“We need to go, Frankie. This is getting bad.”
“Shut the hell up, Davie,” said Michelle from Frankie’s side. “You’re such a downer all the time.”
Usually, Frankie would jump to his brother’s defence, but this time he didn’t, which Davie took as a bad sign. “Okay,” he said, not wanting to anger his brother. “What now then?”
Frankie smirked. “Glad you asked. What we’re going to do now is show Andrew the error of his ways. Man took a chunk out of my forehead. He needs to pay for that.”
“You already stabbed him,” said Davie.
Frankie nodded. “That was just to detain him. If the police catch you and give you a kicking you still go to court afterwards. They don’t take the beating required to subdue you as the punishment for the crime.”
“Yeah,” said Dom. “He still needs to be put on trial.”
“And so here we are,” said Frankie, gushing with amusement, “to preside over the people versus Mr Andrew…whatever the fuck his name is.”
“Goodman,” Davie muttered.
“What are the charges,” asked Michelle, happily playing along with the charade.
“Kiddie-fiddling, goat-fucking, and the crime of thinking his shit don’t stink.”
“How do you find?” asked Jordan, laughing till he was out of breath.
Frankie held a finger in the air to silence the room. He seemed deep in thought, but then suddenly thrust his finger at the floor and screamed the word, “GUILTY!”
“What is his punishment?” asked Dom gleefully.
Frankie put his hands together and placed his fingertips beneath his nose as if trying to gain guidance from God himself. “Through the power invested in me by the courts, I sentence this wicked man to a slow and lingering death…by torture.”
Torture – Davie repeated the word in his head three times. Then he threw up.
Chapter Seventeen
“You okay, man?” Frankie had moved over to rub Davie’s back while he continued to be sick.
Davie spat a wad of saliva onto the carpet and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I think so. Just came over me all of a sudden.”
“Must be the concussion,” Frankie suggested. “Don’t worry. He’s going to pay for what he did to you.”
Davie shook his head and looked up at his brother pleadingly. “I just want to go home. I feel rough, man. Need to go to bed.”
Frankie examined him for several seconds then nodded. “Okay, Davie. We’ll get you home to rest.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” Frankie smiled at him warmly. “Just as soon as I’m done here. Let me finish up.”
Davie took some deep breaths and tried to calm his stomach before he spoke. “Finish up?”
Frankie leant closer and whispered in Davie’s ear. “Got to get rid of the witnesses.”
“No way,” said Davie. “You can’t be serious.” He leant forward and lowered his voice so that only Frankie could hear the question he was about to ask. “You’re not really going to kill anybody, are you?”
Frankie looked at Davie and nodded very slowly, very seriously. The cold cubes of ice that were his eyes chilled Davie to the bone. He finally realised that he no longer knew the person standing in front of him. Something had changed inside of Frankie when he went to prison. He’d come back a monster. What the hell had happened to him in that young offender’s home?
“I don’t want to kill anybody,” said Davie, tears forming in his eyes.
“You don’t have to, little bro. Leave it all up to big brother. Haven’t I always looked after you?”
Davie nodded. The urge to vomit was rising up from his guts again and he fought hard to contain it.
“This is getting boring, Frankie. Let’s fuck something up.” It was Michelle. The sound of her voice was like a squealing pig to Davie’s ears. If someone really was about to die, he wished it would be her.
His upper lip curled up in a snarl. “Shut the hell up, Shell, you coked-up whore.”
Michelle marched forward and grabbed a hold of Frankie’s arm. “You going to let the little wanker talk to me like that?”
Frankie shrugged away from her grasp and turned to Davie. He let out a short laugh but looked deadly serious. “You got to learn to play nice, little bro. That was out of line, you get me?”
“Is that it?” said Michelle, stamping her feet and waving her arms like an outraged child.
Frankie slapped her across the face. It wasn’t hard enough to injure her but had enough force to knock her to the ground. “How many fucking times have I told you to leave it out, you skinny cunt?”
