“Howard,” she greeted, waving her arm for us to go to her.
“Gilly, you take care of my men,” Sutton told her.
Gilly eyed Eric and me with suspicion, but she gave Sutton the confirmation he needed with a quick nod and glassyeyes that told all of us she didn’t like this any more than Sutton did.
I didn’t need them to approve. I just needed their help.
We saluted the chief and followed our rat into the back corridors of the building. I fucking hated hospitals. Hated them. They always made death smell clinical. Bleached. Death wasn’t clean. The real stench of death contained dirt and spit and screams of denial that bubbled like a hot festering pit of fear. Death was dirty and angry, no matter how much they tried to make it clean and peaceful.
Gilly barely acknowledged us as she led the way, but I could see the subtle trembling of her limbs.
When we arrived at where we needed to be, she glanced down at her feet and pointed down the small, unmanned corridor. “First door on your left. Howard gave me your number, so I’ll text your phone when you have to leave. The cameras are out for the next five minutes only. The security guards will pick it up when their feed flickers. Donotwaste time.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, my hand resting on her shoulder and causing her to flinch. “I appreciate this.”
“Don’t tell me what happens in there.”
“Then don’t ask.”
Eric took the lead, and I sauntered behind him, the adrenaline making my blood tear through my body. When we got to the door, Eric glanced over his shoulder one last time. “Remember not to kill him the second you see him.”
“If you’re just here to spoil my fun…”
“You know that’s not why I’m here.”
“Right.” I groaned.
“I mean it, Drew.”
“I’ll believe your promise the day you fulfill it.”
“So stubborn.” Eric shook his head, exhaled slowly and pushed inside the room.
Jon Taylor lay paralyzed in the middle of a plush hospital bed with so many wires and tubes coming out of his body and mouth that he looked like the latest experiment in town.
“Clint got him good,” I said without thought.
“Hurry up,” Eric ordered, his voice so calm it could barely be heard, but his command was still noted. I looked up at him in warning as I stalked closer to the bed.
News on the street at one point had been that Jon might not make it.
The latest update had told us he was making a better recovery than anyone expected.
I couldn’t be having that. I wanted this fucker to serve a lifetime trapped inside his own mind, not being able to take a piss for himself.
“Fucker’s come to visit you, brother,” I whispered, leaning in close to his ear. “Rise and shine.”
Jon didn’t move because he couldn’t do much of anything but let his eyes open and shut. The bastard couldn’t even take proper breaths for himself.
“Rumor has it that you can hear every damn thing I say to you, so here goes. I’m here to offer you a way out. Your life is never going to be the same again. You’re never going to walk. You’re barely going to be able to even talk. And that once loving wife you had is gone now, Jon. She’s on the other side, resting with your maker beyond the pearly gates of Heaven. A place you definitely won’t be allowed into after all the cruel, vindictive, nasty ass shit you put me and a thousand other prisoners through at Huntsville.” I pressed a finger tohis neck and then let my others tiptoe over his skin, watching as his eyelashes began to flicker wildly. “Every time you took a weapon to my knees in those showers for no good reason, every time you let those bastards corner me and gang-beat the living shit out of me, every meal you made me skip, every week you put me in solitary, every time you laughed when I had a blade stuck in my skin… it’s all come back to you as this, Jonny. This is your penance. Your payment. And call me a sick and twisted bastard, but I’ve never been so happy for karma to do her thing.”
I glanced up at Eric who was watching with a small smirk of satisfaction on his face.
“But you took Harry away from us. It was your hand that stole his last breath. And I think that you’re recovering just a little too well considering your crime. Your wife is dead because of you. Did you know that? I killed her. Stuck a bullet in the back of her head. She fell like a lamb at slaughter, but not before I made her shake first. Her death is all your fault, Jon. You gave her that. But you don’t care about innocent people dying at your hands, do you? Too many people are dead inside their heads because of all the shit you put them through. That’s the worse torture; don’t you think? Knowing you’ll never be the same person you once were because some evil bastard stepped into your life and decided to fuck it up. You deserve to die, too, but I think death is too easy for you, Taylor. So let’s give you what you gave so many men in prison. Let’s make it an eternity of torture trapped inside a body that can no longer be used to taunt the ones unfortunate enough to be beneath you.”
Eric began to move then, just as Jon Taylor’s eyes flew open and he tried to make his broken body work so he couldget away.
Once Eric was by the bed, he reached for the catheter that was hanging by Jon’s bed full of orange piss, and he twisted the tubes to block them.