you won't do yourself. If I can't do this, then we won't do it at all. We'll find another way."
Jason looked up from holding the struggling man. "There is no other way." I'd never seen such rage in his eyes.
"Could you do it?" I asked. "Could you chop him up?"
Jason gave a slow nod. "I could bite his fucking fingers off one by one for what's in that box." He seemed to mean it, and it made me think I didn't know Jason at all.
"We can do this, Anita," Asher said, "and it will cost us nothing."
"It should cost, Asher. If we're going to do something this evil, it should bother whoever does it."
"It isn't evil," Asher said. "It is practical. It is even justice."
I held my hand out for the knife. "It's evil, and we all know it. Now, give me the knife. Either I can do this, or we do something else."
Damian just stood there, holding the knife. "Let me do this for you, Anita, please."
"Give me the damn knife."
He gave it to me because he couldn't do anything else. I knelt down by Thompson. "Where are they, Thompson?" I asked.
"No, no, Niley told me what they'd do to me if I helped you. He's fucking crazy."
"Wait," Zane said. He had found a small cleaver. "This will work better."
"Thanks." I took it, checked it for balance. I wasn't sure I could do it. I wasn't even sure I wanted to be able to do it. In fact, I knew that I hoped I couldn't do it. But if we were really going to do this, I had to be the one. I did it, or we found another way. Charlotte Zeeman's finger was lying in a box. In less than two hours, they'd cut something else off. I'd killed the vampire, splattered Thompson with blood and brains, and he wasn't talking. He was a mean son of a bitch, but he was tough, too. Charlotte and Daniel didn't have time for him to be tough. We had to break him, and we had to break him fast. I gave myself all the reasons. They were good reasons, real reasons. And still, I didn't know if I could do it.
"We'll start with a finger, Thompson. Just like Linus did," I said.
He was screaming, "Don't, please, don't! Oh, God, don't!"
Asher was leaning almost his full weight on the flat of the man's palm, forcing his fingers to spread wide. "Tell me where they are, and it won't happen," I said.
"Niley said they'd cut me open and make me eat my own intestines. Says he did it once in Miami. I believe him."
"I believe him, too, Thompson. And you don't believe we'll do it, do you? You don't believe we're as crazy as Niley."
"No one is as crazy as Niley."
I raised the cleaver up. "You're wrong." I stayed frozen for one long moment. I couldn't make myself start the stroke. I couldn't do it. Daniel, Charlotte.
"Has Niley raped Daniel yet?" I asked it in a voice that was so empty, it was like I wasn't there.
Thompson stopped struggling. He lay very still. He rolled his eyes upward. "Please don't."
I stared into his eyes when I said the next, "Did you rape Charlotte Zeeman?" I saw the fear in his eyes. That flash that said he'd done it. It was enough. I could do it. God forgive me. I got the little finger and the tip of the next one, because he moved. But they got better at holding him down, and I got better at cutting. Thompson told us where they were keeping Daniel and Charlotte Zeeman. In less than fifteen minutes he would have told us the ingredients to the secret sauce or anything else. He'd have confessed to killing Hoffa, or dancing with the devil. Anything, anything to make it stop.
I threw up in the corner until there was nothing but bile, and my head felt like it was going to explode. And I knew that I'd finally done something that I wouldn't recover from. Somewhere in the first blow or the second, I'd broken something inside myself that would never heal. And I was content with it. If we got Daniel and Charlotte back, I was content with it. A hard, cold knot filled me. It was beyond hate. I would make them pay for what they'd done. I would kill them. I would kill them all.
I felt strangely light and empty, and I wondered if this was