"Huh?"
Titan blinked, his mind struggling to understand what he meant by that, though a creeping sense of dread had already begun to settle in his gut.
There was something cold and terrifying about the boy in front of him notwithstanding how young he looked.
"Do I have to spell it out for you?"Asher sighed, as if he was exhausted from dealing with an idiot. "Fine, let me show you then."
He then pointed toward Titan’s crotch and made a slow slicing motion through the air.
"Off it goes." Asher said casually, like he was discussing trimming weeds in a garden.
It dawned on Titan, the same moment, the air in the room shifted. The kid was dead serious. Titan’s face drained of color, his pupils dilated in pure, unfiltered terror. He started shaking his head.
"No. No, no, no," he pleaded, panic setting in. This cannot be. The kid had to be kidding him. This was a prank. A trick. Somebody better tell him this was a joke.
"Yes. Yes, yes," Asher mocked in return, his voice a twisted mimicry of Titan’s fearful own.
Even Nancy, who had initially felt some relief at seeing Titan being put in his place, felt a chill crawl down her spine.
For the first time that night, Nancy wanted to plead for Titan, not because she felt sympathy for him. He was a disgusting, vile man, and perhaps deserved this. But cutting off his dick was a bit much of a punishment. The boy would castrate him for life.
But the moment her lips parted to say something, Asher moved and came to kneel in front of her. The sudden movement startled her and Nancy forced herself not to jerk away.
The boy was unstable. Who knows? One wrong move, and he might decide she was next. So Nancy held her breath, waiting for what he’d do next. But the boy was calm. To her surprise, he took her hand and cradled it carefully.
"Don’t feel sorry for him," he said with such a soft voice, with his thumb brushing over her knuckles, and almost soothing her nerves.
"It’s him or Violet. And I choose Violet." His eyes darkened, the finality in those words ringing louder than any threat.
Nancy swallowed, fear and confusion warring in her mind. What had Violet, her daughter, entangled herself with?
No, more like, what had she led her daughter into?
She had pushed Violet to find a better future, even advising her to use those werewolves if necessary, but never in her lifetime had she imagined it could come to...this. It seems she’d cast Violet into a fate more brutal than the one she’d fled.
Asher released Nancy’s hand and straightened, leveling an impassive stare at Titan. "Cut it off," he commanded, voice devoid of mercy
The wave of compulsion washed over Titan and for a moment, he fought back with a strangled groan, his body drenched in sweat from resisting. But despite his desperate struggle, there was no escaping Asher’s hold.
Nancy averted her eyes just as the gruesome slicing sound filled the room. Titan released a blood-curdling, animalistic howl of agony, as he mutilated himself.
The stench of blood hit Nancy’s nostrils, and she tasted bile in her throat, forcing herself to block out the sheer horror until it was finally over.
The knife slipped from Titan’s trembling hand as he collapsed onto the floor, crying and wailing in pain, his blood pooling around him.
Nancy dared to glance back and immediately regretted it. Titan was now a ruined man, shaking violently, his face twisted in unbearable torment.
But Asher simply crouched in front of him, his expression one of mock sympathy.
"I know, I know," he murmured, his voice almost soothing, like a man comforting a grieving friend.
"Trust me, I feel your pain."
Titan let out another shuddering sob.
"You probably never imagined this would happen. But then again, I never imagined you’d want to sleep with both my mother-in-law and my Purple Queen. But now, it won’t happen." He let that piece of information sink in.
Titan sobbed harder, his body twitching, pain filling him from his irreversible loss.
Asher’s gaze flicked to the severed flaccid piece of flesh that once belonged to Titan, and he wrinkled his nose in disgust.
"On second thought, I can’t give that to my Purple Queen." He kicked the bloody mass away with revulsion, saying, "I wouldn’t want to pollute her sight. And you won’t be polluting anyone else’s sight with it, either."
Asher shot a final glance at Titan. "Lucky you, at least you get to keep your head."
Asher turned to Nancy. "What are you waiting for, Mother?"
She blinked. "Huh?"
"Get dressed. We’re leaving."
For a moment, Nancy hesitated. Then Asher turned his back to her and it took her a second to realize he was giving her privacy to change. Even after the sheer brutality he had just displayed, he still showed her that courtesy. Nancy didn’t know what to think about the boy.
Nonetheless, she hastily gathered her scattered clothes, ignoring Titan’s heartbreaking wails and dressed up.
"I’m ready," she finally whispered, her voice trembling with both fear and relief.
"Good," Asher responded, and together they exited. But the moment Nancy stepped outside, she was rendered speechless.
She expected there would be chaos with the guards rushing in, the whole place in uproar over what had just happened. But instead, the guards stood exactly where they had been. They hardly even blinked in their direction when they came out.
Had they not heard their boss’s desperate scream? Even right now, Nancy could hear it. But not the guards. Apparently, they were deaf to it. Nancy’s blood ran cold knowing they were under the boy’s control.
Nancy realized right at that moment that she could never return to District One. The Red Dragon would come for her, all thanks to him. And that dark realization forced her to follow Asher without even a backward glance.