Badlands: Next Generation Collection, page 51
The rest had gone with Bella.
I stepped from the trees into total pandemonium. It’d escalated at a groundbreaking speed. The pods were where the smoke was coming from—they’d all been set aflame. Bodies littered the lawn, some still twitching, others moaning in agony. The stench of blood and fear was ripe in the air.
A guerrilla ran right past me, one side of his head covered in blood. Stags chased him down, pouncing on him like wild animals and using their bare hands to start tearing the man apart. Acolytes were quickly disarming the men with guns, emptying the clips into anyone they snatched one from.
Knowing I couldn’t linger out in the open like this, I hurriedly scanned the grounds for Bella, spotting a flash of her blonde hair just as she entered the asylum.
I began to run towards it, glancing back only once to make sure the acolytes were okay and keeping up. Seeing them both, I refocused on making it safely through the yard. Screams carried from all directions. Off in the far distance, glass shattered as the church was desecrated.
Girls were running scared—a few were snatched right before my eyes. Stags and Lazarus lifted them up and disappeared long before I could reach them to do anything about it. I had to get Bella first.
I told as many girls as I could to head for the woods and hide out until morning. A dozen or more listened, some from fear and others because they recognized me.
Entering the building I never wanted to see again, I promptly slid through a mess of blood.
One of the acolytes was quick enough to catch me, releasing me the instant I was stable and steady on my feet.
The body of a girl I didn’t know was right inside the entrance, the side of her face completely split open. This was a Stag or Lazarus kill. I guess Amo didn’t have a preference for which girls were taken.
“Thank you.”
The reply came in the language I didn’t understand.
Careful with where I placed my feet now that my boots were sticky with blood, I listened carefully for any sounds that could be Bella. The asylum was huge. She could be on any floor or in any room.
Yelling for her was out of the question. That would attract all the people I didn’t want to find me.
I glanced back at the acolytes, wondering if they would listen to me. I didn’t want to treat them like attack dogs, but I needed their help. If something happened to her…
“Can you go search for Bella?”
They immediately set off in separate directions without so much as an acknowledgement. One went for the stairs while the other took left.
On my own for the time being, I went right, walking down the hall and peering in each room as I went. Something clattered to the floor a little way up ahead.
The mess hall was only a foot further from where I was standing.
I froze, hearing something bump against a table and a feminine curse. I broke into a jog.
Shoving through the doors that led to where all the girls ate, I spotted one acolyte and two guerillas lying in various places on the floor. All of them were dead.
Across the room, Bella was covered in blood, locked into a grapple with Hendrix of all people. The blood didn’t appear to be her own, but that the gutted men she’d turned to corpses.
I didn’t stop to think about what I was doing. I ran for them before he could seriously hurt her. When he heard my footsteps, his already enraged face contorted into something animalistic.
He all but threw Bella across the room, sending her body skirting over one of the tables.
I was smashing into him the next second, sending us both teetering into another table before falling to the floor.
My elbow hit the linoleum, causing me to drop the knife, and sent a strange kind of pain ricocheting up my arm.
“You,” Hendrix seethed, hovering over my body, nostrils flaring.
Bella had gotten him good. There was a gash in his cheek and swelling in his lips.
He reached down and attempted to wrap his hands around my throat. With no other weapon but my body, I reached up and dug the tips of my nails into his face as if they were claws. I dragged them down, feeling some of his skin lift itself and lodge beneath them, scraping through the fleshy part of his face wound.
Six red streaks appeared, three on each cheek.
He bellowed, grabbing hold of my forearms and lifting me from the floor.
He walked forward until my back was colliding with the wall. I swallowed a whimper and fought not to coil inward.
“This is all your fault,” he ground out, slamming me again.
“Get off me,” I growled, bringing my knee up and planting it in his gut.
He released a gust of air and dropped me. I landed on the floor in an undignified heap of limbs and tulle. When I thought he’d lurch for me again, he vanished from where he’d just been standing.
Bella rushed over and pulled me up from the floor. “Are you okay?” she croaked, her neck bright red and bruised from where someone had grabbed her.
“I should be asking you that.”
“This is nothing,” she replied dismissively.
I watched Luce handle Hendrix as if he weighed nothing. The knife he’d given me back in his hand, he jammed into Hendrix’s lower gut and began to twist as he dragged it over, then straight up, slicing clean through his belly button.
He was saying something too low for us to hear above Hendrix yelling. He retraced the incision he’d just made, ending Hendrix’s screams as he began to asphyxiate on his blood.
Crimson spilled out of him like a waterfall, bits of his innards dangling the more Luce split him apart. The smell that followed was worse than seeing Luce gut him alive. It was raw flesh and guts, the stench reminding me of rotting fish, but worse.
When Luce finally withdrew his blade, something popped.
Luce dropped him, then crouched and used Hendrix’s thick head of hair to clean his blade, putting it back in his holster before standing to face us.
“Go,” he directed at Bella.
