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He had to be more bandage than boy by that point.
Because he was bandaged after the fact. The wound was even cleaned. Having Finney die of something like infection would apparently, "Be disappointing."
When the man announced his sentencing, it sounded cool, absolutely and utterly terrifying, but cool: "Death by a thousand cuts."
Their version would be nowhere near so gruesome, he assured, as if Finney had reference to the unholy concepts whirling in his mind. All that counted for them was having a destination, and he was counting.
It was the number that mattered, not the severity. The Grabber wanted to go wider with his knife, of course, deeper. That was clear. He restrained himself because it was their bargain. If Finney kept motionless and let it happen, all he got was a little nick.
It still hurt.
He fought the pain, at first, fought to keep the man from cutting him. Those wounds were the worst. They still happened. He could not overpower a grown man, so all Finney got were rushed cuts until the Grabber was satisfied. Some were deep. He knew his arm— at least— needed stitches. He would not receive them and spent the next few days keeping it still, holding the skin together and begging it to heal.
Ten cuts a day, that was what he got. The Grabber said it would make Finney last longer for him.
He did not want to last, but he did not want to die. He did not want another horrible laceration like the one on his arm and elsewhere.
The man offered him cruel leniency. Finney forced himself to take it. Lay still. Let it happen.
He messed up sometimes, fighting on instinct when the Grabber scared him too greatly, saying or threatening such horrible concepts. Finney tried to tell himself it was meant to get a rise out of him, meant to make him behave like a naughty boy. Lay still. Let it happen.
Ten cuts a day.
The Grabber counted, and that was how Finney knew a month had passed.
He was tired all the time— all day at the beach sort of tired. It had to do with losing blood. He knew that and the Grabber confirmed it. His skin was pale as well, but he had to take the man's word for it, having no mirror.
Finney's shirt stayed off most of the time. Cutting his arms and abdomen was easiest, but he hated stretching the skin to put his shirt back on. There were enough white and red bandages to cover him just the same.
He hated when his pants were pulled off. That was a fight the first time it took place, which led to horrible slashes. The next day, Finney forced himself to let it happen. The Grabber left his underwear on, and he took that as the smallest blessing.
It was nice to give his upper body a break while the man cut on his legs instead. But he cried when those hands touched and rubbed his inner thighs before bringing the knife. Finney still let him do it.
He drank the blood once, which was gross, like he was some vampire. He put his mouth over Finney's sliced calf and sucked, a pain that pulled and stung worse than the knife. It must not have tasted good because he never did it again.
The Grabber counted, and that was how Finney knew two months had passed.
Everything hurt all the time. Any movement, no matter how small, pulled on at least a dozen cuts. He interrupted the healing process, opening them again. Getting up to use the bathroom was the worst pain imaginable. His steps were a gentle shuffle with as little movement as possible, like a statue learning to walk. Finney tried to go as seldom as his body could manage.
More often than not, he laid inert in bed, taking the most shallow breaths he could. Expanding his lungs too much pulled the scratches going down his chest.
Finney was cold. He stayed cold. Maybe it was the blood loss or winter settling in— he had no way of knowing— but the basement was colder than ever. Shivering made his cuts hurt. He asked for a blanket, even just a sheet, but was denied. Suffering was the point.
And yet, there was a day when he woke with a stiff wool comforter covering him all the way to his chin. It had to be that softer mood of the Grabber's that did it, the one who watched him while unconscious and touched his hair when he thought he was. Finney was grateful for that wandering side of him, even though he was most unsettled by it.
He did not know whether to like or hate the days he was cut across his back. It gave the front of him a small reprieve. It made the front of him hurt to take his weight on open skin, stretched apart on a pliant mattress.
"I wish I were more of an artist," the Grabber lamented. He wanted to carve things into Finney, permanent pictures or remarks. Since he could not, he devoted himself to symmetry, what he could manage. He said there was a different beauty in the mirror image of Finney's scars.
