Judging from the wreckage that used to be his face I can honestly say that he wasn't.

"McAdams, you have a visitor," snapped the guard. Corps moaned and I delivered one last punch to the side of his jaw, knocking him out cold. I stood up as the guard slid open my cell.

"I see your visit went well," said the disinterested guard who tapped away on his phone as he led me to the visitor waiting area. He was the prick who put him in there to begin with, fully understanding what it was that Corps planned on doing.

"It did. He's shit for company though. Doesn't say much. Moans and groans a lot. I think he might be ill. Splitting headache," I joked as the guard looked up from his phone long enough to roll his eyes and open the door separating the cell block from the hallway that led to the visitation area. "My lawyer came earlier. Who's here?" I asked.

"Some chick," the guard said, pushing open another door. I stopped.

"Take me back," I said. I told King not to let Ti come. As much as I wanted to see her I didn't want her to see me in here and her coming for a visit wouldn't work with the confession I'd signed.

"Can't, you got a visitor. She showed ID. She signed in. You go in. You got five minutes," the officer said, opening the little room that looked like a cafeteria. I scanned the tables, which were mostly empty. It only took me seconds to realize that Ti wasn't among the visitors. There was only one table where a lone woman sat waiting, looking down at her hands.

"Her?" I asked the guard.

"Yep," he said, shutting the door behind me.

I made my way over to her and was about to tell her that she signed in to see the wrong prisoner, but when she looked up at me all the air in my lungs left in a swoosh.

"Abel?" she asked, looking up from behind silver streaked dark brown bangs.

My head spun and I blinked to make sure what I was seeing wasn't a hallucination.

"Mom?"

EXCERPT FROM SOULLESS.

COMING SPRING 2016.

Thia Handcuffs bit into my wrists. My arms strained above my head as I hung from a pipe that ran across the ceiling. When I could no longer hold myself up and my muscles gave out with a POP as my joints painfully dislocated. My chest fell to my chin. Wide tape covered my mouth, wrapped around the back of my head, pulling on my hair every time I turned my head. With one nostril stuffed up I felt dizzy, barely able to get enough oxygen through the other.

My vision blurred as I tried to focus on my surroundings. Grey. Concrete. An open ceiling with pipes and wires. Nothing on the bare walls. A metal cage in the far corner. In the center of the small room was a blue tarp. Next to the tarp was a red toolbox with a yellow electric drill set on top. It was all so clean.

Sterile.

That's when the panic set in and my eyes opened wide as the realization of Gus's plan for me. I pulled on the cuffs above my head with a newfound strength I didn't have seconds earlier. My legs flailed around uselessly in mid air as I struggled against my restraints.

The door opened and Gus entered the room. When I first met him in the park he'd protected Bear and myself. I'd even thought he was cute in a best friend chubby cheeked kind of way.

That Gus wasn't who walked into the room. This Gus looked up at me, dangling from the ceiling, like I was a steak and he was a hungry lion who hadn't eaten in months.

"I really wish it could be me who could have all the fun with you today, but you see little one, I have a phone call to make to Bear. I have to let him know that his girl has been kidnapped by the MC. I have to continue playing the role of loyal soldier, so unfortunately for me, I had to call in a substitute." He stepped up to me and I braced for whatever it was he was about to do. My heart hammering in my chest.

The tape being pulled off was painful, but it passed quickly and I was finally able to take deep breaths. Gulping for air as if I'd been drowning. "Why do this at all?" I asked, after finally being able to catch my breath. "Me, Bear, the MC? Why?"

"I don't ask why. I do what I'm told. Asking why is not my job."

"Then what is your job? Who hired you?"

Gus covered my mouth with his hand and pressed his forehead to mine. My stomach rolled. "That doesn't matter. What only matters now is what is about to happen to you. My advice? Give into the pain. Enjoy it. The human body is a fascinating machine and although I don't get to do it myself, I'll be watching the video later and I'm sure watching that machine come apart is going to be nothing short of spectacular." He let go of my mouth and set the tape back in place. "Although I'm sure Bear is not going to love it as much as I will. He doesn't appreciate the beauty in it like I do."

