Dominic
I wanted to scream. To fight. To claw. To punch and punish. I tried twisting again, breaking the bounds and the hooks holding me, but to no avail. They had tied me differently this time–and besides, after La Gancho’s most recent torture, I had no strength left to draw upon.
I wanted to look away. To close my eyes and pretend I wasn’t there. Return, perhaps, the vision of that lovely cottage, and its gentle breeze. But that would have made me a coward.
If Erica had to endure whatever was about to happen to her, then, I, too, would endure it.
I met Erica’s eyes, and I watched.
La Gancho started by undressing her. He did it slowly, like he knew he was putting on a performance. Her shirt first, he lifted up over her head, then her pants, pooling them around her ankles. She stood there in her bra and panties, shivering as the cold yellow light leeched all the heat from her flesh. So beautiful, and so in focus was she to my eyes that I could see the goosebumps rising on her arms.
Marco, in his sinister, perverse way, seemed to match my thoughts. “Lovely,” he said. “Just lovely.”
He ran his fingers down the length of her arm. I could see her trying to silence her shudder. Down her arm, across her waist, dipping in the warm cup of her belly button, and then slipping, like the slimy worm he was, beneath the lining of her panties –
“No!” I roared, thrashing and kicking. “No! No! Stop! Stop! I’ll do anything!”
Marco rolled his eyes and faced me, his cock bulging out from the leather of his pants. “Someone silence him!” He ordered, and Blade stepped forward to punch me in the gut. He was a weak, pathetic man, so there was not much behind it, but it was still enough to knock the wind out of me for a moment before I could resume my hollering.
So Marco drew his knife again. This time, he pressed it against Erica’s throat. He bent her over, his bad hand fastened onto her scalp, forcing her head down, his bad hand clutching the blade to her neck, but all the more deadly for its clumsiness. And his erection, thrusting with terrible pressure against the silken film of her panties.
Erica froze, chest heaving like a cornered animal, and I silenced immediately.
“I’ll kill her, Dominic,” he whispered. “I swear I will. I cut her throat and pump her full of cum even as she bleeds out. Now, silence!”
I swallowed my screams of horror. He kept the blade where it was, but released her head so that he could unbuckle his pants. His dick emerged, ugly and mottled and pink as the nose of a balding rat. At the sight of it, so close to my dear Erica, I felt my gorge rising. I knew this was the end. Even if La Gancho didn’t kill me, this was the end of me. There was no coming back from this.
He spoke. “I’m gonna fuck her,” he growled. “I’m gonna fuck her so good, and then, once I’m finished with her, and pumped her full of my sweet hot cum, I’m gonna kill her, my dick still half-hard in her cunt. And then, with the very same knife I used to kill her, I’m going to kill you–argh!”
A knife! Not the jackknife, or Marco’s blade, but a new one! Twisted and horrible–from the torture table! It flashed, wicked in the light, then buried itself in La Gancho’s shoulder. He screamed, a comic “o” of surprise on his face as he whirled around to see the perpetrator.
Not me. I was tied up. Not Thunder. He was restrained by the two Crooked Jaws, who were gaping with such bovine looks of stupidity and astonishment that it could not possibly have been either of them.
Which left–his ugly face distorted by hate and bloodlust–Blade.
“You promised me you’d let me have her when you were finished,” he raged, tears on his pink, paunchy cheeks so that he looked like a toddler in the heat of a tantrum. “You said I could have her–but now you’re going to kill her!”
“You idiot!” La Gancho shrieked, stumbling as he lost blood. He fumbled for his gun, aiming it at Blade, all while his stupid, ugly dick softened, retreating back into his pants.
It was then that I noticed something very strange: Erica, rising to her feet, and, quite oddly, smiling.
Blade and La Gancho glared at each other.
“You can’t kill me,” Blade said. “I know where all the money is. Only I can keep the Crooked Jaws afloat!”
“You bastard! You thieving, traitorous, bastard!” La Gancho shot back. He seemed enraged beyond sense–beyond words. “I’ll kill all of you!”
His gun was flailing. Blade had stabbed him in his good shoulder, so now he was rapidly losing control of his good arm. He could not switch the gun to the other hand. He had no choice.
He would fire. He was about to any moment. And from the tightness of the room, and his wild raging, he could shoot any one of us.
I locked my eyes on Erica. If this was to be the end, I wanted the last thing I saw to be her. She gazed back and nodded sadly.
Boom!
The whole foundation of the building seemed to shake. La Gancho whirled, now pointing the gun at the door. Meanwhile, Blade blanched, and sunk back against the wall in terror.
