away easy enough before then but to take out that gut of yours I'd need a lot of heat. Well, this blowtorch can heat up to 2,900 degrees. I ordered in especially for you, Mecedo. I've been waiting for this day for too long."
My stomach is a whirling mess but my mind is clear. I think the smell will be the thing to force me out of the room, something like that being too much for me but the thought of Illi torturing these men... no, I can sleep well with that thought tonight. I can sleep so peacefully knowing they're no longer walking this earth and hurting young girls like me.
"Baby girl, now is the time to leave. I'll bring you their hearts once it's done."
I nod and walk out, my feet slow and steady on the slick floor, and when I hear the screaming start, for a second I turn back.
Illi has the flame of the blowtorch up against Mecedo’s face, his eyeball nothing but jelly sliding down his cheek.
I swallow the bile and leave, a weight lifted from my chest and the night a little safer before me.
I wake up the next morning with mon Monstre naked and warm behind me, and four new jars on my bedside table.
Mon Monstre keeps me in my training, coaxing me into joining him down in the gym most early evenings before he heads out for the day. I enjoy watching him train and it’s good to keep my own skills sharp. My confidence grows daily this way, especially the day I finally use one of le Loup’s choke holds on him and I take him down on the mat. He grunts as he lands and my entire body shakes with the effort it takes me to complete the maneuver, his body being three times my size at least.
I’m sure he’s only humoring me and there’s a million different ways he could have gotten out of it but the grin he gives me has me feeling like the most amazing woman on Earth.
I come up from the gym, still a little sweaty, and Illi stomps up the staircase behind me. He heads straight to the bathroom while I wander into the kitchen for water. I forget it entirely when I see the little manila folder on the table, the one we'd stolen last night.
Curiosity killed the cat, but hopefully it'll be a little kinder to me.
I sit down at the table, flipping open the file, and the first thing I see is the photos of the corpses. There's crime scene photos and ones from the autopsy. They're disturbing but I can't look away, the blank eyes of the dead woman drawing me in.
She has a lily growing out of her chest.
"Don't look, baby girl. I don't need you having fucking nightmares from that shit."
I sift through the papers slowly, reading about her missing organs. "Why do you have this? Is it someone you know?"
He shakes his head, opening up the fridge and pulling out water for us both. I finally remember my thirst and drink half of it in one go.
"It's a job. I had to get the file to get backup for another job I'm working on. Fuck knows why the Boar wanted it but whoever is killing those women is fucking sick."
That means a lot, coming from a man who kills and butchers his victims the way mon Monstre does. I don't know that he kills women though, I've never heard of him killing anyone who isn't a bad man.
I can't imagine him killing an innocent woman. Is there any such thing in the deep dark depths of the Bay?
"The man killing them, he enjoys it. He gets sexual pleasure from removing their organs." I say, flipping through the rest of the paperwork.
Illi shrugs. "It's almost always about getting off. Everything in this world is about power. Having it and taking it from others."
I shiver. The notes at the end of the file chilling me to the bone.
Every victim has been left with a Bible verse. There are similar themes but no real patterns have been found yet. None of the verses seem to relate to the victims or the perpetrator, but to a third party. A man the verses identify as 'the Devil'.
"Fanatics are terrifying people, mon Monstre. Those who can remove themselves and their own desires from the act and say it is a higher being, they are the most dangerous of all."
Illi finishes off his bottle