Chapter 117 The Nightmare Has Only Just Begun

Chapter 117 The Nightmare Has Only Just Begun

Ethan stared at his phone, the call already dead, then tossed it on the floor.

That guy Miguel had cut the line fast. But fast enough for Ethan to confirm one thing.

Miguel was no ordinary player. He and whoever was behind him were the new bosses pulling Wayne's strings.

Ethan turned and looked at Wayne, crumpled on the storage room floor.

If he wanted to dig those rats out of hiding, Wayne was his only way in.

Wayne was convulsing in pain. The caved-in dent in his chest where Ethan had kicked him was healing in a deeply unsettling way.

Countless threads of flesh writhed and wove together like living things, knitting the damage shut. In less than a minute, the collapsed chest wall was visibly rising back into shape.

"Hell of a healing factor."

Ethan walked over and looked down at him, a hint of amusement in his voice. "I'm suddenly curious — if I took off all your limbs, would they actually grow back? Like a lizard's tail?"

Every hair on Wayne's body stood on end.

His eyes went wide with terror. He opened his mouth to say something — but before a single sound came out, Ethan was already right in front of him.

No words. No warning. Ethan grabbed Wayne's right arm and right leg, snapped them clean, and ripped them off, tossing them into the corner. Blood sprayed everywhere.

Wayne screamed. His eyes rolled back. He passed out cold from the pain.

Ethan stood there without even glancing at the severed limbs on the floor.

He wasn't worried about Wayne dying. He'd already noticed it — at the torn shoulder and hip, those strange threads of flesh had started moving again, blood vessels and muscle fibers contracting rapidly, the bleeding sealing itself off.

As long as the head stayed on, the regeneration from whatever they'd dosed him with wouldn't let him bleed out.

Ethan grabbed Wayne by the collar and dragged him out of the stairwell, hauling him down to a warehouse Noah had arranged in advance beneath the building.

Inside the warehouse, Wayne was bound tight to a chair with steel cable.

He was still out.

His body felt completely drained. The frantic cellular division needed to repair his wounds had burned through every last bit of energy he had.

Then a bucket of cold water hit him in the face.

Wayne jolted, coughing and sputtering back to consciousness. He jerked his head up, vision slowly coming into focus — and found Ethan standing right in front of him, holding a small glass vial filled with blue liquid.

Wayne's first instinct was to run.

He tried to pull back — and in that moment realized he couldn't feel his right arm or right leg at all.

He looked down. His eyes went flat.

At his right shoulder and right hip, no new limbs had grown back. The flesh had closed over, but all that was there were small, fleshy nubs about the size of a baby's fist. Almost pathetic.

Repairing his chest and stopping the bleeding had used everything he had. There was nothing left to regrow the limbs.

"Remarkable recovery ability."

Ethan looked over Wayne's ruined body, swirling the vial in his hand, a cold smile on his face. "Actually, this works out fine. You're not going anywhere. And now you've got a lot more reason to talk."

Wayne stared at the vial and shouted, "What are you doing? Stay back! Miguel won't let this go!"

"Good. I'd love to see what he does." Ethan kept swirling the vial and walked slowly toward him.

"Kill me — Ethan, just kill me right now if you've got the guts!"

Wayne didn't know why, but looking at that vial made something cold settle in his gut. A feeling he couldn't name.

A feeling that if that stuff touched him, it wouldn't kill him — it would be so much worse than that.

"Kill you? No. That'd be a waste."

Ethan's mouth curved into a slight smile as he slowly unscrewed the cap.

"This is called a pain amplifier. Something I put together back when I was working in the lab. It won't do any real physical damage. But it'll crank your pain receptors up a hundredfold."

"A light breeze across your skin will have you screaming on the floor."

Wayne thrashed wildly. "Don't — no! Please!"

Ethan poured the liquid directly onto Wayne's open wounds.

Then he pulled up a chair and sat down nearby.

"Now. Let's talk."

"Kill me! God damn it, just kill me!"

The veins in Wayne's neck bulged. Every breath felt like his lungs were being shredded.

He slammed the back of his head against the metal chair, over and over, trying to knock himself out.

Ethan stood to the side and watched in silence. No reaction. Just cold eyes on the writhing body in front of him.

In under a minute, Wayne was soaked through with cold sweat and blood.

His eyes were starting to roll back. White foam gathered at the corners of his mouth. The convulsions were slowing.

Just as Wayne's head dropped and he was about to go completely under, Ethan reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out another small glass vial — this one filled with green liquid.

"Trying to check out? Not yet." He unscrewed the cap and poured the green liquid over Wayne's head.

The moment it touched his skin, Wayne's unfocused pupils snapped shut. He locked eyes on Ethan. The pain vanished like it had never been there.

He stopped struggling. Gasped for air, chest heaving.

But the look he gave Ethan held no relief whatsoever. Only fear.

He could feel it — the pain was gone, but his body was completely locked. He couldn't move a single finger. His mind, though, was razor sharp.

Ethan grabbed a folding chair and sat down directly in front of Wayne. Their faces were less than half a meter apart.

"Listen up. That stuff keeps your nervous system running at full alert."

Ethan reached out and patted Wayne on the cheek.

"Now. Tell me everything you know about Miguel and his people. Where they are. What he looks like. What he's working with."

Ethan stood, picked up a rusted meat saw from the workbench nearby, and flicked the blade with one finger. It rang out with a clean, sharp note.

"You can keep your mouth shut. But I promise you — if you do, I'll carve you up piece by piece. Wait for your healing factor to grow it all back. Then do it again. A hundred times over."

He pressed the blade against Wayne's one remaining good leg.

"You're going to regret ever having this ability."