Prologue

Most hunters he knew would never be able to stomach the brutality of severe interrogations, but Dean Ambrose enjoyed them. As he rocked back on his heels, dragging the blade of his knife along his leather pant leg to clean the blood from it, he cast a discerning eye over the damage he had done thus far. The werewolf lying facedown, wrists and ankles bound spread eagle by silver cuffs, shuddered and snarled. The expanse of his golden back was no longer smooth; Dean had spent a good thirty minutes making long, clean cuts in the skin. Now that he glanced over them properly, he realized the straight edges were ragged; evidence of the silver in his blade eating through the man's skin. Good. He needed to suffer.

Dean was accomplished at his job; he knew how to draw pleasure from the act of torturing someone for the sake of acquiring information, and if it took this to get that information, so be it.

Before bringing Swagger into this room, he had given the other man a chance to confess what he knew and avoid being tied down and knifed yet again. Swagger refused, as he normally did, so Dean stopped being nice about things and knocked him out so they could tie him down.

It was not his job to be the good guy. He was here to serve as a type of police force, along with all of the other Hunters spread out throughout the world. They had a job to do. Occasionally, that meant playing the bad guy, tying someone down, and cutting them up until they writhed and screaming, promising to tell you whatever secrets they were hiding.

Jack Swagger just happened to be the most stupid wereanimal he had been forced to bring in yet; instead of just confessing the truth to avoid getting hurt, he stubbornly held onto whatever secrets he had. Which meant that, at least for the last thirty minutes, he had been shrieking inhumanly while Dean mapped out long lines on his back. They were carefully arranged so that, had he wanted to, he could make a few more cuts and begin skinning. Wereanimals would heal damn near anything as long as they were still living, and killing Swagger was a waste.

If he wanted to keep cutting sliced and diced, Dean had all the time in the world to cut him up.

Dean pushed himself to his feet so he could check the silver cuffs around Swagger's wrists and ankles; they were tight enough to lay flush against the skin. Already, the flesh above and below them was dark scarlet like a bad sunburn. All of this had to hurt like hell.

"Are you ready to talk to me, or do you want me to keep cutting you? I'm game for either." Dean knelt back down at Swagger's hip, resting the tip of his knife against the concrete of the floor. The whole room constantly reeked of bleach, and it made his nose burn.

"Fuck you, Ambrose." Swagger struggled, then hissed in pain when the cuffs dug into his bare skin. "I'm going to claw your fucking face off when I get out of here."

Sure you are. Dean shook his head and leaned forward once again, searching out a fresh spot to lay another wound. His eyes locked on the small of Swagger's back, so much uninterrupted skin to destroy if he wanted to. Not only did he want to, though; he had to if he wanted to information he needed to make his next hit. Normally, he stayed out of wereanimal politics because there was no way to deal with them "correctly," but a missing leader was a big deal no matter how you tried to frame it. Wereanimals chose their leaders with precision, and Dean had a nasty feeling about the guy who had stepped in to take control. He seemed... Off.

His bosses had no idea why he had brought Swagger in, though. For now, Dean was keeping this one to himself until he had more information to work with.

With one rapid movement, he sliced diagonally across the small of Swagger's back.

The answering wail and struggling made him lean back, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips as he watched Swagger buck against the floor. Though he had lost a lot of blood and was more than doubt suitably poisoned from the amount of silver used on him, he was still refusing to talk. Guy had balls, even if he was about to lose them if he kept quiet.

Dean twisted his wrist and made another slice, leaving a crimson X across Swagger's back that began to leak blood immediately. The sharp copper scent coupled with the bleach made his head hurt, but there was nothing he could do about the smell. At least if it was bothering him, it also had to be bothering Swagger. Wereanimals had heightened senses, so the smell that gave him a headache was no doubt that much more painful for the mutilated man on the floor.

"Ready to talk now, Swagger? Or do you need some more?" Dean wiped his blade clean on his pants once again; they were far beyond help as it was, and they made a decent enough rag.

Swagger growled at him, body wavering slightly before sharpening; trying to shift in silver cuffs was all but impossible, but he kept trying. "No. I'm not telling you shit about anything."

Well, if he was in the mood to dig his own grave... Dean shook his head and placed the tip of his blade directly on Swagger's shoulder blade, slowly applying pressure so the skin dimpled before it split and began to bleed. He watched Swagger's face darken, jaw clenching as he fought to hold in any sounds, so Dean stopped being gentle. Keeping his hand firm around the handle of the knife to keep it straight, he slammed it down with his left hand until he heard it hit bone.

