Page 113 of Existential

FORTY-FIVE

Hooch

I’m still not convinced Dagne’s thinking straight when it comes to this. She follows me across the grounds to what was once a worker’s cottage, run down, weathered, and partially overgrown with vines.

Ironically she cleared the gardens around it, but my guess is she never stepped foot inside, otherwise she would have seen our darkest shame. Something we’ve managed to avoid for almost a decade. But then again, my old man always knew the time would come where this little house had it’s uses, and so he never had it torn down or burnt to the ground.

I put the place to good use in the small hours of the morning after they’d dragged Digits in. Crackers, Jo Jo and a couple of our newer members stayed behind after we found Dagne, with the singular purpose of bringing Digits home once Ty got a lock on his location.

Amazing how sloppy a tech genius can be when he’s not thinking clearly. An ATM transaction here, a phone call there. Ping, ping, ping. All little dots on a radar that narrowed down his location to a tight enough circle that bumping into him was inevitable.

And so, at 4:15 A.M. while Dagne slept, I was at work in the cottage getting answers to a long list of questions—the hard way.

“Are you ready for this?” I ask as we hesitate at the door.

Murphy and Jo Jo are already inside, making sure precious is wide-awake.

“Yeah. I think so.” She eyes the frosted glass, her fingertips tapping on her bottom lip.

“Hold your nose.” I swing the door open and the smell of fresh urine hits us square in the face.

There are no working amenities in the house, and people who have reason to be bound up inside usually aren’t afforded that luxury, anyway.

“Oh, my God.” She blocks her nose with her arm. “What the hell?”

“It’ll get hosed out soon.”

“Hosed out?” Her eyes grow wide as I suggest we treat the house like a cattle pen.

Abattoir, more like.

I lead her through to where Digits sits strapped to a segment of wall installed in the center of the living area for just this purpose. His hands and feet are bound to the plaster, a cesspool of excrement at his feet.

Yeah, we should clean it up for Dagne’s sake. But the stench is a great reminder to those who’ve crossed us how human they really are. People tend to believe the lie that they become untouchable, invincible, once they reach a certain level of power. Takes a bit of roughhousing to remind them that they’re only human after all. They bleed the same as everyone else.

I watch Dagne as she takes in Digits, stepping carefully to his left where Murphy sits on a stool, watching our ward. I crane my neck to get a line to the back door, and find Jo Jo where I expected him to be: smoking on the back step.

Anything to dull the sense of smell, I suppose.

“Hey, love,” Murphy greets, holding his hand out for Dagne.

She takes it, a moment passing between them where Murphy shares his respect for the fact she’s been so brutally abused, and yet she’s still standing, still here.

The woman surely doesn’t recognize her own strength.

I stare at the wall behind them, refusing to look at Digits on my right for fear that I’ll snap his neck before Dagne’s had a chance to speak to him. If I thought I exorcised my demons last night on the asshole, then seeing her in the same room as him has proved me wrong. If I could beat him all over again, I would. Again and again, so every day all he felt was an ounce of the pain she’ll have to live with for the rest of her life when she thinks back to this time.

“Why?” Dagne whispers, the sound loud in the otherwise quiet house.

I take a deep breath and look to see how Digits reacts. He stares at her through one swollen eye, the other bruised, without an ounce of emotion.

“Was it worth it?” she asks.

Yeah, asshole.I smile at the state he’s in. Was it?

Digits rolls his lips a couple of times, and then spits at her feet.

She doesn’t flinch. Good girl.