Michelle fell to the floor and cowered, raising her arms up to deflect any further blows. “I…I’m sorry, baby. Please…”
Frankie clicked his fingers at her. “Get the fuck up and be quiet. You give my brother shit one more time and I’ll end you.”
Michelle nodded and hurried away to the far side of the room. Davie noticed that Dom and Jordan were sat watching the television again but were keeping one eye on the argument and giggling between themselves.
Davie shook his head. You’re all just a bunch of crack heads.
“Okay,” Frankie rubbed his hands together. “It’s getting cold in here so I’m going to go and put the heating on. When I get back it will be time to carry out sentencing. Dom, Jordan, sort your shit out and wake up. You’re sat watching the snooker championships and giggling your arses off like it’s the funniest thing you ever saw.”
Dom and Jordan suddenly looked like naughty children and hurried to their feet quickly. Frankie left the room and Michelle ran after him, no doubt to fawn over him and try to make up. Davie sat down on the sofa between the women and worried about their fates. Penelope was still staring into space. Rebecca had let her head drop.
A garbled murmur let those in the room know that Andrew had regained consciousness. He was looking across the room at Davie through his swollen eyelids.
“Everything will be okay,” Davie told him, hating himself for lying. “We’re all going soon.”
“Yeah,” said Dom, “after we deal with your pasty, white ass.”
“Why…why do you follow him?” Andrew asked the room. Davie wasn’t sure who it was directed at, but he figured it was a valid question to each of them.
“We don’t follow no one,” said Jordan. “We just hang with Frankie cus he’s got the supply.”
“So you…help him terrorise innocent people just because he feeds you drugs?”
“That about sums it up, blud.” Jordan couldn’t help himself but laugh. “Sucks for you, huh, whitey?”
Andrew laughed, too – it was a thick, throaty sound, full of derision and disdain. “I think it sucks for you…that you let another man own your ass. You’re just Frankie’s bitches.” He broke out in even harder laughter; despite the obvious difficulty he had taking in air through his crumpled nose. Dom and Jordan were furious, but also lost for words. It wasn’t very often anyone had the balls to sound off at them like that. Davie looked down at the floor and grinned.
Frankie re-entered the room carrying a tea towel that seemed to be wrapped around something. He moved to the centre of the room and placed the tea towel on the coffee table, before unravelling it to reveal a set of variously-sized knives, a corkscrew, screwdriver, and a pair of pliers.
“What are those for?” asked Davie, already knowing the answer.
Frankie sighed at his brother. “Enough with the questions. You’re giving me such a headache that I might end up being the one with concussion.”
Dom came over and looked down at the assorted implements. He whistled. “Shit’s gunna get real, huh?”
Frankie picked up a small steel knife and examined the edge with the pad of his thumb. When he was satisfied with its sharpness, he sauntered over towards Andrew, waving it back and forth.
“You ready for sentencing, old man?”
Andrew lifted his head and looked Frankie in the eye. There was no fear
in his expression anymore; only a weariness that could have been acceptance. Davie held his breath as he waited for what was to come.
Frankie pointed the knife in Andrew’s face. “Swallowed your fucking tongue?”
Andrew spat then; a mixture of blood and saliva that hit Frankie right in his face.
Frankie’s twitch went into overdrive as his face screwed up in fury. It suddenly occurred to Davie that his brother had not possessed a facial tick before he’d gone away.
Frankie placed the blade against the flesh below Andrew’s left eye. “You going to wish you never did that, gangster.”
“I don’t give a fuck,” said Andrew calmly, but his breathing was beginning to quicken and his voice was slightly unsteady.
Frankie smiled. “We going to see how much of a fuck you don’t give, old man.” He removed the knife from Andrew’s face, turned around, and shuffled over to the sofa so that he was standing behind Penelope. “You positive I can’t make you care?”
Andrew’s swollen eyes flinched. “Don’t!”
“Don’t what?” said Frankie. “Don’t do this?”