He stuck out his fat tongue and licked my face from my jaw to my eye and my stomach rolled again.

Gus stepped back and took one last lustful look at me. "Such a shame, little one." Before he left the room he adjusted a camera next to the door I hadn't noticed. A red light came on. "Maybe, I'll stay. Just for the first part," Gus said, opening the door. "We're ready," he called out and a blond man appeared in the room, shutting the door behind him. He was shirtless, cut and muscular, tattoos covered his arms and chest.

A wrench in his hands that he tapped into his palm over and over again as he looked me up and down.

Gus was evil.

This guy, with his classic good looks, was the fucking devil.

His eyes were black and glowing like a demon in a movie and I realized there was no getting out of this. My fate had been sealed. With every step the devil took toward me the fear I felt increased higher and higher until I'd hoped I'd die of a heart attack before this lunatic could carry out whatever sick plans he had for me.

The devil set the wrench down by the toolbox and pulled his shoulder length hair on top of his head with an elastic band. He bent his head from side to side, making a sickening cracking sound. He did the same with his knuckles.

Then he came for me.

While Gus looked at me like he was lusting after my blood the blond devil looked natural. In his element.

Possessed.

He reached up and unhooked one of the cuffs, catching me before I fell to the concrete floor. My arms still raised above my head as they'd become completely useless and disjointed. "Nooooooo!" I tried to scream behind the tape, tears ran out the side of my eyes. He carried me to the tarp and laid me on top of it, binding my ankles together with the tape.

"You can take the tape off. She wants to make sure her screams make the video," Gus said. "Start with the teeth, they are the most painful."

"Why are you still here?" the devil asked. I was shaking so hard I could hear my jaw rattling behind the tape.

"Just wanted to watch the fun start."

"I don't do audiences," he said adamantly.

"Come on man, just one tooth, then I'll leave."

"Do it yourself then," the devil said, standing up as he tossed him the wrench. Gus's face lit up and he practically ran over to me, crouching down by the toolbox he lifted out a metal contraption.

"Just one. And then I gotta go," Gus said, ripping the tape off my mouth. He pried it apart using pressure points on the roof of my mouth to force me to comply.

It wasn't the first time he'd done this.

The blond devil stepped back and looked down at us with an annoyed look on his face. He was pissed that Gus was taking his work away from him. "I got shit to do so hurry the fuck up."

"I'd love to take my time, little one. But this is going to have to do." He pushed the wrench into my mouth and clasped onto one of my molars. He didn't just start to yank on it, he started pulling slowly, building the pain, setting each nerve on fire, prolonging the pain as he pulled harder and harder until I felt as if my entire jaw was being ripped from my skull. I screamed so loud my chest hurt. Warm copper flooded my mouth.

Gus sat back, his chest heaving up and down. My bloodied molar between the tongs of his wrench. "That was fucking fantastic."

"Great. Now get the fuck out or I'm leaving."

"Fine," Gus said, standing up and setting the wrench down on the tarp. "Just make sure she screams, she was adamant about that." The devil nodded and knelt down next to me again, picking through the toolbox. I started to choke as the blood dripped down my throat. He pushed my head to the side so the blood could run out of my mouth, the spreader bar painfully tearing into the flesh inside of my mouth.

How could someone so beautiful be so evil? I thought to myself. And then I remembered something Bear had said.

He looks like sunshine. Blonde hair and blue eyes. The kind of looks you'd see on one of them TV shows all the teenagers like these days. But that kid's got the devil in him. Only human lives he values are his wife Abby and now his kid. Jake's the only person in the world who scares the shit out of me. You know, besides you.

It was my only chance. "Jake," I said. But I was tired, so very tired, and with the spreader in my mouth it sounded like "gggggggech."

He ignored me and shuffled through his toolbox and that's when I realized it was over.

I was going to die.

I love you Bear.

PREORDER SOULLESS HERE.

LAWLESS PLAYLIST ON SPOTIFY.

Other Work by T.M. Frazier.

THE DARK LIGHT OF DAY (Jake & Abby's Story).

KING.

TYRANT.