tank brought Damage into the van, and Helen, grabbing the emergency bag, went to work.
Chapter 14
Beretta rode around town for about half-an-hour, cooling off his temper and kicking himself for losing it in the first place.
That was just great, just grand. Just a fine thing to do—act like some violent maniac while Helen was watching. That would be sure to give her the right opinion about him.
Not, he reminded himself, that he cared. He wasn't supposed to care about that.
But he did. And it was knowing that Damage was the kind of man who wanted to catch up with Helen that had spurred him on. Probably the Copperheads that attacked Helen's apartment were men like Damage—men who didn't give a damn about women, who would hurt anyone so long as it made them a dollar or made them feel big.
Beretta had hurt others, and often, but only ever men who were already in the game. A man had to have some honor, even if it was stained, even it was strained. He had to have something to live by.
He returned to the motel room and saw that the rest of the crew had just returned as well, emptying out of the van Ace drove with Helen inside. Locke and Tank stepped off their bikes and helped Helen out with her supplies. They had gone to the grocery store for some reason.
“So what did you get?” asked Locke. “More medical stuff?”
“No,” said Helen. “We have everything we need for that already.”
“Then what did you need?” Locke started looking through her bag. “Chicken breasts? Walnuts? Barbecue sauce? The hell is this. Are you making him a meal?”
Helen shrugged. “You put me in charge of torturing him. So I’m going to torture him. My way.”
They pulled Damage out of the van and quickly pulled him into the motel room. No one was around to see. His bleeding had stopped, several stitches present along his temple and arms where Beretta had broken him open.
Once inside, Helen had the men lay Damage out on top of the ironing board, strapping his arms with long ropes underneath the bedposts. Then she hooked up a small morphine drip—just enough to get his thoughts fuzzy and agreeable.
Beretta could imagine that drugging a man against his will was about as far as Helen might want to go on the corruption scale. Luckily, for her conscience anyway, Damage had suffered enough from Beretta’s beating that the morphine was probably a godsend. Or, at least it would be, as soon as he woke up.
His whole plan had been—all along—that Helen, in knowing how to help an injured person, also knew best how to hurt a healthy person. Enough pain could make anyone talk.
Was it a shitty thing to volunteer someone for? Sure. Did he have a choice? Not really.
She could hurt Damage more precisely than he could—any one of the crew was just as likely to knock him out and give him brain damage forever as they were to actually get him to talk. And even if they did it right, it could take days of beating to make a man talk. Helen could use her medical knowledge to cut that right down—and time was of
the essence.
If there wasn't a deadline on their lives, if they weren't all going to be killed unless they came up with the money, he never would have involved her. But there was a deadline, and they would all be killed, and so Beretta was doing his best to make omelets with the broken eggs delivered to him.
He watched as Helen put ice packs down on Damage's body, laying them out evenly on his legs and all over his crotch.
“You know, if you’re trying to freeze him to death,” said Ace, “I’d prefer to do it while he was talking.”
“I know what I’m doing,” said Helen, continuing to cover Damage's body. “Just give me a minute to make it all work. Yes?”
They waited for a long time in silence. Locke and Tank traded small conversation with each other, playing cards and laying down bets and re-bets—would Helen go through with it, how much information would they get, what she would use to make the man crack.
Meanwhile, Helen made small preparations. She set out the walnuts, the meat, the barbecue sauce on a nearby table. She prepared her bag and arranged her tools inside it very carefully. After that, she went to the bathroom and turned on a shower—and cleaned herself off.
Ace looked quizzically at Beretta, who shrugged.
“Trust the woman,” he said.
Ace didn't seem to like that at all.
When she came out, half-an-hour later, she had on fresh scrubs and freshly applied make up. Her lipstick was dark and red and her hair pinned perfectly in place. She reminded Beretta of one of those nurses from the 1950s, only there was something sinister in how she looked.
Her lips, red as they were, evoked a lot of feelings in Beretta. He wanted to see them pursed and wrapped around his member, sliding up and down just for him. It was a hard image to rid himself of.
“Took you long enough,” said Ace. “You think the Cartel's going to take it easy on you because you're a woman?”
“I don't know anything about what the Cartel does or doesn't do. It's not really my area of expertise, is it?”
“Well, let me tell you, they—”
“You've already told me they'll kill me. Has that changed?”
“No.”
“Very well. I don't need to know anything more than that. Listen.” Helen joined her hands across her waist. “I know I’m not in charge. Hell, I know you don't even want me talking. You made that very clear. But if you want this to work, you have to let me do this how I want. I’ll get the information you want. But you have to let me lead, or else it won’t work.”
Ace was skeptical. “How would you know?”
“He’s going to be on morphine. He’ll be a little confused anyway. The less we give him to focus on, the better my method will work.”
“Shit,” said Locke, looking at Beretta. “I thought you were bullshitting about her knowing how to torture somebody?”
Beretta thought he was too.
“Fine,” said Ace. “But if you fuck it up, we’re stepping in.”
Helen nodded and then gestured for the crew to step back to the back of the room, well outside of Damage's field of vision.
“Beretta, I want your help.”
“Okay.”
“When he starts to scream, you’ll have to gag him.”
She held out a thick orange wash cloth from the bathroom. He just looked at it, a bit stunned.
“I don’t want the neighbors to come asking questions.”
He nodded. “...right.”
She then pulled out from her grocery bag a small bag full of fun-sized candy bars, holding them up to Beretta. Locke snickered and turned away when Beretta glared at him.
“These are the kind you like, right?”
He grabbed the bag, not quite believing her. “Yeah.”
“Payment, then, for helping me out.”
