None of this is fucking necessary. It’s not logical. But it has to happen because the puppet master here is calling the crackpot shots. Next thing I know, Gwen will probably pop through the door dressed in bacon and singing show tunes. She was background checked to hell, but hey, so was Harvey. Looks like all my usual horses jumped the gate. This asshole knows I usually have all the answers, and he’s relishing his upper hand; I can work with that. He’ll give me the truth because the kick he longs for is my response…right?
Then again, maybe he’ll lie through his teeth. Life’s like a box of chocolates, isn’t it, sports fans? Full of shit you don’t want and didn’t ask for.
Harvey, who now has a mouth full of Blood Honey’s gloved fingers, begins to tremble and choke. At first he seems to gargle, but then the sound goes up an octave, an unnatural rasp that sounds like an old woman trying to sing around a sponge. The higher it goes, the fiercer adrenaline sings in my veins, rubbing pulse points sore until I have to grit my own teeth.
With a final, desperate gag, Harvey swallows the blade, and then Blood Honey steps back with a satisfied roll of his shoulders. Harvey coughs and moans repeatedly. I make myself look him in the eye, but he’s not in a fit state to focus on anything.
“One down.” Blood Honey turns to me, his expression mild and curious. “You can ask me a question now.”
I need to ask something useful—I might not get a lot of these, and yet the wrong thing bubbles up before I can contain it. “Where is everyone?”
“Oh. You want to know about your little family.”
I want to know if any of those fuckers stitched me up.
He seems surprised. “No need to worry. They’re absolutely fine.”
“Are…are they alive?”
“That’s another question.” He keeps my gaze for just a second longer than is comfortable.
A half-truth.
Shit.
Harvey squalls like a child, hunching to pull his abdomen straight. I guess the razor just hit his stomach. Jesus.
“Shall we shove another one in, Aeron, and I’ll tell you if your Leo is alive?”
“Yes please.” I want to swallow, but the mere thought makes me…ugh.
“Maybe I’ll do two this time. Save kicking poor Harvey. Two truths with one blade, eh?”
The fucking irony.
“Go ahead.”
He scrapes another couple razors from his dish, and sails through the candlelight to deliver another hard blow to Harvey’s other shin. Shriek. Fist in mouth. Old-lady waffle wail. First blade down, second to go. “I told you to hold still,” Blood Honey scolds, as if Harvey’s some kind of misbehaving child. “Stop it. Stop it. Swallow the fucking things. Seriously, Aeron, the gag reflex on this guy…what were you doing with him?”
Forcing him to suck my cock, evidently.
“Swallow them,” I tell Harvey in a cold voice. Save yourself the struggle.
Blood Honey works his tensed arm back and forth, and suddenly the bare skin is covered in a spatter of pink saliva as Harvey retches up a mouthful of watery gunk.
“There we go. You can do it. What an achievement.” He pats Harvey’s sweaty, mottled head, and then spins back to me like some sinister game show host. “Next question.”
I’m not falling for the are they alive? shtick. Seems too much like bait for something else.
“Where are we?” I ask.
He snorts. “You can see where we are.”
“Geographically.” For fuck’s sake.
“Ah. Well. Not where you were.”
This time, I do roll my eyes, and it smarts as much as I expect. Whatever he did to my head, the first time or the second time, it pulled muscles loose and now they’re overstretched, rattling.
“A piece of advice.” Blood Honey stares down at Harvey, who keeps throwing up globs of sticky blood. In the candle light, they’re crimson fireworks exploding down the front of his vest. “I don’t like ungrateful little boys.”
“You said I had two questions this time.”
“Oh. So I did.”
“Why did Harvey help you?”
Harvey’s eyes dart to mine, and he blinks through a sticky mess of sweat, still choking.