This is the space to tell us how you would answer the writing prompt that appears in CrimeBits on page 203.
‘Do you believe in fate? Some guiding force which brings us all together, so that we may share certain moments together? A lot of people do, you know. I do...to a point.’
The man, known as “The Cutter”, by most of the tabloids in the country, surveyed the man currently laid on his table. Stood to the man’s left side and spread his arms wide over the stricken body. ‘I’m going to remove the tape now. You may scream if you want. I’d enjoy that immensely in fact.’
He didn’t like the name they’d given him. Probably started on social media by some scrote in his mother’s base- ment. He wasn’t a “cutter”.
He was much more than just a “cutter”. They didn’t know that, of course. They would soon.
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He pulled up one corner of the tape pasted around the front of the man’s head, freeing the lips compressed beneath. What came forth wasn’t the scream he hoped for, but more of a howl. The white lips flushed pink and started sputtering a volley of pleases. Too disappointed to show much contempt, the man turned to a waist-high cart on wheels. Both of its tiers were lined with tools that would make a medieval surgeon giddy. Before visiting those, he selected a girthy marker with a black cap.
Utterances other than ‘please’ and ‘man’ and ‘nonono’ had yet to come. Using the marker, he dotted trails over parts of the captive man’s body not adjacent to each other. Capping and setting the marker aside, he produced a scalpel. The captive moaned, writhing, and jerked when he felt the cold flat of the blade caress his skin, then tilt and sink in.
In the courtyard at the center of the warehouse, Agent Nolette crept low, pointing his service weapon down and out. He kept his knees bent, moving on the balls of his feet to keep a long and silent gait. The tops of his thighs burned. He glanced up at a window too high up to pose a risk and slinked behind a dumpster overflowing with wood and rebar. Every piece had led to this place. Every crumb to this humid, black, oily night creeping through debris and boxes. It was either the tip that would change the course of his career, or a trap. At this point, he didn’t care which. There was no going back.
Nolette’s thoughts were cut short by a sound. Muffled, from inside the wall, what sounded like a baker’s rack tilting over, dumping a payload of metal pans onto the floor. He darted across the courtyard and stuck to the opposite wall like a magnet. In the moonlight he could see a door. A second symphony of clattering metal on concrete floor. He moved one hand from his gun to the radio on his shoulder, then changed his mind. Inching closer to the door, his breaths grew ragged with emotion. He reached out for the handle.
Inside, the captive man thrashed against the restraints, one arm free and flailing wildly, multiple incisions on his trunk pouring hot red. His eyes bugged wildly, a hellion’s laugh cutting through his tears. The Cutter staggered backward, his own scalpel sticking out of the inside corner of his eye.
“Fate can bring us together,” laughed the captive, pulling at the strap on his other arm, “and it can tear us apart!” He sat upright, sweating, bleeding, and began attempting to free his legs as a door burst open down the hall.