The Dying Place Read Online Free PDF Page B

pointed at him for a second. ‘Fuck off. Don’t talk at me like that.’
    He heard, rather than saw, the whipcrack as Bally-Suit man raised and struck his face with something. A few seconds of nothing, before the pain cut in.
    Stinging, burning. His face on fire, from ear to nose in an almost straight line. Goldie pulled his hand away from his cheek where it’d flown in reaction, looking at it as if it wasn’t his. Blood, thin lines of red. Broken skin, broken face.
    Burning.
    ‘This is something my dad gave me. He no longer had any need to use it, so passed it down. I only ever got it once, that was enough. I deserved it then as well.’ Bally-Suit man was standing now, his accent softening as he spoke. ‘It’s like a riding whip, what you’d see a jockey using. Only this is worse. Thinner, more pliable.’
    Bally-Suit man moved around the table-desk and came close to Goldie as he held his face with one hand, trying to decide if punching this dick now or later would be preferable.
    ‘You’re going to learn some manners, young man. And learn them quick.’
    Goldie took his hand away from where he’d been stroking the burning, turning to face Bally-Suit man. ‘Fuck you,’ he spat.
    Bally-Suit man sighed through the covering and shook his head at him.
    The crack came again, quicker than Goldie could react. Across the other side of his face. As he went backwards, away from the pain, Bally-Suit man kicked at his chair, sending him flying. Goldie’s head cracked against the floor, making him dizzy for a second or three before his senses returned, his fists balling and swinging.
    Laughter rang back at him as he punched thin air, then pain flared across his thighs as the crack hit there. Then all the wind rushed out of him as a boot flew into his stomach. He tried to get up, one arm across his middle, but a boot on his neck stopped him.
    ‘Stay down. I don’t want to have to put you on the rack first day.’
    Goldie glanced towards the table-desk as the cloth fell from it, revealing something he couldn’t work out. Restraints and wood. In any other setting it would have barely caused a second glance. Seeing it there, Goldie began to breathe quicker, trying to swallow.
    Goldie shook his head clear, tried moving again. ‘Am I fuck lying down for you,’ he said, pushing away the boot from his neck.
    His voice wasn’t as good as before. The hardness was already going, leaving him, getting the fuck out of there while it still could. If he wasn’t alone, maybe it would have been different; with his boys backing him up, things wouldn’t be the same at all. As it was, Goldie was on his own, and the prick in the bally-suit was standing over him with some whip type of thing that was causing him a lot of pain and he couldn’t even see it coming.
    ‘You don’t understand, do you?’
    ‘Understand what?’ Goldie said, pulling himself onto all fours as the man backed away from him.
    ‘You’re under our control now. You’ll do as we say, or there will be consequences.’
    Goldie spat out a long drool of saliva onto the floor, eyes widening as he saw the redness of fresh blood mixed in with it. ‘You going to kill me, is that it? What for? I ain’t done nothing to you.’
    Bally-Suit man laughed at him. ‘Course you have. You and all your mates. Everyone like you. Young boys with big mouths.’
    A boot flew into Goldie’s stomach, flipping him over onto his back and making him cry out in pain before his breath caught.
    ‘You’re disrespectful, arrogant and nothing but a stain on this city,’ Bally-Suit man said, standing over him. ‘Well, that’s going to start changing. You’re going to start changing. Starting now.’
    Goldie closed his eyes to the pain which was beginning to kick in from the beating, as Bally-Suit man crouched down and leant closer.
    ‘And if we’re not happy with your progress , well … let’s just say you’ll be begging for a little roughing-up like I’ve just given you. I have many