Sawyer’s eyes were wide. Even with his mutilated mouth, he didn’t appear to be smiling in the slightest. It was probably the first thing that actually caused a spike in his heart rate as well.
If it was the one thing that could get him to lose his cool, who was Eva to pass it up?
But she still wasn’t going to fondle him or anything resembling such an act.
Thankfully, her hands weren’t her only inhumanely strong limbs.
Lifting up a foot, Eva brought it down right on top of Sawyer’s groin. Sawyer drew in a sharp gasp as Eva crushed everything all the way to his hip bones. Grinding her foot in, Eva was almost disgusted by how his organs compressed and ruptured beneath her foot.
Blood and viscera dripped off the edges of the chair. Eva was holding most of it in, but some of the blood was outside of her control. His intestines and stomach and spleen and whatever other organs were falling out of the suddenly opened cavity were just a bit too heavy for her to contain. Not that she cared all that much about keeping it in. As long as she kept his blood circulating through any ruptures, he’d live for now.
And that’s really all Eva needed.
Sawyer started coughing. Blood and spittle flew from his mouth as his coughs shifted in tone.
Eva grit her teeth.
Sawyer was laughing.
“‘oo should haff killed me when ‘oo had the chance,” he mumbled out through his broken teeth.
“Wha–”
Eva didn’t have a chance to question what he meant.
Sawyer’s heart seized up. His eyes rolled back up in his head the moment it did so.
Using her blood magic and her control over his blood, Eva tried to force his circulation. Carrying his blood through his lungs and the empty air itself in an attempt to oxygenate it enough to keep his brain alive.
Despite her efforts, Sawyer slumped over in the chair, arms and head all falling limp as he moved.
“No,” Eva hissed.
She clenched her fists even as she stepped forward. With as much haste as she could, Eva clasped her hands on either side of his face and shoved her thumbs into his eyes. The twin orbs burst beneath the pressure of her claws, spilling blood and clear liquid all over her carapace.
Her fingers dug into his skull, burrowing through the bone until she reached his brain.
“You should have waited before killing him,” Prax said. “Let him feel the pain and humiliation a little longer.”
Eva pulled her fingers out of Sawyer’s skull, flinging blood and brain matter to the floor. “It was all too late,” she hissed. “He died before he even felt his eyes explode.”
“Died? You must have damaged the wrong spot.”
Eva shook her head. “I hit nothing. He knew he was going to die. He killed himself, taking the satisfaction away.” Turning around, Eva was about to ask Nel if she had any ideas on what happened.
The augur was lying on the ground, eyes closed.
“She passed out around the time your foot passed through his body,” Prax said with a deep grunt.
Eva just stared.
In a way, it was something of a relief. Her torturing Sawyer just hadn’t felt right. With him dead, she could rest easy. At least on the necromancy front. Des was still around, but she was just a little girl. If she carried that mummified corpse around with her constantly, she could be problematic. Between Eva, Nel, Ylva, and Zoe, they should be able to find a way to neutralize it.
For the time being, Eva just shook her head again. Leaving Nel on the floor, Eva walked off towards the shower room.
She was feeling somewhat drained. Getting the remains of Sawyer off her seemed like a good way to start feeling rejuvenated again.
Downtime Exploration
Through a thin slit in a heavy metal door, Eva watched as Sawyer’s body turned to ash in a high intensity fire. Bright orange light bathed over everything around, even though the only exit for the light was the small slit that Eva watched through.
Copying the women’s ward a second time had given Eva plenty of space to create a makeshift kiln. Every scrap of Sawyer’s body was inside except for the finger that Eva had kept. Even the shards of teeth that he had spat out onto the floor.
There were still bloodstains on the floor of the alternate women’s ward, but those would be easy to take care of with some focused fire.
Eva was not willing to take the chance that he had left any surprises for anyone that might kill him. Whether that be coming back as a lich or simply some delayed zombification, it didn’t matter. Eva would be raising the intensity of her flames until not even dust remained.
The heat started with his hair. His skin blistered over, turning charcoal black. Or, just to charcoal. The muscles, soft organs, and other tissues were next. They charred over and were vaporized in the flames. The remaining skeleton started calcifying, becoming brittle and crumbling in on itself. Using a long rod, Eva shoved the remains around. Chunks of bone were still too large. Pushing everything together allowed her to focus the heat in a condensed spot.
And what a heat it was.
