He then drew the cut
slowly
, mercilessly, with surgical patience — from the middle of the forehead, straight down between the eyebrows, slicing the bridge of the nose in a perfect line.
The razor edge parted skin drawing the face tightness apart, then face fat, then muscle with almost no resistance, but the
cold
was a thousand times worse than the cut.
It was absence given teeth — freezing every nerve it touched into brittle glass, turning fresh blood to black slush the instant it welled up, burning the raw meat from the inside with star-death chill that made the tissue die and blacken in its wake.
Blood gushed in thick, steaming sheets, pouring down Anderson’s temples in rivers, flooding
his eyes,
flooding his open, screaming mouth.
The wound was so deep the
white of skull
flashed in the violet light before it filled again with crimson.
The two halves of Anderson’s face began to pull apart like a parting show curtains, exposing glistening red muscle, cartilage, and the pale gleam of bone.
Anderson’s screams reached a pitch that should have shattered glass. His body bucked wildly despite the broken limbs, ruined arms and legs flopping and scraping, blood spraying in rhythmic arterial arcs with every frantic heartbeat.
The vertical wound gaped wider and wider as he thrashed, the two halves of his face separating further, raw meat stretching, skull gleaming wetly in the gap.
"Close your eyes,"
Phei murmured gently, as if giving medical advice. "If the blood gets in them, it’ll cause corneal abrasion and possible permanent blindness. Wouldn’t want that, would we?"
Anderson’s one eye was already drowning in blood. He tried to squeeze it shut, but the pain and terror made his face convulse, forcing the lids open again.
More blood flooded in. His screams became wet, choking gurgles as the
black frost
from the blade continued to spread, freezing the edges of the wound black, making the raw flesh crack and split wider.
Phei kept the blade perfectly steady, drawing the line all the way down — splitting the upper lip, then the lower lip, continuing to the chin until the boy’s entire face was split down the middle in a single, horrific, gaping gash.
The two halves of Anderson’s face now hung open like bloody curtains, the wound so deep the cartilage of the nose was severed completely, the white of the skull visible from forehead to chin in a perfect, frozen line.
Only then did he lift the dagger, flicking a single drop of blood from the tip.
He stood, black frost swirling thicker around him, and turned toward Aiden.
By now Aiden and Zack had no pride left.
Only animal instinct.
Aiden — ribs cracked, arms hanging like dead meat from dislocated shoulders, legs trailing useless behind him — clawed at the marble with his shattered fingers as he tried to flee. Every scrape sent fresh jolts of white-hot agony up his arms, but he kept pulling, dragging his torso forward inch by bloody inch.
His face, already pulped and swollen, scraped against the floor; broken teeth clicked against marble, leaving red smears. He sobbed wetly, high and broken, the sound bubbling through blood and spit.
His hips bucked once, twice — pathetic attempts to push off with legs that no longer answered — only for the dislocated joints to grind louder, bone ends tearing fresh muscle.
He made it perhaps two feet before his strength gave out and he collapsed face-first into his own piss puddle, gasping, keening, body trembling violently.
Zack was worse.
He tried to roll onto his stomach, using his chin and chest to inch forward like a worm. His dislocated knees dragged behind him, the shattered patellae grinding bone shards into the raw flesh of his thighs with every movement.
His arms — fingers crushed to paste, elbows twisted backward — flopped uselessly at his sides, useless anchors.
He screamed every time he tried to push forward; the sound was raw, animal, less human with each attempt.
Piss streamed down his legs in fresh hot rivers, mixing with blood. He managed three desperate, scraping inches before his ruined spine spasmed and he collapsed sideways, curling into a fetal ball of twitching meat, sobbing so hard his whole body shook.
Neither of them got more than a body-length from where they started.
Phei watched them with distant, clinical interest, the Void dagger still dripping black-tinged blood in his hand. His humming never faltered.
"Eira, heal him."
Behind him, Eira floated closer to Anderson.
The crystalline doll’s wings hummed a low, soothing note — different from the one that had put Emily to sleep. This was colder, more precise. Thin threads of glacial blue-white light extended from her tiny fingers, sinking into Anderson’s ruined body.
She healed him.
Not mercy.
Necessity.
