❝ they do, actually, ❞ he corrects her absently, watching the shifter they’ve got bound and gagged thrash and writhe, its screams muffled by the gag he’d shoved in its mouth, ❝ but why would we beat it… when I’ve got this? ❞ he twirls the silver blade he’s been toying with between his fingers; the shifter visibly shrinks away at the sight of it. ❝ not like it matters whether or not we beat it, ❞ he adds, climbing to his feet with deliberate slowness, ❝ we’re not letting it go, right? it tells us where the kids it took are, then we kill it. burn the body. ❞ it seems to take exception to that, because it begins to rock back and forth on the chair, tears streaming down its face while it shakes with sobs. he might’ve felt sympathy for the pitiful picture it makes — if he didn’t know that the damn thing was abducting kids. but he does know, and that snuffs out any sympathetic feelings he could have had. ❝ you want first cut, or am I doing it this time? ❞ he tries not to draw this part out, usually, hates himself for being capable of this in the first place. but this one had fought them, had refused to give up “its” children, so he’d been forced into his most dire solution. torture was always the method he saved for the very resort.