It felt symmetrical going across his shoulder blades and down his spine. Finney barely paid attention. Taking his mind away helped with the pain. Unfortunately, the greatest distraction outside of it was the weight across his thighs. The way the man sat on him and moved heavy hips every so often, it felt wrong. Finney said nothing.
Let it happen.
The Grabber counted, and that was how Finney knew three months had passed.
Most of the cuts were shallow now. He knew how to keep still. He could not decide if the Grabber was pleased or disappointed by his restraint.
His cuts— new and reopened— were cleaned and bandaged.
His bare skin looked like a tiger with how many stripes were in it. Or maybe the more accurate comparison was he resembled a zebra, like the one he saw in National Geographic that time, striped but mauled and covered in blood.
The Grabber barked at him to sit up, and Finney compelled himself to obey, no matter how stiff and painful the action was. He sat motionless as possible when a tray was put in his lap.
"Eat it."
The brown and red cubes on the plate were probably a steak before being cut up. Finney never cared much for steak, but he wasted no time putting the bits in his mouth and chewing, savoring, swallowing. The man told him something about meat and iron. Finney barely listened.
While he ate, the man moved on to his latest escalation. He sat on the end of the bed or he stood, but either way, he opened his pants and pleasured himself, watching every hasty twitch and listening to every hiss from his victim. The Grabber liked him in pain. That was obvious. He liked it too much.
Finney forced himself not to look, rationalizing how that would make it worse somehow. Or maybe his passivity did that, like he gave permission.
After the deep groan and a few full breaths, the man took his empty tray and left.
The next day, he returned to cut Finney open.
"You know how many that was?"
Finney tried to think but realized he lost count. He could not remember when. Everything was so foggy in his brain. Maybe blood loss and pain did that. Maybe acceptance of his circumstances did. He did not know how many times his skin was cut opened, and so he shook his head.
"Silly boy," laughed the Grabber. "Well, you'll be happy to know that was nine hundred ninety."
Happy?
He was supposed to be happy? The end was coming, yes, one more day. However, that meant the end was coming.
"Death by one thousand cuts" finished where its name began: death. Despite letting it all happen, despite being good, Finney was still going to die. That was always the plan, and he could not say he had no idea it was coming. The worst part was he had nothing to fight with when the last cuts came. He was worse than a drained battery; he was corroded and useless.
His last day was meant for trying any and every possible escape he had left— save himself!— but the most Finney managed was drinking water from the thermos by his bed and expelling it a few hours later. He did not give up so much as accept he could not win.
"Last day, Finney." The Grabber practically sang that fact.
Finney sat up against the wall, shirtless with the blanket wrapped around him. It was hardly a position of strength, but he thought it was better than laying down and waiting for the end.
His effort meant precious little when his legs were grabbed and pulled, dragging him flat and supine. The blanket was discarded. The last flimsy shield, an old wrap from a mostly healed scratch, was pulled aside, leaving his stomach bare.
The Grabber knelt over Finney's body and massaged the skin he exposed. "Thought I'd start here." He could do whatever he wanted. Finney would not— could not— stop him.
His knife was so familiar by then, and Finney watched its sharp, glistening tip touch his soft flesh and disappear. Despite being so accustomed to pain by that point, he still clenched his teeth. That one hurt. It kept going.
Inch after inch of the short blade disappeared into Finney, running parallel to his body instead of stabbing down. "Under the skin but not into the organs," narrated the man, explaining it to Finney or else coaching himself in restraint.
The pain was gruesome and never-ending. Finney could not believe what he felt was a mercy and that the knife going straight through him could be any worse.
When the pain finally stopped advancing, it waited for a moment, parking in his stomach while the Grabber caught his shuddering breath. His pupils, what Finney could see through the holes of his mask and the shadow it cast, were wide with excitement and arousal. He withdrew the knife from Finney with that same slow and meticulous pace. The sight and feel of it coming out was surreal, and when bright red began to flow, Finney had to look away.
