“Y’all really want to come out of there now. Come on now,” the unknown psychic said. “Don’t make me force it.”
Don’t make me force it. Those words sent a shiver of trepidation down her spine. Force it. Force them? His partner had already tried that, ended up dead for his trouble. Just what was he going to . . .
An odd crackle reached her ears. Familiar, that sound. She hissed out a breath and jerked her head around to stare at the orange glow. It shimmered off in the brush about a dozen yards away. “There’s the first one,” he called. “Do I have to—”
The words ended in a scream and Gus was already striding out of the trees, his Sig Sauer in his hand, the Heckler & Koch hanging from his shoulder. “Bring my bag,” he said over his shoulder.
Vaughnne stared at the flickering orange flames for a minute longer, watching as they raged higher. “Don’t kill him yet, Gus. We need him.”
DON’T kill him yet, she says.
Gus crouched down by the man and shot out a hand, fisting it in the bastard’s hair. “You want to try and burn me out of there, hmm?”
The man clutched at the bleeding hole in his belly. “Fuck you,” he rasped.
Gus took his weapon and pressed the muzzle to the sensitive underside of the man’s chin. “That hole in your gut isn’t going to kill you,” he said softly. “Not for a long, long while. So I have time to make you suffer.”
“Gus.”
He looked up as Vaughnne came closer. “Wait for me by the car,” he said shortly. She was already upset by this. He’d known it would happen, that she would see the monster inside him. He could handle that. But he’d rather her not see it.
“Stop,” she said, grabbing his wrist and tugging until he eased up.
“Stop?” He stared at her. The cabrón had been ready to burn her and she wanted him to stop?
“If you don’t stop, that fire can burn out of control. You want that?”
He wanted to say he didn’t care, but realized he couldn’t entirely say that, not without lying. Perhaps he wasn’t as far gone as he’d always thought. He didn’t want to think of this quiet little place gone, lost to a fire.
Sighing, he looked back at the bastard on the ground and instead of pressing the muzzle to the man’s chin, he dragged the tip of it down his torso, along his hip, and then jammed it hard against his scrotum. “Here is the deal, cabrón. You’re going to put that fire out now. If you don’t, I’m going to kill you, ojete, in the slowest, most painful way you can possibly imagine. And if you can’t imagine a slow and painful way, let me know. I’ll give you some ideas.”
The man sneered at him.
Gus shifted the Sig Sauer to his other hand and reached down, grabbed the man’s penis and twisted. Once the man’s shrieking had faded away into whimpers, Gus started to speak. “The first thing I’ll do? I’m gonna pull your balls out through your nose. If that doesn’t get your attention, I’m gonna slice your dick off. In pieces.”
He let go and smiled down at the man. “Have I made the matter clear now?”
The man sucked in a breath and nodded.
“You’ll put out the fire?”
“Are you going to kill me when I do?”
Gus smiled. “No.”
And he wasn’t lying. He had questions. After he was done with those questions, though . . .
Vaughnne stood just to the side. From the corner of his eye, he could see her face, grim and unsmiling. Some of her tension eased and she blew out a sigh. “The fire is dying. I’m going to go check, make sure it’s out. Don’t kill him before I get back here, Gus,” she warned.
He didn’t answer.
Once she was gone, he pressed the muzzle of his weapon against the man’s groin. “Here is where we can start to play, ojete. I can put a hole in you. Right here. Or you can answer my questions. You ready to play?”
The man wheezed out a breath in response.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
VAUGHNNE made it back to the area as quick as she could and the warning was still a scream in her head. The fire was out. Awesome. Gus was still crouched over the pyrokinetic. Not awesome.
He had his gun pressed against the man’s groin and Vaughnne grimaced a little. The man looked ghost-white and he was babbling out answers so fast, she could barely process them.
Gus didn’t look to have that problem. The man finally stumbled to a stop and Gus twisted the weapon against his scrotum. “You’re sure that’s all you know, cabrón? There’s nothing else?”
“No. Nothing.” His eyes were wide, locked on Gus’s face like he’d never seen anything so terrifying in his life.
It was a scary thing to look at a man and know he could, and would, kill you without any remorse, without blinking an eye.
“And what was the latest update on the website?”
“Not much.” The pyro licked his lips and wheeled his head around to look at Vaughnne. “Word is out about her.” Something that might have been hope bled into his eyes. “Hey, I hear tell you’re a cop . . . you . . . you can’t let him kill me.”
She lifted a brow. “Word is out about me?”
He nodded, a quick, awkward bob of his head. “One of the mods can see things. She gets all technical with it, calls it remote viewing and shit, but she knew there was law enforcement working this—described you, this place . . .” His words ended in a whine as Gus reached up and laid a hand on his throat, squeezing lightly.
“You need to be useful,” Gus warned. “Or you die. Tell me something I can use. Don’t look at her and expect her to help you.”
Vaughnne took a few steps closer and knelt down by the man, careful to stay out of reach. “I want to know more about the others. How many are still chasing after the boy, do you know?”
“No.” He whined and clutched at his bleeding gut. “We don’t work like that. But—” He broke off.
“But what?”
He hunched in on himself, refusing to speak.
Gus sighed. “This man, he likes having me hurt him, I think.” He let go of the bastard’s throat, but before he could do anything else, the man’s breath gusted out of him.
And he started to talk once more. “It’s Gemma. One of the mods on the board. The one who saw this place, who knew about you. She’s telling people they need to pull off the job ’cuz it’s death all over. People listen to her. The smart ones, at least. I wasn’t going to take the job. But it’s so much money . . .”
Taut, heavy moments of silence stretched out, and when Gus abruptly stood, Vaughnne almost came out of her skin. And when he lifted the gun, leveled it at the man on the ground, she had hers in her hand. It was pointed at Gus’s head. “Don’t,” she said softly.
He didn’t even look at her.
“Gus, if you shoot him, I’m shooting you. He’s bleeding out, you’ve now scared him shitless, and he’s getting too weak to do anything,” she said. The man was pale, and getting paler by the second. He’d die if he didn’t get medical help. And she wasn’t ready to cross that line. She didn’t want to cross that line.
Gus’s finger tensed. She could see it. “Gus, please. Don’t do this.”
The man sobbed.
“He was ready to kill you,” Gus said gently. “He can, even now. With that ability to use fire? And you would try to save him?”
“It’s not about saving him. He hunts kids. He’s scum, and I know that. This is about saving me . . . and you.”
He looked at her now, and in the depths of those beautiful eyes, she saw a flicker of something. Surprise, maybe.