“Huuuurrrrhhhh…”

Monza wasn’t enjoying this half as much as she’d hoped, and it was making her angrier than ever. Something about those groans was intensely annoying. Her hand was pulsing with pain. She forced a smile onto her face and limped after him, pretended to enjoy it more.

“I’ve got to say I’m disappointed. Didn’t Orso always like to boast about what a hard man he had for a bodyguard? I suppose now we’ll find out how hard you really are. Softer than this hammer, I’d—”

Her foot slipped and she yelped as she went over on her ankle, tottered against the brick-lined side of a furnace, put her left hand down to steady herself. It took her a moment to realise the thing was still scalding hot.

“Shit!” Stumbling back the other way like a clown, kicking a bucket and sending dirty water showering up the side of her leg. “Fuck!”

She leaned down over Gobba and lashed petulantly at him with the hammer, suddenly, stupidly angry she’d embarrassed herself. “Bastard! Bastard!” He grunted and gurgled as the steel head thudded into his ribs. He tried to curl up and half-dragged her over on top of him, twisting her leg.

Pain lanced up her hip and made her screech. She dug at the side of his head with the haft of the hammer until she’d torn his ear half-off. Shivers took a step forwards but she’d already wrenched herself free. Gobba blubbered, somehow dragged himself up to sitting, back against a big water butt. His hands had swollen up to twice the size they had been. Purple, flopping mittens.

“Beg!” she hissed. “Beg, you fat fucker!”

But Gobba was too busy staring at the mincemeat on the end of his arms, and screaming. Hoarse, short, slobbery screams.

“Someone might hear.” Friendly looked like he didn’t care much either way.

“Better shut him up, then.”

The convict leaned over the barrel from behind with a wire between his fists, hooked Gobba under the neck and dragged him up hard, cutting his bellows down to slippery splutters.

Monza squatted in front of him so their faces were level, her knees burning as she watched the wire cut into his fat neck. Just the way it had cut into hers. The scars it had left on her itched. “How does it feel?” Her eyes flickered over his face, trying to squeeze some sliver of satisfaction from it. “How does it feel?” Though no one knew better than her. Gobba’s eyes bulged, his jowls trembled, turning from pink, to red, to purple. She pushed herself up to standing. “I’d say it’s a waste of good flesh. But it isn’t.”

She closed her eyes and let her head drop back, sucked a long breath in through her nose as she tightened her grip on the hammer, lifted it high.

“Betray me and leave me alive?”

It came down between Gobba’s piggy eyes with a sharp bang like a stone slab splitting. His back arched, his mouth yawned wide but no sound came out.