"That one's deep," the Grabber said in awe. "It's bleeding every-goddamn-where."
Instinctively, no matter how much everything hurt or how exhausted his body felt, Finney could not stop himself from trying to push the man away. "Please, please don't." He did not want to die. "Stop."
"Ah-ah." The man shoved his hands away like a paper ball in the wind. "You need to be a good boy for me, Finney. You know how this works. Now, lay still."
He did know how it worked. Ninety-nine days of being flayed taught him how it worked. He had to stay still. He had to let it happen.
"Good boy."
He was a good boy, not a naughty boy. Did that mean anything? It had to mean something. Did good boys get to live?
The cut in his stomach must have been worse than anticipated, because it was not repeated for symmetry, or maybe it was meant to be unique.
"Might tickle," the man said as he held up Finney's foot.
His fingers brought about that compulsion to laugh and kick, but Finney tamped it down. The feeling was soon undone by the long swipe of the knife going from his heel to his toes. It hurt so bad! It was deep, it was sharp, and there was no way he would be able to walk on that, not for a few days at least. Especially not when the man did the same thing to the other foot.
"Please..." All he could do was whimper and cry. Finney shook from his fear, and the spastic movement hurt all over. "Please..." He wished he had a name to call the man, something to make the human part of him wake up.
It felt wrong that such a long and devastating drag only counted as one. It was just as unfair when the Grabber made Finney open up his hand. The knife went across his palm, from the base of his thumb to his pinky, not deep enough to sever the muscle, but enough to teeter on that edge. Quickly, the man turned over what he held, giving a similar harsh swipe to the back of Finney's hand. As if by careful planning, a fist could not be made to support and coddle the pain in his palm because it flexed and tore at the one bleeding down the other side. Finney kept his dripping hand open, unused— unusable.
The same thing happened to his left hand. It hurt.
He was already crying. The whimpering shakes of it distressed his weeping abdomen.
Finney's denim pants were on, but he felt and heard the knife scrape up his leg without cutting. The flat side of it tapped insidiously against his crotch. He swallowed hard and found the courage to say, "Not there." All the solace he had was in knowing the Grabber would struggle to make anything work with his three remaining strokes. That was all he had left before one thousand. He knew that. He simply wanted to make Finney feel the fear. It worked.
"Do you think you decide what happens here, Finney?" There was a growl in his voice when intimidation needed no extra bite. "Huh?"
"No." He closed his eyes and shook his head. "No."
"No, you don't." He was powerless against the man, but he was not wrong. The blade drew back from that softest part of him. "And did you learn to behave?"
"Yes," he said. "Yes!" he screamed. He would behave. He would do whatever the man said. He would lay still and take it to stay alive.
"Good boy, Finney. Good boy." The edge of his knife moved up to trace feather-light against Finney's throat, nothing but the man's gentle strength to keep gravity from dropping it down. "What I would give to slit your vocal cords or cut out your tongue." He wanted it, but the risk was too great. Too delicate. Too much blood. It was a good sign though, a confession. He wanted non-lethal acts. He wanted Finney to stay quiet. "I guess..." The knife drew up his neck and down his jaw, to the corner of his mouth. "What I could do to you if I wanted," he fantasized. Oh, he wanted. He wanted to stick his knife in Finney's mouth and pull out at the corners. He restrained his hand, but he did not stop it. Less severe, less agonizing, still painful, he drew a line from the corner of Finney's mouth— only the outer skin, only enough to make opening up and screaming unthinkable. He repeated for the sake of his symmetry. A boy with sharp gashes at either corner of his mouth was a quiet boy.
There was one cut left.
With all the proper understanding of its importance, the Grabber brought that cruel blade to his own lips for a kiss before pressing its sharp tip against Finney's heart.
