AN: WARNING! This chapter gets a lot darker, and it's going to get even darker later. Remember, serial killers/rapists are evil people, and they do evil things. There is a significant amount of non-consensual touching in this chapter, and most of this chapter is from the POV of a serial killer/rapist.
That being said, sorry about the delay in updating, and I hope you enjoy!
James turned the deadbolt and walked after Miguel, the scowl back on his face. Why couldn't they change things up? They had already changed things so much by taking two boys instead of one, taking boys so young, and taking them the very same night after dumping the last worthless husk in the desert. What was changing one more thing by enjoying their prize sooner? Why did Miguel have to call all the shots anyway?
"You want them just as badly as I do," James called out to Miguel.
Miguel stopped at the bottom of the stairs as James exited the hallway and kept walking towards him. He turned to James with an incredulous look in his eyes.
"Your point?" He turned away from James and walked up the stairs, James right on his heels.
"Why not have them now? Have them more than once before we get rid of them?" James asked. Personally, he didn't see why they needed to get rid of the boys at all. He would've been more than content to keep the boys as long as possible, at least keep one of them. As much as he loved a fresh one, it would've been much simpler to just take one boy and keep him until he expired. But he knew that Miguel wouldn't go for that, so he didn't bother suggesting it.
"Before they're purified?" Miguel asked. His face twisted in something akin to horror. "They can't worship me- worship us, until they're pure. As much as I'd love to have them right now, that's just not possible, and you know once they worship us, they're once again too dirty and broken to be of any use." Miguel looked at James like he was crazy for even asking.
"They wouldn't be too dirty for me," James muttered, pushing past Miguel and into the kitchen. He pulled a beer out of the fridge and closed the door, then leaned against it. "Let me keep one of them. We can kill the other, but let me keep one of them. I'll get another cage, and we can keep getting new ones for you, but I want to keep one for a while, and I don't see why I shouldn't."
Miguel sighed heavily and walked over to the sink. He washed his hands, then shooed James away from the fridge. He pulled out some carrots and set them on a cutting board, and got to work on them after rinsing them off.
"Why do you want to keep one so badly? He'll be used, disgusting, and pathetic. Can you get the water boiling?"
James rolled his eyes, but leaned down and opened the cupboard. He pulled out the large pot and filled it with water from the sink before setting it on the stove and turning on the burner. He was so glad they'd upgraded to a gas range the year before.
"Did you ever think that maybe they would be even better once they've been broken in?" he asked, setting the lid on the pot and turning around.
"Doesn't matter," Miguel immediately responded. He pushed the carrots aside and started cutting potatoes. "We'll fuck them when they're pure, and no other time, no matter how much we want to. This discussion is over."
James scowled at Miguel's back and took another swig of his beer, but dutifully remained silent. As much as he disagreed, he still owed a lot to Miguel, and would respect his wishes, for now at least.
"I know waiting is hard," Miguel continued, his voice softer. He set the knife down and turned to look at James. "Especially when they're as beautiful as these boys are, but they must be made pure first. It's just how it has to be." Miguel shrugged, looking genuinely sorry that he was disagreeing with him. He stepped forward and caressed James' face. "But in a few days, they'll have been purged and made holy for us, and then they will worship us like they were made to. And once they've served their purpose, they will be made clean permanently, and disposed of. That's the way it has to be." He offered an apologetic smile and shrugged again, then stepped back to the potatoes and resumed chopping.
"I know," James muttered, then moved to start working on the roast.
"There's no guarantee that these are the same tracks that the dad saw the other night," Diego pointed out.
Rosa didn't even turn her head towards her brother as she snapped various pictures of the tire tracks. She and Diego were both technically off duty, but that was the only time that Diego would entertain her gut feeling that the two missing boys were Snatcher victims, so she would take what she could get. Diego had agreed to go out to where the El Camino had been - it had been returned to its owner earlier that day, with no evidence having been found concerning it - but the only thing there was a set of tire tracks.
