It took a little while, but the man we captured eventually regained consciousness. I walked into the interrogation building, taking my spot besides Lenny as we look at the man strapped into the chair. Looking closer, he seemed somewhat gaunt, with those same damn blackened eyes and a practically sadistic grin, as if he was plotting our demise as he spoke.

Lenny seemed entirely undeterred-or if he was unnerved, he hid it quite well. “So, tell me, who knows about that location?”

He shrugs. “Honestly, we just heard it was a ‘clean’ drug den, not one of the cool ones that actually sells the good shit, and all we knew was that we were supposed to ruin things for anyone who doesn’t deal Teneb.”

Lenny tilted his head. “Did you have a handler?”

“Well, there was the guy that proposed the deal to us, if that’s what you want to call a ‘handler’, but we went ahead and rolled up on your turf without telling ‘im about it first. We were just too eager to have some fun.” He flashed a monstrous grin.

“Couldn’t wait until Christmas to open your present, then. This guy who proposed a deal to you, who was he, what did he look like, and who was he working for?”

“How he looked? He was some guy in a cheap suit. Don’t remember too much about how he looked, because all you fuckin’ suits look the same to me.” He lets out a cackle, before continuing straight-faced. “As for who he was and his employer? That was the weird thing about ‘im, he made a big deal of being discrete about those details. Not that it mattered to me and the boys, though. All we needed to know was that we would be getting free Teneb if we did what he wanted us to… and of course, the chance of getting to fuck around with some meat puppets along the way...” He tilts his head, letting out that same sadistic grin as before. He then looks over to me. “Like… you.”

The perverse nature of his words strikes me as I remember my encounter on my first night here. Those same words that I felt claw at me from then-’no mercy, no hesitation, for he is unworthy’-play back in my head. My heart trembles as my thumb presses into my sword’s tsuba, unlocking it from its scabbard.

Lenny looks over and puts his hand on my sword’s endcap. “Hey. Don’t let him play you like that.”

I hear the bastard in the chair laugh as I inhale and exhale, steadying my heart as I slide my sword the rest of the way back into its scabbard. “Very well.”I felt a small pang of shame and disappointment in myself for even thinking about killing him on the spot like that.

“Not that it mattered, anyway, because as it turns out you guys know how to throw down, so I guess we lose this time.” He shrugged.

Lenny rolls his eyes. He turns to face me fully. “Well, isn’t this classy? They’re basically sending junkies after us.” I chuckle, still slightly imbalanced. Lenny sighed, looking back to the man as he made a motion with his arm. “Get ‘im out of here.”