Cleaning up blood was always a hassle, especially when it splattered on an original wooden floor. Blood would seep deep into the wood, making it incredibly difficult to clean thoroughly, no matter the effort. Unless, of course, one resorted to purifying everything with fire.
Dean could tell at a glance that the room’s wooden floor had been washed repeatedly and recently. However, the residual bloodstains were too copious and had been exposed to the air for too long, congealing into distinctive dark brown marks.
Without a word, Dean kicked the young man’s knee joint.
CRACK! With a sickening crunch, the young man’s leg twisted backward at a grotesque angle. He collapsed to his knees, dazed, as Dean grabbed his hair and yanked, tearing out a large, blood-matted clump.
Another kick. The young man’s other leg snapped, bending grotesquely upwards into an inverted U-shape—a sight that would make anyone’s scalp crawl.
When a person experiences pain exceeding a certain threshold, their first reaction is often stupefaction, not immediate agony.
It took a full three seconds. Only then, as the young man stared blankly at his mangled legs, did he let out a scream like a pig being slaughtered.
"Shut up!" Dean snarled, gripping the man’s throat. He unclipped a thin, short syringe from his belt and injected its contents into the youth’s neck.
It was morphine, capable of quickly relieving pain upon injection.
Dean had originally prepared it to maintain combat readiness if injured. Now, he was forced to use it for the interrogation and to avoid attracting Harry’s attention.
His mouth was gagged, so the severe pain had no outlet.
The young man’s fingernails clawed at the floorboards in agony, veins bulging on his neck. After several ragged breaths, the morphine took effect, and he calmed down.
He looked at Dean in terror, as if gazing upon the Demon himself.
"This is the price for lying to me again," Dean said. "Tell me what really happened here! Answer quickly, and you might avoid spending the rest of your life in a wheelchair."
"I’ll talk! They’re dead!" the young man stammered, his voice trembling as he stared at his ruined legs.
"That little bitch seduced me! She said her brother abused her, and that he and their mother had murdered their father. They were planning to flee with millions of US dollars. She claimed she didn’t want to be with those two devils and begged me to help her kill her brother and mother. She promised that if I did, she’d take the money and we’d live a peaceful life together. I couldn’t resist the temptation, so I drugged her brother and mother. Then, that bitch killed them with her own hands! Afterward, we dismembered the bodies right here."
"That’s an interesting truth," Dean whistled. "Where are the bodies?"
Desperate to save his legs, the young man blurted out before Dean could even ask, "Afterward, I drove her to town. She told me that if anyone came investigating, I should give them false information—make them think her brother and mother had fled to Mexico alone!"
Not a bad plan, Dean thought. Unfortunately for the young man, Dean had arrived too quickly. The vehicle tracks alone had been enough for Dean to know he was lying. So, he’d acted decisively, without asking further questions.
"This time, are you sure you haven’t lied to me?"
"I swear, I haven’t!" the young man cried, his voice cracking with sobs.
"Good!" Dean said, a gentle smile playing on his lips as he patted the young man’s head. "I’m very satisfied with your cooperation. You won’t need a wheelchair after all."
Just as the young man heaved a sigh of relief, believing Dean would call an ambulance for him, CRACK.
The young man’s eyes glazed over as his perspective suddenly, bizarrely, shifted. The bed... how did it suddenly move from behind me to in front of me...
The next moment, his consciousness plunged into darkness.
Dean confirmed the man was dead before tossing the body, its neck snapped, onto the wooden floor. Then, he slowly rose to his feet.
He hadn’t lied. Dead people don’t need wheelchairs.
Besides, how could someone so proficient at dismembering bodies be a first-time offender?
For scum , Dean couldn’t be bothered wasting time dragging him to the police station.
Harry stood waiting, pistol in hand, a bored expression on his face. Dean hadn’t been inside for long, and there had been no major commotion from the motel, so Harry wasn’t particularly worried. He now possessed an inexplicable confidence in Dean.
Suddenly, black smoke began to billow from the direction of the motel.
"FK." Harry cursed under his breath, gripping his pistol tighter as he moved cautiously toward the building.
Before he got close, Dean emerged from the motel, his expression calm.
"Dean, this..." Harry pointed at the smoking wooden motel. "Don’t tell me they’re having a barbecue party inside."
"Pretty much," Dean said, gesturing towards the surrounding foliage. "Harry, care to guess why the plants right here are so much more lush than those elsewhere?"
He had briefly searched the motel and, in a storeroom, found a collection of bloodstained jewelry and corroded watches, some bearing inscriptions in Spanish—likely from Mexico.
Dean surmised that more than ten undocumented migrants had come here full of hope, only to be deceived by the young man’s innocent facade at the motel. Ultimately, they found their permanent rest in this land, though not in the way they had envisioned.
He just didn’t understand why. After he’d killed the young man, the detective panel hadn’t given any notification this time.
"Plants?" Harry repeated, the implication dawning on him. His dark complexion turned a sickly pale, and he clutched his forehead. "FK, Dean! I’m suddenly realizing Los Angeles is a damn sight better than I ever thought."
"If you knew what Marina has done, you’d probably be even more disillusioned with humanity," Dean said, shaking his head. He pulled out his phone and dialed Malago’s number.
This place needed to be cleaned up.