"It's the only set of tire tracks here aside from the ones left by the El Camino, and the dad said there was a set of tracks when he came by the night his sons went missing. These have to be the same tracks," Rosa pointed out, standing up from her squatted position by the tracks.
"Okay, sure, but we don't know that these tracks have anything to do with the missing kids," Diego reiterated.
Rosa sighed and put her camera down, turning to face her brother.
"I know, but you said you were gonna go with me on this," she said. "You've worked too many overtime hours this week, so I'm not keeping you from following other leads that you like more. Just work with me here. Please?" Rosa brought out her best puppy dog eyes that had always worked on Diego growing up. Once again, they proved unbeatable when she batted her eyelashes.
"I know, I'm sorry," Diego said, raising his hands slightly in surrender. "I'm not trying to be a jerk, I'm just trying to be realistic. I don't want you to get your hopes up that you're gonna find these kids and save the day only to be crushed if you can't." He shrugged and offered her a sad smile.
"You don't have to worry," Rosa said. She rolled her eyes, but smiled nonetheless. At least he cared. "All you have to do is send these pictures to the lab!" Rosa held the camera out to her brother with an exaggerated smile. Diego gave an exasperated sigh, but smiled fondly as he took it.
"You know I will," Diego responded, his words certainly having a double meaning.
"Then come on," Rosa continued, nodding towards Diego's SUV. "Let's get to that gas station and see if they saw anything." She walked back to the car and got into the passenger's seat before even turning to look and see if Diego was following her. She knew that he would, whether he wanted to or not, even if he sighed and grumbled and complained the whole time. Rosa watched as Diego dutifully turned on his heel and went back to his SUV, and hopped into the driver's seat. "There's only one gas station on this road for ten miles, and the dad said he asked the worker there if he saw anything, but we can still check the cameras and see if they missed anything."
The gas station itself was small, with only two pumps and a small shack that you had to go up to in order to pay. The cashier was a middle aged woman who barely gave them a glance as they drove up, focused much more on the crossword puzzle she was working on. When Rosa and Diego stepped out of the SUV, she finally looked up at them.
"How many gallons?" she asked them.
"None," Rosa answered, pulling out her badge as Diego did the same. "We just have a few questions for you."
Diego stepped slightly in front of her and up to the cashier.
"Were you working here two nights ago?" he asked her.
"Yep," she said with a nod. "I worked the afternoon shift, from 12pm to 12am. I work that four days a week."
"Did you see these two boys that night?" Diego held up the photograph of the missing boys, but the cashier shook her head.
"I don't think so, but you're free to check the camera if you want," she said, motioning towards the single camera above her, angled towards where Rosa and Diego were standing.
"Is that the only camera you have?" Rosa asked. The cashier just nodded. "Anything at all strike you as odd that night? These boys are missing, and they could be in danger, so anything you can remember could be useful."
"It was just a normal night," the cashier answered with a slight shrug and shake of her head. "Like I said, I can give you a copy of the camera footage, but that's it. Everything was normal, I'm sorry."
"That's okay," Diego said before Rosa could say anything else. "Thank you, we'll take a copy of the footage." He shot Rosa a look telling her to let it go. Rosa held back a sigh, knowing that unfortunately, Diego was right. Not everyone is going to remember something important that helps to blow a case wide open. That was just a fact of the job, and one she was already painfully aware of. It just sucked when lives were at stake.
That night, Rosa sat down on the couch next to her brother, handing him a beer as she popped the cap off her own. He had just popped in the tape into the VCR, so now it was time to spend however long it took to watch the footage for anything that could give even the slightest clue as to what happened to the missing boys.
Diego wordlessly popped the cap off his beer with a nod of thanks towards his sister and turned his attention back towards the grainy image on the TV, as Rosa did the same. It wasn't a very clear picture, and despite what popular TV shows would have the public believe, a pixel was a pixel, and couldn't be "cleaned up" in a lab. Besides that, the camera was focused solely on the cashier's desk and the money - likely it was there to dissuade potential robbers rather than gas thieves - and didn't capture the cars coming and going. Unless they were to see a familiar face in the camera, it could likely be used only to place possible suspects in the same general vicinity as the car the boys went missing from rather than anything else. Still, something was better than nothing.
