Badlands: Next Generation Collection, page 35
Nimble fingers reached out and took hold of my hand. “Sit with me, Star. That’s all you can do.”
“I can’t just sit here and do nothing!”
“You can, and you will. You’re going to stay with me until I fall asleep, and then you’re going to keep going until you get as far away from here as possible.”
“Fall asleep? That’s—”
“Star?”
“I’m not leaving you,” I ground out. We both knew what she meant.
“Listen to me!” she snapped, coughing immediately after. “You have to go before they find us.”
I heard all she was saying, but I physically couldn’t leave her behind. Not only did I refuse to, but we were shackled together.
“Star,” she repeated.
I looked at her, my denial fleeing as rapidly as the hole growing within my heart. I knew there was no possible way to mend the injury. I was almost positive the bullet hadn’t gone all the way through. I could dig inside her to get it out, but then what?
We had no one to go to for help. Her breathing was getting shallower with each passing minute. I was losing her right before my eyes, just like I lost everyone else.
I shoved my pain to the side and fully focused on the amazing girl in front of me.
I pulled her into my arms as best I could, trading her spots so that I was the one leaning against the tree trunk. Roughened ridges of bark pressed into the flesh on my back that was still sensitive and healing, but I didn’t care right then.
“I’m sorry,” I said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
She squeezed my hand and swallowed. “Not your fault. Don’t ever blame yourself for this. You’ve always… kept me safe.” An abnormal sound came from within her throat, and her entire body seemed to twitch.
Clamping my lips together to ward off a sob, I silently apologized again and again.
I pulled her closer despite the cuff around my wrist trying to prevent any further movement. It was the least I could do, the only thing I could do for her as she faded away.
Guilt began to lash at my chest. We all knew this was risky, but I wasn’t prepared to face those risks down. I wasn’t ready to lose another friend.
Just when I thought to speak again so she could hear something more than silence as she went, I looked down and saw she was already gone. Her usual rosy complexion was now drastically pale, brown eyes vacant and staring at a clouding skyline.
With her chest no longer rising and falling, all the warmth began to seep from her body with a callous speed, leaving dead weight in my arms. I covered her face with my hand and gently closed her lids.
Expelling a shaky breath, I looked to the sky and simply stared for a few minutes. It would begin to rain soon. That would grant me a brief recess from the heat, but afterward the mugginess would make travel much worse.
Despite my reluctance to do so, I needed to go. There was no telling how close the A.R.C were or if they’d employ a full-on search militia. I had to get out ahead of them and this storm.
Shifting Marcy’s weight from my lap, I kept my gaze trained on the metal cuffs shackling our wrists together. I couldn’t look at her face anymore. It was bad enough that this would be my last memory of us together. The pain inside me had a familiar numbness beginning to pound against my brain.
Carefully, I reached out and gave a small tug on the center chain.
How was I supposed to get this off? I tinkered with it for a few more minutes, realizing that there was no way I could break it. Sliding it over our hands wasn’t an option either.
There was only one way to separate us, and with time dwindling I had no choice but to act fast. If caught, I would never have a chance to escape again, and Marcy’s death would have been for nothing.
I grabbed hold of her lower wrist and began to twist, forcing her thin limb to turn at an unnatural angle. My stomach rebelled at what I was doing. Salted tears came hot and quick. But what other choice did I have? I would’ve traded places with her in an instant if I’d been given the chance, but I couldn’t.
All I could do right then was detach us.
Dragging her body wasn’t a viable option. It would take more strength than I could exert and majorly slow me down. If this didn’t work, the last resort would be chewing through her flesh. The mere idea of that had me forcing back a gag. I’d do it if I had to, though. I couldn’t go back. I wouldn’t.
Gripping Marcy’s wrist a little tighter, I applied more pressure and jerked. Her body came forward in the process, but that didn’t stop me from twisting. Her skin became taut and pinched. My stomach churned violently as something popped, sounding like the breaking of a stick.
Beneath her flesh, the bone visibly shifted, allowing me to slip the cuff over her now grotesque wrist. The instant it was off, I recoiled as if I’d been burned and the limb fell to Marcy’s side, looking as if it no longer belonged.
I stood up and began moving backward. Before turning away, I hesitated, hating that I had to leave Marcy like this, disgusted for having broken a part of her.
I’d heard there was beauty in death, but as I searched for it, I couldn’t find any. Nothing was beautiful about this.
She’d be left here to rot. Her flesh would become one with the soil, something for worms and maggots to feast on until only bone remained. She deserved so much better. They all did.
Facing the other direction, I took off as quickly and quietly as possible, careful where I placed my feet. The speed in which I’d lost everyone I cared for was staggering, but there wasn’t any time to grieve. The lump in my throat that was making it hard to swallow had to be ignored.
The wind picked up momentum and gradually began to howl. I kept moving forward, going whichever way the terrain carried me. Stumbling through an alien wasteland, I missed the sign warning me to turn back.
I foolishly crossed into a part of the Badlands known only as the Devil’s Playground.
Little did I know I’d escaped a prison just to enter hell.