She released me and took off for the exit as if something was chasing her.
Luce planted himself right in front of me, covered in twice the amount of blood his sister was. His eyes were so dark it almost didn’t look as if he had any. He looked me over from head to toe, pausing for a moment when he saw the bruises where Hendrix had grabbed me. They would be faded within two days, nothing serious.
I glanced over to where Hendrix was lying lifeless on the floor, then back up at Luce. “I’m okay,” I assured him, wrapping my arms around his neck.
He grabbed hold of my hips, smearing blood onto my tulle.
Without a word, his mouth claimed mine, his tongue slipping inside the second I parted my lips. He pressed into me, the heat from his body coiling around us.
I breathed in, sucking the stench of Hendrix’s noxious body fluids into my lungs. I pulled back from Luce so I could cough, the odor tickling my throat.
He rested his forehead against mine, laughing softly. “I’ve got a lot to teach you, Star.”
“Ugh. Not about that.”
“Most definitely about that.”
I glimpsed over at Hendrix again. “I really hated him. He was the worst of the bunch.”
“Wish you’d told me that sooner. I’d have taken him home so I could remove pieces of him one at a time and ensure he watched.”
“You can do that to the next guy who pisses me off,” I soothed, stroking his cheek.
“I’m holding you to that.”
The mess hall doors swung open, causing us both to turn at once.
A wheelchair with an older man appeared first, Cam seconds after.
“Do I even want to know what you’re doing?” Luce asked, keeping one arm around my waist.
“I’m not abusing the elderly,” he laughed, parking the wheelchair so it was facing us. The man within it stared, his eyes resting solely on me. Had it not been for that, I wouldn’t have recognized him.
This was the Cardinal.
I watched acolytes drag body after body to the hole in front of the angel. Some A.R.C girls that had been slain. Guerillas, Stags, Exarchs, and even some of their own. Those that weren’t fully dead were well on their way, moaning or sobbing in pain.
I rested my arms on the wheelchair handles, staring down at the Cardinal’s white head of hair.
“He doesn’t even talk,” I muttered.
“Nope. But there was some paperwork in a desk that said something about a stroke,” Cam said, squeezing up beside me.
“So, he was essentially a puppet?” I asked, propping my head on his forearm.
“Whoever was pulling the strings was desperate for an alliance with the Stags. This must have been why,” Luce replied. “Whoever the fuck this guy is, there isn’t much life left in him, or purpose.”
He, Bella, and Ice were all standing on my other side.
“But we don’t know who?”
“We don’t know who, yet,” Luce corrected. “Give me a few days, and I’ll have an answer.”
I had a ton of questions, wanted to know how many girls got away and how many were taken, but more than that, I was ready to sleep this night away.
“I think someone wants to talk to you,” Luce said.
I lifted my head from Cam’s arm and followed his stare. Partially submerged in the trees was Amo, watching us.
“I’ll go with her,” Ice volunteered.
“We’ll be right here,” Cam said.
I didn’t bother telling them I wasn’t afraid of my brother. It would have been a waste of breath. Ice and I walked over to where he was standing, me going a few steps closer.
“How was it?” he asked once I was within casual hearing distance.
“This?” I circled a finger in the air. “Not bad. I’ll get used to it again.”
“Like old times, eh?”
I clasped my hands in front of my waist and nodded.
“Whose idea was the dress?”
“Not mine. Someone had an image of me they wanted to portray.”
He chuckled. “It wouldn’t have worked on me, regardless. I know my little sister.”
I shoved down the emotion that invoked. I’d said the same thing about him.
Maybe he hadn’t changed much at all. He’d just grown up and become his own kind of Savage. I couldn’t hate him for that.
“I did all this for you, ya know? But you didn’t need me. You’ve never needed anyone.”
That wasn’t true. While I never needed someone, it would have been nice to have anyone. My girls had become what I’d lost. Now they were gone too. I wouldn’t change anything, though. All of this led me to Luce. He was more than I could have ever asked for.
“Will Claire be okay with you?”
He lifted a shoulder, drawing my attention to how bloody his clothes were.
Was I the only one who didn’t get to play?
“She’s been a warm body since she arrived. I’m enjoying her… for now.”
My upper lip curled. There was no need to imagine what that meant.
He laughed and stepped out of the trees, his eyes looking at me from beneath his mask. “Renegade queen. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”
“Why can’t you call me what I am?”
He threw me off kilter when he wrapped his arms around me, but hugging him back felt as natural as ever until he whispered his next words in my ear. “You’re more than any one man deserves, and when I’m done tearing their faction apart, you’ll have a place by my side.”
He stepped away as quickly as he approached, vanishing as if he were never there.
“What did he say?” Ice asked, placing a comforting hand on my shoulder.
I stared even though I could no longer see any sign of him. “I think he just made himself my public enemy number one.”
We turned back towards the others, and I saw they were getting ready to light the fire. In the distance, the church was already consumed by an inferno.