The siblings sat sipping their beers and fast-forwarding through the tape, only slowing it down to normal speed when someone appeared in the camera. They'd narrowed it down to a likely three hour window where anyone they saw could technically have been in the vicinity around the same time as the missing boys, but stretched it to six hours, just to be on the safe side.
"Is it always this boring?" Rosa asked, setting her empty beer down on the coffee table. She had half a mind to get another.
"Hmm?" Diego glanced over at her.
"Detective work, I mean," she clarified. Diego shrugged as they both turned their attention back to the screen.
A tall, blond, white guy, probably about Diego's age, was currently paying for his gas. There was no audio in the tapes, but he seemed friendly enough, making conversation with the cashier with a smile as he paid. Rosa attempted to commit his face to memory just as she had with every other patron. There hadn't been very many. It was a small gas station on a country road in the late evening on a weekend. Rosa would've been shocked if it had been busier.
"You'd be surprised how boring it can get," Diego finally replied. "But it does make it all the more worth it in the end."
Rosa sighed.
"Do you think we'll find those kids?" she asked. She glanced at her brother out of the corner of her eye, but didn't turn to face him.
Diego stared straight ahead. He didn't respond.
James stared at the ceiling as Miguel snored lightly beside him. He couldn't sleep. He couldn't stop thinking about the boys in the basement and their flawless skin and soft hair. The taller boy with his ocean eyes and singular devotion to protecting his brother. James couldn't wait to see him fail. The smaller boy with his big brown doe eyes filled with a fire that James couldn't wait to extinguish.
Glancing next to him to be sure that Miguel was asleep, James quietly crept out of bed and out of the bedroom, closing the door behind him as softly as he could. Miguel was generally a heavy sleeper, but James couldn't be too careful. If Miguel found out, he would be pissed, and Miguel was scary when he was pissed.
James crept downstairs just as softly, cringing internally every time a stair creaked, despite knowing that the chances of Miguel hearing him were nearly zero. He relaxed more upon making it all the way down the stairs. His grin could barely be contained as he walked down the hallway and stopped in front of the locked door.
James was silent as he pressed his ear to the door. If the boys were talking, he would've been able to hear them. Quietly, James slid back the deadbolt and softly opened the door. He cringed again as it creaked, but the boys appeared to be asleep.
The taller boy, Josh, James remembered his name was, was asleep with his legs splayed out in front of him, and head hanging towards his shoulder. When he woke up, he would certainly have a crick in his neck like none other. The smaller boy, Drake, was asleep with his knees pulled up towards his chest, his head resting on them, making him appear even smaller than he already was. It was a far cry to how the boys had been when James and Miguel had come in earlier, all wrapped up in each other. James may not have agreed with Miguel that the boys' holding each other would taint them, he did enjoy seeing the heartbreak on their faces as they were pried apart and cuffed to opposite sides of the cage, keeping them from each other.
James knelt down behind Drake, then snaked his hand through the bars, and clamped it over Drake's mouth. Drake jolted awake with a muffled gasp, immediately struggling against him. James tightened his grip over the boy's pretty mouth and slipped his other hand through the bars and clasped it over his throat.
"Shhhhh," James hushed, squeezing both his hands. Drake stopped fighting as hard, but his breaths were loud and frantic. "Stay quiet, and I'll leave your brother alone. Wake him up, and I'll go to him instead. Understand?"
Drake whimpered, but gave a slight nod.
"Perfect," James purred in his ear before slowly pulling his hand away from Drake's mouth and caressing his face. He squeezed Drake's throat again for a moment, then trailed that hand down, underneath the boy's shirt. James could feel Drake's heart beating faster and faster as he let his hands roam all over his body. The kid's eyes were squeezed shut and he was biting his lip in a clear effort to keep quiet, but beautiful tears leaked out anyway, and the small whimpers and tiny cries of fear that escaped were music to James' ears. "You're so beautiful," James whispered in Drake's ear, relishing the way the boy's body was trembling under his hands. "You have no idea the things I want to do to you, the things I'm going to do to you and your brother. He's rather pretty as well, and I bet he'd be even prettier after I'm done with him."