Frankie drew the blade across the side of Penelope’s face, drawing a slick line of blood as he flayed open the flesh of her cheek. At first she made no sound, still trapped in whatever daze had imprisoned her, but then she snapped back to reality and let out a high-pitched wail that could have cracked crystal. Frankie wrapped a hand around her mouth and stifled her.
From beside Davie, Rebecca struggled to get free. He had to put both hands on her to keep her in place. He wasn’t trying to help Frankie; he was trying to help her.
“Thought you didn’t give a fuck?” said Frankie to Andrew as he etched another long slice across his wife’s face. “Looks like you care now.”
No one said anything, the air tense enough to carry electric. Frankie continued to gag Penelope with his hand for several more minutes, finally letting go when her sobbing and moaning quieted down. She shook and trembled as he released her.
Frankie cricked his neck to the side and shuddered. “Damn, that was fun.”
“You sick fuck,” Andrew cursed him. “You sick sick fuck!”
“Those cuts are deep, bro,” said Dom. “They ain’t never gunna heal right. Scarred for life, yo.”
Davie agreed. The cuts were thick and blood rolled down both sides of Penelope’s face. Along with her bald head, and the other abuses of the night, Davie knew that the deepest scares would be the ones inside her mind. Frankie had caused damage that no amount of therapy would ever cure.
“Can I cut someone now?” Michelle asked almost innocently. As if she was an eight-year old asking to taste her daddy’s wine.
Frankie offered out the knife. “Sure thing, sweetie.”
Michelle took the knife and immediately headed for Rebecca.
Frankie put a hand out and stopped her. “Not so fast, baby girl. No one touches the women but me.”
Michelle’s entire face drooped. “Seriously? Come on. Just let me cut her a little bit. Slapper thinks she’s the shit. Needs bringing down a peg.”
Frankie didn’t speak. He just stared at Michelle, unblinking.
“Okay, okay,” she relented. “I’ll slice her dad then.”
She took the knife over to Andrew who looked back at her defiantly. “How did a nice girl like Charlie ever have a friend like you?” he asked.
Michelle hissed at him. “I kicked that bitch to the curb long time ago. Thought she was better than me.”
“That’s because she is.”
Michelle lashed out with the knife, hitting against Andrew’s ribs with an audible clink. The knife was small and could only have entered an inch or so, but it was more than enough to make Andrew bellow in pain.
Davie covered his ears.
“Hey,” Frankie shouted. “Watch where you’re cutting. You’ll end up killing him.”
Davie sat up straight, buoyed by his big brother’s comment. Maybe he didn’t want to kill anyone after all. Why else would he have just told Shell to be careful?
“Isn’t that what you want?” Michelle asked Frankie.
“No,” he replied. “Not yet, at least. Got to make him feel it first.”
Davie sighed. The brief glimmer of hope he’d felt faded away. This couldn’t go on any longer, surely? What more damage could Frankie do? Penelope would never be the same again and most likely neither would Andrew – if he lived. Rebecca still had a chance, though. She could still get through this in one piece if it all ended now. Davie closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and made a decision. It was time he stood up to his big brother. This had to stop now.
Chapter Eighteen
Andrew was afraid, he could not deny that, but there was strength inside him now that he’d never known existed before. The pain he’d experienced, and was still yet to experience, was not enough to break him – in fact it had only made his resolve stronger. He wouldn’t beg, he would not plead. The hell Frankie put him through had changed something in him. He had seen into the depth of his own physical being – the deepness of his soul – and knew now that he would never stop fighting for his family.
But things had changed when Frankie slashed Pen’s face. The pain of seeing his wife’s beautiful face disfigured found a way past his barriers and struck right at his heart. A pressure grew inside his chest that threatened to explode his very being. As quickly as it had arrived, the fight fled out of him.
Frankie approached with a new weapon – one he hadn’t yet used to torture anyone. He held the pliers at arm’s length and snapped them shut menacingly. “Time for your dental appointment, sir.”
