The scientists, research assistants and techs, the soldiers to the janitors in the lower depths of Brandenmore Research, had found great pleasure in doing just that. In turning their Breed victims into whimpering animals that begged for mercy.
And Scott had taken more pleasure than most in torturing the two Breeds held in what Gideon suspected was the pits of hell.
“Beg me,” Gideon whispered to the research assistant. “Shed tears, Scott, and plead for mercy from the monster you helped to create.”
The horror intensified in the man’s eyes as his lips trembled with the knowledge of what was coming. His gaze centered on the scalpel and Gideon couldn’t help but smile.
“Shall I tell you what it feels like?” he asked, lowering his voice until it sounded gentle, reassuring. It was nothing less than horrifying to his victim.
Because he remembered. Sweet God, he remembered the agony, every day, every second of his life.
His abdomen tightened with the scalding sensations of the scalpel slicing into it as the remembrance tore through his senses.
He snarled in fury, causing Connelly to cry out in horror. His eyes widened, the certainty of death flashing in his gaze.
“Please, Gideon . . .” Scott choked on his own tears, gagging for a second as he fought for breath. “Please don’t do this. Just kill me. Just kill me now.”
Gideon knew what Scott felt in that moment. The way the stomach clenched and spasmed, recoiling in terror as he fought not to vomit. The struggle not to beg, because begging didn’t help.
Yet the terror had a mind of its own after a certain point, and the words spilled from the lips anyway.
“It feels like hell has descended to your guts,” Gideon told him with relish. “The agony begins with the first cut, and you believe it can get no worse.” He leaned close, reaching out with the scalpel to draw the tip along the graying curls that covered his victim’s chest. “But it can get worse, Scott. So much worse. And when the cold air meets the warmth of your insides, then you’ll swear a hundred scalpels are biting into your organs, tearing them apart with jagged steel and ripping your mind out along with it.”
“Please, Gideon!” Scott screamed hoarsely, the tears beginning to fall, the fear rising inside him with an acrid scent Gideon inhaled with heady satisfaction.
That scent was becoming addictive. Like a drug he couldn’t resist. Now he knew, he knew why Coyotes thirsted for blood. For its coppery sweet scent and the feel of it gliding like wet silk over the hands.
“Please,” Gideon repeated the plea. “Please, Scott. Scream for me in mindless pain. Please feel what I felt. Please beg as I begged. God, please, let me watch you die as you watched me each time you stopped my heart.”
Then Gideon chuckled and glanced down at the stream of wetness flowing from the man’s flaccid cock.
Scott was pissing himself.
The poor little coward.
It was something Gideon hadn’t done during the experiments until the chill of the air actually hit his guts. Until the pain had been worse than hell on earth, and his body had fought to die amid it.
And there was nothing he wanted more than to slice into the monster at that moment and allow him to feel that same agony. To watch his blood seep from his flesh as it parted. To see it run in bloodred streams along his chest and abdomen to pool into the creamy carpet beneath him.
But first, first, he needed information. He needed information more than he needed to smell his victim’s death.
At least, for the moment.
He could wait to kill him. He could wait until Scott gave the truths Gideon knew he held. The truths the man had so far hidden from his friends, coworkers and priest. The truth of the location of the one person Scott had shown any gentleness to in those labs. But he wouldn’t be able to wait for long.
“Unlike you and your scientist masters, I can be merciful. I don’t want to be, but I can be. If you cooperate.”
Scott’s lips quivered as he sobbed, snot dripping from his nose and running along the side of his cheek.
“Anything, Gideon,” he begged desperately. “Anything you want. I swear it.”
Gideon looked to the safe he had found earlier. Tucked into the wall across the room, and hidden, not very imaginatively, behind a framed print of Scott, his wife and two sons.
His sons didn’t look as pathetic and weak as Scott. Surprisingly, they more resembled their mother with her strong Nordic features and direct blue eyes.
How had Scott Connelly managed to find a wife of such strength when he was such a weak, pitiful excuse of a male? How had he bred sons whose scent was mixed with the sweat of hard work and whose palms were calloused with it? Men whose reputations for honesty and a hard day’s work were so well known in their small community that parents often held those sons up as examples to their own children?
Perhaps they weren’t his sons, Gideon mused before turning his attention back to Scott. Unfortunately, Gideon couldn’t be certain. Familial lines weren’t scents to which he was particularly sensitive. His primal strengths ran to other areas.