CHAPTER THREE
Have you ever wondered what your purpose was? You sit down and get to thinking about what you’re going to do with your life, just to realize you’ve been fucking off and doing absolutely shit for more than half of it.
That wasn’t relevant in my case, but I almost felt bad for the hopeless folk it applied to.
This was the Badlands. Maybe way back in the day people wanted to be lawyers, judges, or some other governing official, but the only law here was my father’s. Soon to one day be mine. Doctors? I had the best surgeons anyone could find at my disposal, and they didn’t need a degree to prove it. Their skill spoke for itself.
Point was, no type of aspiration from the past era was relevant anymore, which was why I was sitting here unable to comprehend the way some of the forms in front of me had been filled out.
I wasn’t entirely sure who came up with this application idea in the first place, but I didn’t approve of the questions or the process. These people applying for work at various compounds or factories that operated beneath the Savage reign… Why did I need to know what the fuck they aspired to be? If you could do electrical work, fantastic. I didn’t want to read an essay on electricians. Crumbling my fifth application into a ball, I launched it into the waste basket and then reached for another. The first line alone was cause for an immediate no.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
“Why are you even doing that?” Ice asked, looking up from the book he was reading. On the majorly worn cover, there was an image of a boy running alongside two dogs.
“Because Bella quit.” I sent a pointed look in my baby sister’s direction, and her blue eyes lifted to meet mine.
“Luce, everyone is going to try and get into the Savages or Venom now. Half of those people probably lied.”
“You’re not seriously this restless, are you?” Ice asked.
“This is being productive. Who else would do it?”
“The senior acolytes who have been weeding people out since before you were even a thought in Dad’s head?”
“Or swimming in his balls,” Ice added, making her laugh.
I was tempted to launch the entire fucking file box at him, but he got a pass for making Bella smile. He’d become good at that, and it was great for her.
There were two main priorities in my life: the Savages and the Badlands.
In that exact order.
One was my family, the other was my home. Outside of them, nothing mattered.
So, seeing my baby sis smiling again after being an empty shell for the past month was important to me on a deeply personal level.
“You know if any of these people get accepted after they lied, they’ll be killed?”
Ice laughed. “Are you saying that because you’ve suddenly just developed a conscious?”
“Let’s hope not. I don’t think our dad would appreciate that,” Bella quipped. “Besides, what happens to them doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter, huh?”
“Nope. Being desperate to survive doesn’t equate to throwing out all common sense.” She shrugged. “Plus, not our problem. We’re in a pretty good position considering who our parents are, but we still have our own issues to deal with.”
“Look at you, you’re growing up to be so mature,” Ice joked.
“Shut up, idiot.”
I shook my head and laughed quietly at the two of them. She was right. This was a waste of time. It was a task I had only taken upon myself to keep busy as I waited for Cam. The acolytes could handle it. They had to, because I couldn’t take any more of people proclaiming bullshit.
I shoved the box aside and stretched, cracking my neck to loosen it up. Pushing away from the corner desk, I stood and took a quick look at each monitor that hung on the wall. They all showed different areas of the interior and exterior of the building.
Dad’s truck was gone. So was Uncle Grimm’s bike, but the car Cobra had followed them here in was still parked outside.
Glancing down at the corner screen, I saw him exactly where I expected to. He was in the playroom with Cam. I couldn’t remember how long he’d been in there, which meant it was time for him to take a break.
“We’ve got a few perimeters to check over yet. You up to doing one tonight?” I asked Ice.
He shrugged. “Unless Samael decides to spontaneously pop up, it’s not like we’ve got much else to do.”
The mere mention of his name had my sister’s face falling. There was something there, something she wouldn’t tell anyone about. My dad and I had picked up on it the day after she got back, but with Sam, who fucking knew. We’d questioned her to no end.
To date, we still didn’t know where the little shit had hidden Lilith.
The kid wasn’t wrapped too tight. Intelligent as fuck, no doubt, but twice as unstable. I always told Cam he was going to be trouble, an issue that would one day cause us problems. Not even I saw this coming.
Ice slid a spare piece of paper in between the pages of his book, and then sat it to the side. “You grab Cam, I’ll pull one of the trucks around.”
“What about me?” Bella asked. “Can I come?”
“Sure.” I shrugged, heading out into the hall with Ice right behind me.
“Is that a good idea?” Ice asked. “Might not be safe.”
“My sister will always be safe with us, and she doesn’t need to be sheltered. She needs to be very fucking aware of anything and everything that’s out there. This is not going to be Addy 2.0.”
“Adelaide isn’t that bad.”
“I never said she was. She’s fucking great, if we’re being honest. She’ll be even better when she unites with Z, fully. But things could have gone differently if they weren’t so sheltered.”
He made a sound I took to mean he agreed. I hadn’t shared this tidbit of information with my other sister yet. She was so much like our mom and dad that I knew she wasn’t going to be thrilled about having to be more Venom than Savage.
I’d tell her eventually. Timing was everything, and right now wasn’t it. She was due to arrive here in two days. Maybe I’d disclose it then. Or maybe I wouldn’t. It wasn’t at the top of my to-do list quite yet. Zane would take care of her, but that was beside the point.