Swagger screeched and flattened himself against the floor, his muscles straining against the cuffs of their own accord as he tried to escape the blade. Sighing softly, Dean pressed down further even when the blade met resistance. It was fine. He could cut through bone just fine.

"Are you done now?" He leaned over the blade, pressing his weight down into the handle so it sank deeper, hovering above Swagger's flushed, sweaty face. "You can make all of this stop if you just tell me what you know. Can't really be worth all of this pain, can it?"

"Fuck, just stop." Swagger slumped against the floor, and Dean made sure the blade scraped against the bone when he jerked it out, wiping it quickly on his pants.

He saw the telltale nod and stood, retrieving the bottle of neutralizer in the corner and the cloth folded-up next to it. If Swagger was willing to communicate, then Dean would be nice enough to clean his wounds out for him. There was a reason he worked on a wereanimal's back instead of their front. Unless they had a buddy who was waiting for them outside—and Swagger most definitely did not—they could not fix their backs by themselves.

"Start talking," he said, setting the bottle in Swagger's line of sight so he understood.

"The guy's not dead." Swagger wet his lips and whimpered softly, nearly grinding his face into the floor. "Dunno where they hid him, but he's alive. The new guy, Hunter... He's from, like, fucking Canada or some shit. He came here to take over. I think he did it there, too."

Dean frowned, slowly unscrewing the cap on the bottle. "Why would he want to do that?"

"I don't know. Nobody knows. He just showed up when the old leader went missing and took over. I think he took some guys hostage, too." Swagger squirmed and whined up at him.

"I see." Dean began wetting down the cloth slowly. "Is he hurting them?"

Swagger shrugged to the best of his ability; it was hard with the bonds, but Dean saw it just the same. "I left after it happened. I think a few others ditched out but I don't know. But everyone thinks that's what's going on and that's why some of us left. It's scary."

"So the big bad wolf is afraid of something," Dean muttered, rolling his eyes.

"Do you have any idea what kind of guy Hunter is?" Swagger demanded, and Dean stared at him for a moment before shaking his head. "Exactly. He's a sociopath. He could fucking kill us all."

Dean nodded and started wiping down the wounds. "I'll keep that in mind."

It only took a few minutes to get the blood out of the way, then Dean quickly splashed his back and exited the room. One of the trainees raised an eyebrow at him as he exited the room; Swagger's howl followed him. A quick scowl at the trainee had him scurrying into the room, muttering something about taking care of it, and Dean nodded once before heading off to his private room so he could change out of his bloody clothes and into something cleaner.

He tried not to stay at HQ for too long considering he was a freelance worker, but when it came to torture, he preferred the concrete rooms HQ provided for just such a purpose. They were cold, clinical, and bleak enough to focus his prey's attention on nothing but the pain. Now that he was done, he wanted clean and he wanted out. No one knew he was investigating this disappearance except for a few of his friends, and until he determined whether it needed his attention or not, he wanted to deal with no one else. He had guys who would back him up if he needed their help. Not that he did, not yet, but they were his go-to guys. Not Hunters connected here.

Within minutes, he was showered, changed, and strolling out the doors as he raked a hand through his damp hair. All he needed to do now was reach his car and he could be on the way home in a mere few minutes. Maybe he could call it an early night and—

"Sir?" The voice that called his name stirred him out of his thoughts; his hand twitched toward the pistol in his jacket, but he resisted at the last moment and glanced up to see who wanted him.

And promptly froze a moment later when he realized two wereanimals were standing beside his car. Different heights, one with short dark hair and the other with longer black hair sporting a blaze of platinum along the right side. He focused on the smaller one when he realized it was that one who had spoken. What two wereanimals wanted with him, he had no idea, but he was willing to stop and listen if they were about to ask him what he thought they were.

"Yes?" He set his stance wider and crossed his arms over his chest, pinning his eyes on the smaller one. "Can I help you with something?"

The smaller one nodded and took a step forward, offering one hand that Dean considered before shaking; hot skin. Definitely a wereanimal; he was right. "My name is Seth Rollins."

"Good to know. You have fifteen seconds to tell me what you need before I push you both out of the way and go home. It's been a long day." Dean stayed direct and dropped Seth's hand, re-crossing his arms and waiting for him to speak again.

"Direct. I like that." Seth flashed him a smile, and Dean frowned slightly. "My mate is missing. So is Damien's." He cocked his head at the man next to him and he—Damien—nodded.

Dean scoffed and shook his head. "Sorry, I don't do missing persons. Not my thing."

Seth squared his shoulders. "I know. We can do the finding. We need you to do the killing."

A/N: This story is part of the 1000 Prompts Challenge on Tumblr. Prompt for this chapter: 226. Twisted games we should never play.