"We don't just start hacking away. We wake her up first. Let her become aware of her surroundings. Talk to her."

Jared nodded. "That makes sense."

"So we need the smelling salts."

"Where are they?"

"Over in that corner."

Jared walked out of Gertie's line of sight for a moment, then returned with a small bottle. He handed it to Ken, who unscrewed the lid and held it underneath Charlene's nose.

Charlene jolted awake, eyes wide. She thrashed around but the ropes were too tight for her to escape. Then she screamed.

Ken put a finger to his lips. "Shhhhh. Stop it. I'll hurt you if you don't shut up."

It took a few more moments for Charlene to stop screaming. She looked up at Gertie, and then at her three captors, and Gertie had never witnessed such raw terror. Although she might have earlier, if she'd had a mirror.

"This is all on you," Ken told her. "If you'd stayed home and minded your own business, none of this would have happened. But you became a danger to me, which means I had to become a danger to you. So you're not getting out of this alive, and I'm not going to lie to you, it's going to be rough. But, hey, you get to be the catalyst for some family bonding time, so you've done your good deed for the day."

"Can we cut her now?" asked Jared.

"Yeah."

"Can I slice off her ear?"

"No. You don't go straight for the ear. Do you know how much blood comes out of a severed ear?"

"No, but neither do you if you just watch them starve to death in cages."

"I know enough to know that it bleeds a lot. Hell, I'm sure your mom has done it. She's probably the queen of severed ears. Viv, how much blood spurts out when you slice off somebody's ear?"

"A lot," said Vivian.

"There's your answer. So riddle me this: when you're trying to prolong somebody's death, do you want a lot of blood to spurt out of the side of their head?"

"All right, fine," said Jared. "I get it."

"Don't 'all right, fine' me. Answer the question sincerely."

"No. I don't want a lot of blood to spurt out of the side of their head."

"See? You're learning."

"Where should I cut her, then? Her arm?"

"Her arm is a good place to start."

"Wait, hold on," said Charlene.

"Okay, now she's about to start begging," said Ken. "Is that something you want to hear?"

Jared nodded. "Sure."

"All right, then. Listen to what she has to say. Maybe she'll make an interesting offer."

"Let Gertie go," said Charlene. "Keep me here if you want, but let her go."

"Now this is where your bullshit filter comes into play," said Ken. "Nobody is that selfless. She's trying to buy some time. She wants you to make a mistake."

Charlene frantically shook her head. "No, that's not true."