We headed down to the lower level. I went right and Ice went straight, going for the front entrance.
My dad had taken it upon himself to have this entire building redone before I moved in. Hearing countless stories about the shit he and my uncles got up to inside of it, I appreciated that.
It may not have been as bad as what me and the boys once did, but Mom was part of the OG Savages. I could go my whole life without imagining where or how she participated and be perfectly fine.
I walked down the back hall, approaching the lone steel door that sat at the very end. The room beyond was soundproof, keeping all the beautifully tortured cries selfishly inside.
It took three seconds to key in the entry code. I went in, leaving the door to close itself. It smelled fucking terrible. I wasn’t sure why Cam insisted on keeping the corpse of the blonde Nyx had killed, but there the bitch was.
She was hanging from the ceiling like a raggedy ass piñata. Nah, I take that back. Having rotted so severely by this point, she looked more like one of those cornfield scarecrows. Complete with ugly clothes.
I guess Cam forgot the room had a ventilation system meant for this purpose. At the very least, he could do something about the bugs accumulating to feast on whatever pieces of her were left.
He and his dad were facing away from me, blocking my view of their ongoing pet project. Not for the first time, I wondered how long they were going to keep at this. I walked over to where they were standing.
Neither acknowledged me until I was beside the chair Butcher was strapped to. His one good eye rolled upward to focus on me.
I imagined he was glaring, but his face was too swollen to be sure. There was a thick wad of cotton gauze wrapped around his mouth so he couldn’t talk shit either.
I didn’t have a single shred of sympathy for him. He was lucky to be in my presence. Nyx was supposed to have killed him—instead she came to me and decided this was Cam’s right. I agreed, but at the time I hadn’t been sure he could do it. Now, I was positive he was more than capable of taking his brother’s life. In fact, I think the act would do him a lot of good.
Once upon a time, the two of them had been nearly identical. Only those who knew them could tell them apart.
After what had been done to him over the past two weeks, no one would ever mistake who was who again.
Not that Butcher would live long enough for that scenario to happen. Since his ass couldn’t walk, I didn’t see any chance of escape in his future. He was going to die in this room.
Slowly.
Painfully
All because he couldn’t be happy with the position he’d been given to play.
“I think we finally got something,” Cam said, wiping his bloodied hands with a gunk smeared cloth.
I eyed the broken teeth in the metal tray beside him. I didn’t know Butcher had any left. “And that is?”
“I’ll tell you in the car.”
Of course, he knew why I’d come in here. It was a routine we’d seemed to have fallen into.
He did his thing, coped with the shit in his head, and I made sure he knew that the world still existed.
It was a measure I put in place to keep him semi-sane.
I wasn’t sure how long it would take for him to get over this. Maybe he never would. Either way, I’d have his back. I glanced between him and his dad, who had yet to look away from Butcher.
I couldn’t lie and say I related to the way he felt. I’d never been as close with Braxton as I was with Cam. For appearance’s, sake I’d kept him closer. I always had an underlying suspicion he was up to something. My only regret was not acting on it right away and putting my attentions… elsewhere.
A lot of hurt could have been prevented. Many lives could have been spared.
But what was done was done.
I wasn’t one to dwell on shit I had no control over. All I could do was ensure this kind of thing never happened again.
“Can you give us a minute?” Cobra asked abruptly.
Not bothering to ask why, I nodded, taking one last peek at Butcher. “Yeah, I’ll be in the car.”
Leaving them to it, I left the room and went straight for the front door. Ice was pulling one of the Jeeps around just as I stepped out. Bella, already here, got in the back as I approached.
“They needed a moment,” I told Ice through the passenger window. Hearing the door open and close behind me I looked over my shoulder, seeing Cobra but not Cam. “A brief one, I guess.”
He lifted his chin, walking towards his car, signaling for me to come to him.
“One sec,” I said to Ice.
I strolled over to the blue classic and paused by the hood. “What’s up?”
“My son,” he began, pulling open the driver side door. “Is he using?”
I crossed my arms and stared. “You’ll have to get that answer from him.”
He looked back at me with a closed-off expression before releasing a small laugh. “You’re just like your dad, you know that?”
I didn’t agree with that comparison, and I heard that shit a lot. There wasn’t anything wrong with being compared to my father per se, but I wasn’t just like anyone. I wasn’t Romero Deville, I was Lucifuge.
“Well, what if I told you Cam’s more like you than you think?”
His head bobbed and he ran a hand through his hair.
“Cameron wasn’t supposed to be anything like me at all. I wanted him to be better, but I guess history has a fucked-up way of repeating itself.” He shook his head and sighed. “Look, I’ve already lost one son, and being realistic, I may have lost my daughter too. Cam’s all we got.”
When he said we, I knew he wasn’t only referring to him and Blue. He meant the Savages collectively, and while his voice was steady, there was an undercurrent of stress I could easily detect.
I didn’t have anything to add on the Lilith subject, at least not anything I was ready to share. There was a glaringly obvious reason why she wouldn’t be coming back, but he didn’t mention what we both knew, so I wasn’t going to either.