She knit just enough torn muscle and tendon to stop him from bleeding out immediately. She fused shattered bone ends so they would hold together under pressure — not heal cleanly, but hold long enough for more pain.
She sealed the worst arterial bleeds, leaving the smaller ones to weep slowly.
His breathing steadied from choking gurgles to shallow, ragged gasps. His heart rate climbed back from the edge of shock.
But she left his face untouched.
The vertical gash down the centre of his skull remained wide open — two halves of flesh hanging like bloody curtains, skull gleaming wetly in the violet light, raw muscle twitching with every terrified breath.
Blood still poured in slow, thick sheets from the wound, pooling beneath his head in a steaming crimson halo.
His one remaining eye stared upward, wide and glassy, locked on Phei’s calm face.
Eira floated back a pace, wings folding neatly. She had done her part. The canvas was prepared for the next stroke.
****
High above them — far removed from the slaughterhouse bedroom — a woman sat alone in a darkened office.
The room was silent except for the soft hum of monitors.
She lounged in the high-backed leather chair like a predator at rest, legs crossed in deliberate elegance, one
thigh
brazenly exposed where the silk robe had parted with sinful laziness.
Moonlight poured through the floor-to-ceiling window in pale silver rivers, bathing the
lush, juicy expanse
of her skin — thick, smooth, impossibly soft yet taut with restrained power.
The curve of her one thigh was obscene in its fullness: plump, rounded, the kind of flesh that begged to be gripped, bitten, bruised.
The exposed flesh was
sinfully full
— the kind of juicy like, heavy curve that begged to be gripped, bitten, worshipped, the skin gleaming with a faint, almost unnatural sheen as though oiled by starlight itself.
Every subtle shift of her weight made the meat of her thigh quiver just enough to draw the eye, the generous swell of muscle and fat pressing together in a plush, obscene valley that promised suffocating softness.
Moonlight and monitor light poured across that
sinful
expanse like liquid silver, catching every dimple, every gentle roll of flesh, turning her skin into something edible, forbidden.
The intricate tattoo wrapped the upper thigh like living ink claiming territory —
succulent thigh
like living sin.
The
crimson roses
tattoo that stole the breath: fat, blood-heavy blooms unfurling along the tattoo of a dragon’s twisting body, petals so thick and velvety they looked swollen, engorged, as if engorged on real blood.
The red was violent —
arterial, glistening, almost wet
— each petal
edged in the faintest black
so that they appeared to
bleed
into the pale skin beneath. Thorns curved wickedly outward, long and needle-thin, so realistically barbed they seemed ready to tear silk, skin, sanity at the slightest brush.
The
roses climbed
higher, bolder, clustering thickest where the dragon’s body curved inward toward the
shadowed apex
of her thigh, petals practically kissing the
hidden heat
between her legs.
A coiling black dragon dominated the canvas, its scales etched in razor-sharp obsidian detail, each one catching the moonlight and throwing cruel glints. Its body twisted upward in languid, possessive spirals.
Crimson
roses
bloomed along its length — fat,
heavy-petaled
explosions of scarlet so vivid they seemed to pulse with fresh blood.
The petals were rendered with obscene realism: velvety, slightly parted, glistening as though dew-kissed or freshly licked, their edges curling in invitation.
The thorns were vicious — long, needle-thin, blackened at the tips — positioned deliberately along the most sensitive swells of her flesh, as if daring anyone to trace the ink and pay the price in red.
The dragon’s tail disappeared beneath silk, promising more hidden coils. Its head rested high on the
inner thigh
, jaws wide in a silent, eternal roar, fangs curved and glistening. The eyes burned with that same glacial blue-white as Eira’s —
cold, ancient, predatory
— staring directly upward from the softest, most vulnerable
meat
of her leg, claiming it.
Her face remained hidden in shadow.
Only the tattoo —
and the
sinful, juicy
canvas it adorned
— was visible: stark, beautiful, merciless.
One manicured finger tapped slowly against the armrest — once, twice — the rhythm matching the shallow rise and fall of her breathing.
She watched the feed without blinking.
The corner of her unseen mouth curved, just slightly — a smile that promised ruin.
Somewhere far below, Phei took one step toward Aiden.