Two Crooked Jaws burst in. “The Broken Spires!” They cried. “They’re here! They’re waging war upon the compound!”
“Haha!” I roared, but the sound of it was lost amid the sound of more gunshots, and what very well may have been explosives, coming from above.
Thunder chose this moment to heave himself out of his stupor. He slung both Crooked Jaws off him, slamming them into the wall, and rushed towards me. Blade shrieked in fear, thinking he was coming towards him, and then darted towards the door. With three quick fumbles with the latch, he was out.
“No, you don’t, you bastard!” La Gancho cried. He whirled back on the pair or Crooked Jaws. “You! Get Blade! And you! Hold the prisoners!”
By this point, Thunder, with Erica’s help, had managed to hoist me off the hooks and place me gently on the ground. The floor seemed to sway under me, but I managed at least to keep my footing. Thunder grinned and grabbed one of the knives from the torture table. Erica, too, bent down to retrieve her folding knife, lying forgotten on the floor. The pair held both blades up, pointing directly at the Crooked Jaw.
Boom!
Another explosion shook the room! The remaining Crooked Jaw looked from our blades, pointed right at his heart, to the debris being shaken from the ceiling, to the wild, demented face of La Gancho, and decided to book it.
Yelping like the dog he was, tail between his legs, he bounded towards the door.
“No!” La Gancho screamed. He drew his gun and fired at the three of us. The shot went wild, the three of us diving aside in time to avoid any injury–that is, from the gunshot. To Thunder and I, hitting that cold cement floor was agony.
Erica was the first on her feet. Though I admired her quickness, this was a mistake, for La Gancho darted forward, seized her by the arm, and dragged her, screaming, from the room.
“No!” I cried, leaping up despite my agony and bounding after them. Thunder was a split-second behind. We burst through the door, looked left, and looked right.
Nothing!
“Go left!” I ordered him, while I took the right hallway.
I was naked. Armed only with my fists–which was probably for the best. My tormented wrists were so swollen and sore that I probably could not have managed a knife or a gun anyway. And still, I sprinted in search of Erica. I didn’t care if La Gancho had a gun and a knife. I would kill him with my teeth if I had to.
The corridor seemed empty. In the distance, I heard the shouts, cries, and explosions of a gun battle going on overhead. My heart swelled with pride for the Broken Spires. They were brave and loyal. Unlike the lowly Crooked Jaws.
I ran. My bandages loosened and trailed behind me, a red and bloody banner. My naked feet smacked against the floor, leaving red footprints in my wake. My genitals slapped against my thighs, cold and exposed. And yet, I felt wonderful.
I turned the corner.
“There you are–Urgh!”
I’d seen Erica, hurled on the floor, struggling to her feet, just before there was a flash of steel out of the corner of my eye. It connected with my temple, and the next thing I knew I was on my knees, the world swaying in nauseating colors before me.
I saw La Gancho overhead. He dropped the steel pipe he’d used to hit me, and then drew his gun, centering it right on my forehead.
“Farewell, Jasy-Baby,” he sneered, and then fired.
Crack! The bullet exploded against the wall behind me. I stared in wonder, trying to regather my wits, and saw Erica, pounced on his back like a wild imp, clawing at his eyes and hair, her long naked legs wrapped around his waist.
“Stinking cunt!” He swore, and tossed her off him, so that she hit the cement floor with a gasp. But she’d done was she needed to: she bought me time.
Once again on my feet, I dove at La Gancho like a drunken brawler, knocking the pair of us to the floor. My vision was in a haze. Blood loss. Concussion. Everything swirling about in gleaming black leather and dingy cement. I bit, clawed, and punched, and yet, I felt myself losing. La Gancho was like a crocodile in my arms, savage and powerful.
“No…” I murmured. “Erica…”
Crunch!
La Gancho stopped, sagging, suddenly useless in my arms.
Crunch! Crunch! I felt drops of hot blood spattering my face. Slowly, my vision cleared.
La Gancho lay upon me, unmoving. His skull was busted in, a cavity of blood and exposed bone like a bite taken from a jelly donut. Above us both, was Erica.
Her lips were drawn back in a savage grimace. Her breasts heaved in her bloodstained, tattered bra. And above her head, clasped strongly in her fist, was the same steel pipe La Gancho had used to hit me.
I swear, I could see bits of La Gancho’s brain on the cold metal.
Marco Herrera, La Gancho, leader of the Crooked Jaws, was dead.
I pushed him off me and gazed up at Erica in wonderment.
“You are,” I said, my voice completely serious, “the most beautiful, wonderful, amazing, bad-ass woman I have ever met.”
And then I passed out.