Our waiter was completely horrified. His little mind, used to the peacefulness of dealing with rich idiots, couldn't start to grasp the nature of our sickness. He was pathetically cute, sobbing and trying to understand what was happening. How could something like this happen – not even to him, just happen. "Please..."
Andrei let the gun fall noisily and drew a knife, that steadily found its way to our man's throat. His voice was velvet soft. "So. We took a bit of a risk with you. Usually, I know your lives almost by heart. But I know nothing about you. Tell me. Do you have someone who will miss you?"
The broken man shattered yet again. Realizing it's not only about your very life, but that the lives of those you leave behind will change forever... that's heart-breaking. He started mumbling nonsense yet again.
"Hey, my friend. I can't understand a single word you're saying. ... I asked you a simple yes or no question. Anyone who cares for you?"
He couldn't talk, but managed to nod.
Andrei didn't bother to try to hide his smirk. "That's too bad, huh? Not because they'll miss you. And, today I'm feeling nice, so neither because I'll go after them. No, it's bad 'cause we have to make sure they never find you. Last time I didn't make sure of that, man, was it a huge headache for everyone."
Our man froze. Disappearing was far worse for everyone involved, the doubt of nobody ever knowing if you've just run away, or got kidnapped, or... who knows.
"Now comes the fun part of the story. Huh? We have a sort of a standard protocol for this kind of stuff. It's quite easy. Cut off everything that can be easily recognizable. Fingertips. Teeth. Bash the head in so they won't identify you. Thankfully for everyone involved DNA testing is too expensive to do on a consistent enough basis."
It looked like our man had given up hope, and was just waiting for the knife to cut into his throat. ... Poor guy. If only.
Andrei kept smiling like a maniac. "Ho, boy. But I skipped the best part. You get to live through all that, huh?" He shifted his arms, dropping the knife right at my feet and fully immobilizing our guy. "Sasha, if you'd be so kind as to slice off his fingerprints, huh?"
I had been expecting this, of course I had. But that didn't make it any better. Stupid me, to think this would be just a 'let's mess around' night. To think that it could end in anything else than a literal bloody mess. Oh, well. I had made a promise to him, and to myself. And I wasn't about to break it.
I took the knife from the floor and grabbed the guy's hand, blade ready to cut into his fingertips. Andrei stopped me for a second. "We have the whole night ahead of us. Make sure it hurts, Sasha."
Shit. Oh-kay. You won't get me to fail you. Not this far down the road to hell. I let the knife dig into his flesh, slowly tearing a good chunk off. The whole fingerprint. His blood ran through my hands, painting them red. And I felt it. The call, the need for more. I couldn't help smiling widely as I slowly cut the other nine fingertips. I didn't even hear his screams anymore. Just saw his blood paint everything in red, and Andrei's eyes, a glistening void. This was my life now. And I had chosen it.
Eventually, it was done. No more fingerprints to ID him by. Andrei broke the newfound silence. "Did that hurt? Huh? Well, then get ready for some actual pain. Sasha. Second drawer. Toothy pliers." Toothy meaning the ones to pull teeth out. They latched onto it, and all you had to do was give it a slight twist and pull – pull really hard, of course.
I couldn't help grinning when I opened the drawer and saw them – perfectly clean. I got them and turned back to meet Andrei's stare. He too was beaming. He shifted again to hold the guy's mouth wide open. "Sasha?"
I smiled at him. "Of course."
"All of them."
... Shit.