She knew how to bribe him. He felt a massive wave of relief just holding the bag of sweets, dumb though it was. He'd been missing his go-to stress therapy. Helen was tastier than any of the sweets in that bag, and that was for sure, but everybody had their poisons. What was it called when one poison offered you another?
He stuffed the bag away for later, surprise filling him at Helen's show of graciousness. Maybe there was more to her attraction to him than he'd thought.
Helen walked around the room, dimming the lights and arranging one lamp so that it worked like a spotlight, its lens firmly in Damage’s face. Finally, taking a breath, Helen snapped a smelling salt under Damage’s nose. She snapped at his eyes and ears, startling him awake.
“Mr. Damage,” she said. “Mr. Damage, are you awake?”
“Yes. Yeah, who are you?” He shifted slowly against his bonds, a crooked smile on his face.
“I’m the Nurse. Do you know where you are?”
“I...who the fuck are you?”
She slapped him. “I am the Nurse. Don’t make me repeat myself. I won’t like it. You’re on my operating table, Damage. You’re going to tell me what I want to know.”
“The fuck are you talking about?”
She slapped him again. It was a light thing, more like a swat than a slap, like the motion you'd use to go after a fly buzzing around your ears. “No swearing.”
On top of the dresser, she had set up a stand with her bag on it. Beretta noticed the bag was exactly inside Damage’s eye line—right at the corner of it. He had to strain to see it, but it was there for him to see.
Helen pulled out a hammer first, testing its weight in her hand. She made a few careful swats with it. Then a box cutter. She took a moment to slide the blade all the way out and then back in again, letting it glint in the dim light. Then she pulled out a pair of pliers, snapping them heavily.
“Hey,” said Damage. “Hey, lady. Whatever you think you’re doing, you got a bad idea. I know people, all right? Serious people, and they’re not going to—”
“Can you feel your legs, Mr. Damage?”
“Feel my...what?”
“You can’t feel your legs, Mr. Damage. Try moving them.”
“I...I...the fuck? The fuck did you do to my legs?”
He tried again to move his head up to look at himself, but his forehead was strapped down tight. All his muscles tensed, flexed, but he was tied down tight.
“Try not to worry about it too much, Mr. Damage. The damage, if you’ll pardon the pun, isn’t permanent.” She picked up the utility knife. “Or at least, it doesn’t have to be.”
She leaned down out of his eye line to the small table where she kept all her accouterments. Making a lot of noise, she cut off a long strip of chicken breast, lathering it in the pool of barbecue sauce she had made on the small table. Then she held up the strip of—for all intents and purposes—bloody flesh, briefly in Damage’s face.
“You have more where this came from,” she said. “A whole lot more.”
She laid the strip down across his bare stomach. The chicken was warm and no doubt felt like honest-to-goodness human flesh on his belly.
“F-fuck. What the fuck? Who the fuck a-are you?”
“I want to ask you some questions, Mr. Damage. And you’re going to tell me what I want to know.”
“Fuck you.”
She held up the knife again, letting it gleam in the light. It was bloody now from the warm chicken breast. Then she slid it down through the meat again, making a long slicing sound.
“Mm,” she said. “Whoops.”
“Whoops? The fuck do you mean, whoops?”
A heavy plopping sound filled the air as she slapped a thick piece of meat on his torso. “I think I hit the bone. You’re starting to bleed very badly, Mr. Damage. You’re going to need assistance soon. I hope you don’t get too drowsy.”
As if on command, Damage’s eyes blinked rapidly—like he was trying to fight off drowsiness himself.
“The...the hell...”
“I want to know about the stashes, Mr. Damage.”
“Stop fucking calling me Mr. Damage!” he shouted. “My name is Damage!”
; “Your name,” she said, “is whatever I require it to be, Mr. Damage. Stop swearing.”
He turned his eyes to one side. “Whatever. I can’t even feel what you’re doing, so—”
“Then you want to wake up tomorrow with no flesh left on your legs? That’s only the short version of what I’m prepared to do to you, Mr. Damage.”
He gulped. “What do you mean?”
“I suppose you’re one of those fellows who doesn’t believe his hand will burn until he touches the stove himself, hmm?”
She took her pliers out. She made a big production of it. Holding them up to the light, turning them this way and that. Letting them clack. Then she stuck them between his legs. She tugged and pushed, putting her hand on his belly to show how she was exerting herself.
“N-no,” said Damage. “No, no no no no. Okay? I’ll cooperate. I’ll do what you want. I j-just, hold on, hold on, wait. W-wait—!”
Then there were two distinct soft, wet plunks as his “testicles” hit the bottom of a metal bucket beneath the ironing board. They were walnuts, landed in mass of mashed grapes. She held the bucket up and rattled it around.
Damage began to scream. Beretta came forward and held his mouth closed with the rag, keeping him quiet. When Damage finally stopped screaming, Beretta let go.
“They can still be re-attached, Mr. Damage. But we’ll have to work very fast.”
“You bitch!” he shouted. “You fucking b-bitch! I’ll fucking kill you, Nurse! I swear to god! I’ll tear your head off! I’ll—!”
Helen raised an eyebrow and pulled a walnut out from the bucket. Damage only caught a glimpse of it—a shiny, gooey, round object. She placed it on the table behind her and, raising the hammer high so Damage could see her work, smashed it to bits. The grape mass collected around it made the sound especially wet.
Beretta had to gag Damage again. He was screaming, hyperventilating almost, his eyes wide.
“You,” said Helen, “are going to stop fucking swearing, Mr. Damage.”
“Y-you’re fucking swearing, aren’t you?”