"No, please," Drake quietly whispered through his tears. "Please leave him alone."
"Hush," James ordered, letting a twinge of anger color his whisper. "Will this keep you quiet?" Without any hesitance, James stuck two fingers into Drake's mouth, delighting at the feeling of the boy gagging on them and attempting to pull his head away, eyes wide open in panic. "Fight me and it's dear brother's turn," he threatened.
Drake fell limp, eyes squeezed shut again despite the tears that continued to fall unhindered. James moved his fingers in and out of the boy's mouth, imagining in his mind that they were something else. But he knew the boy could do better, if given the proper motivation.
"I might have to wake up brother dearest myself if you don't put in a little effort here," James quietly threatened. "So get to it."
James grinned as Drake's shoulders began to shake as he fought to keep his cries quiet. He closed his eyes in pleasure and moaned in Drake's ear as the boy began using his tongue like James wanted him to. But James was sure he could get the kid to do more.
"Come on, you can do better than that, you little slut," he whispered, letting his other hand wander lower, dipping just under Drake's pants. "Unless you want precious brother to join us. Is that what you want?"
Drake's cries got a little louder, but he began moving his head just like James knew he could with the right motivation. James slowly withdrew his hand from Drake's hips, letting it trail up his slight abs and over his chest before wrapping around his throat once again. He didn't start squeezing yet, just let it sit there.
"You sure you don't want him to know?" James asked with a grin.
Drake let out a muffled "no" and moved his head back and forth even more. His cries got a little louder, and James could practically smell his fear. It was intoxicating. The boy was intoxicating.
"Too bad." James squeezed Drake's throat as hard as he could, and at the same time, shoved his fingers into Drake's throat, making him loudly gag and gasp for air, hands rattling the cuffs and legs kicking as he began to thrash in a pointless attempt to get away.
James watched as Josh woke with a start, and began laughing as the boy's eyes went wide at what he was seeing.
"Stop!" Josh shouted. "Leave him alone!" Josh thrashed against his own cuffs to no avail as James continued to laugh. "Just let him go! Please!"
Finally, James withdrew his hands from the boy's pretty mouth and throat and stood up, leaving the kid a wreck beneath him as he sobbed, his brother calling out his name.
"Don't hurt him, please," Drake said, his voice hoarse. "I didn't mean to wake him, I'm sorry, I tried, please just don't touch him, please," he begged, bringing his knees back up to his chest as he shrunk in on himself and cried.
James only continued to laugh, and began palming himself through his pants. As much as he wanted to finish off right then and there, on the boys at least if not in them, he didn't have the means to clean it up, and Miguel still couldn't know. He wasn't concerned about his partner hearing them - the only place where you could hear what was going on inside that room was right outside the door - but he couldn't exactly leave evidence for him to find later.
"Please don't hurt him," Drake cried, while Josh just looked shocked and confused, tears silently falling down his own pretty face.
"It's still your lucky day," James said around his laughter, before finally cutting it off. "Then again, you get lucky everyday when you're a little whore, don't you?"
"Don't you talk that way about my brother!" Josh shouted, fury in his eyes as he thrashed in the cuffs once again.
"Josh, don't," Drake protested through his tears.
"Oh, I can do anything I want to your precious brother," James replied with a smile. "And I will. And there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. In fact, you'd just sleep right through it, wouldn't you? Some brother you are." James let out a fake scoff and walked over to the door. "That pretty little thing belongs to me, and so do you," he said, before quickly exiting the room and sliding the deadbolt behind him to the melodious sound of Drake's beautiful sobs. For a moment, James stood right in front of the door, ear to it, listening.
"Drake! Drake, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, are you okay? What did he do?" Josh asked, but the only response was more tears.
Grin on his face, James quietly walked away and crept back up the stairs in the dark. It took less than a minute to finish himself off in the bathroom, then he slid back under the covers next to Miguel, who was still snoring softly.
Now, he could finally get some sleep.