Andrew sighed and let his head drop to his chest, mentally preparing himself for another helping of agony. He sent his mind to a meditative place of calm indifference that offered a sliver of emotionally sanctuary. It was a place inside of himself that he’d not known existed before this night. Pain and suffering had forced it into existence, rending itself into his psyche out of necessity and survival.
“I’ve never done a root canal before,” said Frankie, “but I’m sure it’ll go alright. What do you think?”
Andrew said nothing. If he did then the animal might hurt his family some more. Whatever happened, he could take it – or at least tolerate – as long as it was done only to him.
Frankie grabbed Andrew’s lower jaw with his grubby fingers and yanked it open. “Dear, oh, dear. That’s some very bad tooth decay you have there. I think we’re going to have to get those teeth out ASAP. Every single one of them.”
The twins and Michelle gave a cheer to that as if it was the most exciting thing they had ever heard of. Andrew wondered if it was the drugs that made them this way, or if they’d been born wicked. They weren’t human beings, they were baying dogs – hyenas.
Frankie shushed everyone into silence and started his procedure. Andrew spluttered and coughed as the pliers entered his mouth. They scratched against his tongue and clinked against his teeth, sending aching shudders down to their roots. Suddenly, the steel tongs clamped down on either side of a molar and Andrew felt the tooth crack beneath the sudden pressure. Agony exploded thorough his lower jaw and gradually travelled upwards to consume his entire face. His vision blurred as the pliers twisted side to side, yanking and wrenching the tooth away from the gum, millimetre by excruciating millimetre. Despite coming extremely near, Andrew didn’t lose consciousness. He was still awake to see Frankie make at successful extraction and hold the retrieved molar in front of his audience like a grizzly trophy.
Andrew’s mouth filled with hot, salty blood, so much that he thought he might choke on it. He spat endlessly to keep his mouth clear and the sight of all the blood seemed to cause a massive grin to stretch across Frankie’s twitching face.
“That shit is gross,” said Dom from a couple of meters away. “I could puke.”
“Pull another one,” Michelle screeched. “Do another before he passes out.”
Frankie took the molar from the pliers and exami
ned it between his fingers. He showed it to Andrew, too, waving it a couple of inches in front of his nose. “Mind if I keep this?”
The question disturbed Andrew. It was the type of thing a serial killer would do, keeping a memento from his victim’s body. The notion of dying tonight was becoming more and more a reality to Andrew, but so was something else. If Frankie was going to kill him, he wouldn’t stop there – couldn’t stop there. Pen and Bex were witnesses that this monster could not afford to keep around. If Andrew didn’t get free, Frankie was going to kill his family.
“Time for the next tooth,” said Frankie clicking the pliers open and shut. Blood still dripped from the implement.
“STOP IT!”
Andrew leant sideways and glanced around Frankie. What he saw was Davie, standing up beside the sofa and facing down his brother.
Frankie shook his head. “What the fuck, Davie?”
Davie’s eyes narrowed beneath the bandage around his forehead. His slim shoulders were rigid, tense. “I’m done with this, Frankie. You’ve hurt these people enough and I can’t take any more of this.”
Andrew couldn’t see Frankie’s face now his back was turned, but he could tell by the unmoving body language that he was dumbfounded by his little brother’s sudden outburst.
“What’s your problem? This goddamn pedo ran you the fuck over.”
“It was an accident,” Davie shouted a decibel below a shout, “and it happened because I was running away after what you did to that girl at the chip shop. If you hadn’t taken me along I wouldn’t have got hit by no car.”
“You keep your mouth shut about that. You want me to get pinched?”
Davie shook his head, exasperated. “You’re already going to get pinched. You’re planning on killing people.”
“So what?” said Frankie. “Shit happens. Long as we’re smart, no one will pin a thing on us.”
Davie seemed incredulous. “Us? Us? I want nothing to do with this fucking mess. This is all down to you and your shit-faced mates.”
“Hey man, that’s not cool,” said Jordan from the floor.
“No,” Frankie agreed. “Not cool at all.” He walked forward and prodded a finger into Davie’s chest. “Now you chill the fuck out, little bro, or things are going to end bad for you.”
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