Words for mercy were choked but whimpers trembled unbidden behind closed lips, whining like a dog.
The knife turned in his hand, gentle rotations, drilling weight. He wanted Finney's heart, and he wanted the longest, slowest method to it.
"Make me stop," he dared.
He wanted Finney to beg and bribe. All the boy had was, "Please..." It was agony to speak. Blood dripped from his lips, down his face and in his mouth. "Please."
"Louder."
"Please."
"Louder!"
"Please!" Finney shouted, opening wide to scream it, enduring the pain of split cheeks to keep the rest of him alive.
It worked.
The blade retreated. There was a shallow hole in Finney's chest, weeping great tears down his side. His body survived one thousand cuts, and now it mourned the fact they did not kill him.
When the Grabber exhaled, his breath shuddered, satisfied to depths that surprised him, shivering at his core. "Oh," he groaned, perversely satisfied. "Oh, there's never been a boy like you, Finney Blake."
The kiss hurt worse than speaking or even screaming. It hurt. The man devoured, so hungry after such a wait, and Finney let him. He let himself be kissed greedily as silent tears and silent blood dripped down his face.
The Grabber's mouth was red and shining when he pulled back, a macabre contrast to the pale horned skull of a mask around his eyes. He took in the fleeting, draining appearance of Finney in the bed, committing it to memory, then he picked up his box of first aid supplies and hid it all away. There were so many tricks and so many bandages to keep Finney from fading, leaking out of his body with every ounce of blood.
He was almost asleep— passed out— when two words roused him.
"Come on."
Hands held him in a sitting position, tying off the compress around his waist, and they pulled him forward.
Finney stared at him incredulously, terrified he would be forced to walk for the man's amusement.
"Not to worry," he chimed, aware of clipped wings, "I'll carry you."
Everywhere he touched burned with disgust and stung from sharp wounds. Finney shrank in his arms, wishing he could disappear, holding onto his agonizing stomach with his agonizing hand.
He was carried through the door of the basement in an unholy mockery of crossing the threshold as a bride.
Gently, the Grabber took them up the stairs to a place Finney had not dared to tread again for one hundred days.
The air was not fresh, but it was not stagnant. They passed a calendar saying four months passed since last he looked at one. He had to assume it was accurate with the way several days were marked out with red pen until a chosen square was repeatedly circled by it.
They went through a kitchen and living room barely remembered and down a hall never seen, past another doorway.
He put Finney down in a big bed that could only be his own. There were sheets and pillows and blankets. It was above ground. There was heat on. If Finney were not in so much pain, it would have felt amazing. Were he not so full of fear, he might have been excited.
"God, how I've waited for you," said the man, as if awarding his own patience a medal. He inhaled deep and exhaled slow just looking at Finney in his bed, finally. He wanted him despite the striped scars and mauled flesh. Most likely, he wanted him because of it.
Quick breaths made Finney's thin stomach jump. He knew when his new gash pulled open and so did the Grabber, noticing a red blossom in the middle of his bandage.
Being joined in bed, having a rough hand apply pressure, did not improve Finney's panic. He swallowed hard, trying to take it.
"If it makes you feel any better," the Grabber told him, knowing it would not, "I think you look handsome."
He would.
He loved his artwork, a broken boy torn and scarred from the sole of his foot to the scratches on his forehead. A hand brushed the evidence of all their days together while that other held him tight.
"And you won't try to stop me or leave again, will you?"
It would be easier. Finney was out of the basement, upstairs. No, he could not walk on his sliced soles, but they would heal. He would be back up on his feet. And then what? Run away? Walk to the door and put in Griffin's lock combination?
2-3-1-7... no.
2-7-1-3-3
2-3...
He would remember. He could stand at the door until he figured it out, or he could bang and scream until someone came.
Would he risk it though? Would he risk a broken run with an inevitable capture? Would he risk another thousand cuts?
"No."
Lay still and take it.