Cam gestured to the Cardinal. “What do you want to do with him?”
“He’s an old man who can’t talk. Just dump him and get this over with.” I walked up to the wheelchair and pushed it forward, using my boot to help tip the thing.
The Cardinal fell right out, landing in the ditch on top of various corpses.
He began trying to drag himself back out, but he couldn’t haul his body over all the others.
An acolyte doused him with a large dose of flammable liquid. When the matches were finally dropped, he was one of the first to go up in flames. He couldn’t even scream. The sounds he made were muffled and erratic.
Luce reached over and took hold of my hand. Cam held the other one.
“What now?” I asked, staring up at the weeping angel one last time.
“We start planning your initiation.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
It was time.
The time I knew would come sooner or later but had never really faced until now. Luce and Ice waited a respectable distance behind me, offering strength and support with their silence.
He stared at me with his one good eye, and I knew he knew. We’d both known this was how it would end.
So much had happened as of late, there was no reason to keep him around anymore. Over the course of the past two weeks I’d come to learn more than I had in a month, thanks to our new addition and the family I’d always had.
I had a bumpy road ahead of me, more pain to bear, but I’d manage. I had up until this point, hadn’t I? Even if I made some screw-ups along the way.
Who knows, maybe I would find something that made all of this worth it in the end. I think no matter how fucked-up we were, there was someone out there perfect for each one of us.
Luce and Star were a prime example.
They’re a paradox of everything dark and light. A combination of tainted purity and sin.
Like I said before, though. There was plenty of time for that. I had to find myself first. No one deserved the baggage I came with right now.
I raised my hand, inserting my gambit cleanly into Butcher’s chest. I didn’t want to drag this out. I’d made peace with this. I had said goodbye to my brother a long time ago. The husk of a person in front of me wasn’t the Braxton I would remember.
I wanted to think of him as the one who always had my back. The gap-toothed kid that never let anyone mess with me and the man who would have never turned on his family. Who we were before we were forced to grow up and the world tore us apart.
I wasn’t ending him out of mercy or regret. I was doing it to forgive him and so that I could move on from this.
I still had a sister to find—two, to be exact. And a mother and father who couldn’t handle losing me too.
Butcher shut his eye and didn’t open it again. His death came quickly, no struggle on either end. Blood welled up around the blade I’d just shoved into his heart, much like it had when he stabbed his in mine. I counted the seconds it took him to draw his last breath.
Luce and Ice approached when it was obvious he was gone.
They didn’t say anything, but they didn’t have to. The quiet was enough.
Life had to go on.
Even when it hurt.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The compound had been transformed into something like a brothel. The music was so loud I could feel it vibrating through the floor.
Bella had tried to warn me this would be intense, but I hadn’t expected a crowd this large. There were so many people inside, dancing, openly screwing, or taking up all the damned walking space, I had to fight through a wave of them just to reach the kitchen.
Luce was nowhere to be seen, but I’d spotted Ice on my way down the stairs, talking to some cute blonde.
Bella had made herself scarce for the evening, stressing she wasn’t going to traumatize herself by watching my initiation. I grabbed a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water. I was almost done chugging it when Cam appeared. The crowd parted right away for him.
Assholes.
“As soon as you make it through the night, they’ll all be on their knees for you.”
“Good. While they’re down there they can kiss my ass and beg for forgiveness.”
He threw his head back and laughed. I froze with the glass halfway to my lips. Over the past week he’d seemed to get more carefree.
I was waiting for him to fall apart now that he’d put his brother’s ghost to rest two weeks back, but if anything, he seemed happier. I was proud of him, but were these possible signs of an imminent breakdown?
“Are you okay?”
His silver eyes lit with amusement. “Never better. In fact, I’ve made a decision to be more like you.”
“That’s a terrible idea.”
“Don’t be a pessimist.” He pulled my water glass from my hand and retrieved something from his pocket. “Take this. It’ll make tonight go smoother.”
“Where did you even get that?” I eyed the round pill.
“I don’t take drugs from strangers, queenie.”
“I don’t take drugs at all, Cameron.”
He smiled down at me.
It was this boyish smile that would get him his way with whatever lucky girl was deemed good enough for him.
“Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” I answered right away.
“Then stick out your tongue.”
I was slow to react, but eventually I opened my mouth and allowed him to place his tiny pill down. It began to dissolve right away, tasting oddly like fruit of some sort.
“Now drink,” he urged, handing me my water.
I downed it in one gulp, then sat the glass in the sink. Whatever I’d just swallowed was potent—my lips already felt funny. I licked them, prodding at the flesh with my fingers.
“Come on,” Cam laughed, taking hold of my hand.
As we walked, I looked up at the large flag with the official symbol of Satan printed on it.
We exited into the backyard where an even larger number of people seemed to be gathered. The dais was surrounded by acolytes’ candles flickering within their hands. On the three leviathan crosses, men had been gagged and hung upside down.
