WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF TORTURE! TRIGGER WARNING!
Chapter Ten
Jim smirked darkly as he stared down at the trembling frame of Jason Garrett. After their first...session together he'd allowed the man the reprieve granted from when he'd fallen unconscious. Then when he'd awakened he'd had Sebastian retrieve him again so that he could get Sherlock another gift. Unfortunately, Garrett had shattered so quickly under his tender mercies and now only two hours into their second session the man was shaking where he sat, tears streaming down his cheeks. Both of his hands were gone, the stumps left behind crudely cauterized in their wake. Blood staining his naked thighs from where Jim had emasculated him and cauterize it.
"You're going to die here." He said conversationally. "You and your friends, you're all going to die here. All because you wanted to have some fun."
The man whimpered, trying to curl in on himself despite the chains binding him to the chair. The criminal mastermind's smirk widened into a truly manic manifestation and he sat down at his captives feet, cross-legged, his trusty knife in hand. He grabbed the man's right leg and began to saw at it from the knee, chuckling in response to the horse screams that left the man. Blood squirted from the wound landing across his face, but he paid it no heed as he worked.
"You deserve this." He rumbled feverishly. "He was mine to break, mine to shatter. You had no right to touch him."
Garrett continued to scream, trying and failing to arch away from the pain. In neat precise movements the psychopath separated the leg from its body and set it aside, paying the gushing wound no mind. Instead he began to cut through the other leg, watching as his victim grew weaker and weaker with every moment.
"Your friend Michael is next. Then Leonard. And I may just save your dear friend Timothy for my Sherly. He deserves to play too. Don't you think?"
The bound man fell limp in his bonds and didn't respond, his chest slowly stilling. Once he was still, Jim straightened and began untying the bonds before heaving the body and the dismembered limbs over his shoulder.
"Bring Michael up here and strap him down. I'm going to send my detective his present."
His men obeyed wordlessly, a wave of pity rushing through them at the thoughts of their boss' next victim. After all Jason Garrett was just a warm-up and his fury was still bubbling just beneath the surface.
The next present came just before dusk. The box was long, almost two feet long and almost a foot wide. Once more it was wrapped in nondescript brown paper with his name scrawled across the top.
He smiled, a tiny dangerous little grin and dragged the box inside, noting with slight interest that it weighed the same amount as a heavyset adolescent. He raised an eyebrow curiously and lugged it up the stairs into his and John's flat. When he entered he found Mycroft and John waiting but he ignored them in favor of ripping open his new present. Once he did, he giggled maniacally.
Inside was a disembodied torso marred by few tattoos, two disembodied arms with cauterized stumps where the hands should've been, two disembodied legs with cauterized stumps for feet, and a shoe box sized jewelry box. He opened the box, giggling harder as he took in the sight of the bodies other hand and feet, disembodied penis lying beside them delicately. He heard John retch behind him but he paid it no heed, instead he continued to laugh hugging the box to his chest.
A sudden question struck the detective and he tilted his head, pulling his phone from his coat.
'Do you like it?'-JM
'Very much. Where is his head?-SH
Jim didn't respond and he forced himself not to pout. Damn him, he wanted to know.
"Sh- Sherlock?" John whispered and the brunette blinked, turning back to him.
"Yes?"
"Shouldn't we call Lestrade?"
He frowned at the doctor. "Why?"
John stared at him incredulously and even Mycroft seemed a bit bemused.
"Brother mine, you were just sent a corpse. A dismembered corpse." He hinted and Sherlock scowled.
"They're gifts."
"Gifts?! Sherlock corpses are not g- I'm calling Lestrade."
The detective glared at him but didn't respond clutching the box tighter and wishing that his family were her so that they could see the marvelous gifts sent by his criminal. He paused.
There was that thought again. His criminal, but Moriarty wasn't his, not yet. He refused to take a human as his mate just to suffer through losing them. He frowned. Why was he thinking these things? Moriarty was his rival, nothing more, nothing less.
Why did it feel like he was lying to himself?
Fifteen minutes passed before Lestrade arrived and when he did he was carrying another box with Sherlock scrawled across the top. The detective smiled upon seeing the box only to frown when Lestrade refused to give it to him.
Instead the DI circled the open box on the floor, dark eyes scrutinizing it carefully. It was an testament to all his years on the force that he didn't so much as flinch upon seeing it. Instead he turned to Sherlock with pursed lips. Sherlock smiled innocuously.
"Isn't it beautiful?"
"Another one?"
Sherlock nodded. "Moriarty sent them."
Lestrade's eyebrow rose and he really hoped he was mishearing the affection in his young friend's voice as he spoke the consulting criminal's name. Unfortunately as he looked in Sherlock's eyes he knew he wasn't. The quicksilver hues were full of love and a softness that he was sure Sherlock hadn't even known himself to possess.
He handed the detective the package in his hands and watched as he tore it open with a zeal he normally reserved for his cases. Inside the package was a head, one he was almost 100% sure belonged to the body on the floor. Sherlock stared at it blankly, then grinned viciously.
"Three down, three to go."
TBC...