Savages
Page 11
I just couldn’t even deal with him. Shaking my head, and then regretting it, I pulled my boots on and headed for the door.
The sooner I helped him, the sooner I could go back to sleep. “Next time, use your hand, Romeo.”
“Next time, I’ll just stick it in between your lips. I get off and you stop snoring. Two birds, one stone.”
I paused on the staircase and glared back at him. “I don’t snore.”
“Yeah you do.” He grabbed my hand and took the lead, walking us towards the front of the warehouse. As we passed through the door, he snagged a metal slugger leaning against the wall.
The humidity wasn’t so bad yet due to it being so early, which I guess made it make sense why he was waking me then. Heat or no heat, the smell was horrible.
I peered down into the hole without really needing to and got a nice whiff of death. Pulling my shirt over my nose, I backed up and tried not to gag, swallowing hard. “It smells like swamp ass!”
“Interesting description.” He twirled the end of the bat a few times and then used it to start smashing corpses down like one would a composite pile. Things mashed I didn’t know could mash and the smell of fly larvae overwhelmed me.
“What did you need my help with?”
“Nothing, this job is filthy and you’re not to get filthy doing something I’m fully capable of. I just wanted you with me.”
Then why did…ugh. Could I even be mad at the guy for that? He woke me up to spend time with me. It’s not his fault I sipped on moonshine.
“Wow, that’s actually really sweet.”
“All we do is fuck or fight. I figured I could take a day off. So after dinner, that sweet pussy of yours is mine.”
Rolling my eyes to the sky, I moved a breathable distance back and watched him work.
“So who’s the guy who broke your heart?”
I gave him a blank look. “Guy?”
“Last night you said some things,” he clarified.
“Have no idea what you’re talking about because it wasn’t a guy—it was a girl.”
He froze and gave me his full attention. “You like women?”
His tone didn’t convey whether this bothered him or not—not that I would give a shit either way, but I didn’t want to start a 101 about my sexuality either.
“The only thing I like is you.”
My answer seemed to placate him for the time being because he went back to smashing bodies. It didn’t dawn on me that there were at least twelve people in the large ditch and majority weren’t from The Order until a redhead’s body shifted into corpse oblivion.
“Who are these people?”
“Not sure, to be honest. Some are from The Order, obviously; some are from our beds.” He didn’t look at me once when he answered.
“So you mess with a woman and then put her in your pit of bodies after you’re done with her?”
“You mean when I actually touch a woman, yes, but that isn’t always the case. The redhead all the way to the right tried to climb in my bed after leaving Grimm’s. I snapped her neck.”
“Okay, that’s understandable, but what about the others? Why wouldn’t you just let them go?”
“Once someone has been touched by me and gotten to experience the tumultuous life-altering experience that is my dick, there is no letting them go.”
“Did you really just call your cock life changing?”
“I called it life-altering. You know it’s true because I can see you changing too, and you’ve only had the sample edition.”
The intensity of his gaze had me looking back down at the body pit and rubbing the back of my neck.
Was I changing? I didn’t feel any different, but maybe he could see things I couldn’t. He did call me beautiful when I didn’t even consider myself pretty.
Aware he was watching me in the annoying testy way he always did, I crossed my arms to keep them from making any nervous movements. Meeting his eye, I swallowed and adjusted my stance.
“Are you going to kill me?”
“Didn’t you hear what I just said? For that to happen, I’d have to let you go. So no, baby, I’m not going to kill you. I’m just going to make you wish I had. I’m going to hurt you real fucking bad.”
He didn’t say another word to me. He poured a canister of gasoline on the bodies and we watched them burn.
I didn’t have artillery strong enough to win a fight against a man who was severely unhinged.
His vast mood swings made me feel as insane as he was.
I decided to give everyone around me a large berth so I could reflect and think for once. I needed to reestablish order in my madhouse of thoughts. My chosen method of self-therapy was taking a hot shower and letting my mind wander.
I’d gone from a life of dull repetition to one of resonant uncertainty in the blink of an eye. Looking forward, I saw nothing, had no idea where my life was going. Looking backward, I saw routine, knowing exactly what to expect every day I woke up.
I had to remind myself why I was here. I had come here for answers and I had them. I had come here because I was struggling to find myself and, in the midst of my struggles, I found Romero.
I started adding what if questions to certain scenarios. Cool air rushed into the cubicle, replaced by the heat of Romero’s naked body as he stepped inside behind me. Surprising myself, I calmly turned around to face him.
His perfectly styled hair came undone and curled up at the ends. He palmed it back and looked over every inch of my body. “You’re fucking exquisite.”
“Is it dinner time already?”
“It’s noon—close enough.”
Placing the palms of my hands on his slick chest, I peered up at him through wet lashes. “What are we doing?”
He looked at me for a few silent beats as if he needed to carefully pick and choose his words. “You have this truly shitty inability to just let things be. I can see the thoughts churning inside that pretty little head of yours. You’re a victim of your own mind. Stop over thinking, stop over analyzing; just let shit be. Live in our present before you fuck it up worrying about the future.”
“I have to over think when it comes to you, Rome—I have to avoid certain situations if I want to live at all.”
A dark smile slowly spread across his face.
“Situations? You gave yourself to me. You’re already in a situation that’s permanent. You’re going to live for me. As far as you’re concerned, you don’t even get to breathe without my permission.”
“Why are you being a bigger asshole than usual?”
He answered me by dropping his mouth down to mine, biting my bottom lip hard enough to draw blood when I didn’t let him in.
Pushing against his face, I pulled away and soothed the pain with my tongue, glaring up at him with mounting frustration. “What if I don’t want to belong to anyone else?”
“Too fucking bad, cause your ass is mine and I’m not going to pretend I care how you feel about it. I know you’re going to hate me, baby, but I guarantee you’ll love me more and fuck me harder.”
He gripped my jaw so hard something popped. When he brought his mouth within the proximity of mine a second time, I grabbed a handful of his hair and bit him back. He laughed and wrapped a hand around my throat, slamming my head into the slated wall.
I swallowed a hiss of pain, expelling it on a scream when he lifted one leg over his forearm and buried himself inside my pussy. He didn’t give me any time to adjust, driving into me over and over again, fucking me into the wall.
I grabbed at his hand, unable to pull it away. My chest began to burn as my lungs were deprived of the air they desperately needed. He watched me choke and fight to breathe with a serene expression on his face.
“You know what you have to do.”
He sounded far away. I couldn’t respond. I swore there was no way in hell I was coming, not when my brain started to go fuzzy. I thought he was going to kill me but at the last second, he forced what he wanted out of m
e.
His hand fell away at the exact same time my body went numb. I sucked in air as pressure burst in my core. I had no recourse, forced to let the orgasm sweep over me as his cock bottomed out. Without a sound, he buried himself to the hilt and froze. I felt him jerk twice, releasing his come as far inside me as he could.
He stepped back, slowly easing out his flaccid dick. I looked down and rubbed at my neck. My mouth went dry as I watched excess semen drip down my thigh. He couldn’t have changed his mind so quickly from our discussion in the confessional.
“Why would you do that?”
“Why would I not do that?”
He reached out and swirled his fingers in the seedy liquid and then brought them up to my mouth. I mechanically sucked off every drop the shower didn’t wash away, barely tasting it. His soulless eyes tracked every flick of my tongue.
“We have somewhere to be.” Without another word, he reached for his body wash and began lathering it on my skin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
At some point, I must have dozed off because when I opened my eyes again we were no longer moving, and it took me a few seconds to remember where I was.
“There’s my girl.” Romero’s voice broke through my disoriented haze. I turned my head and was greeted by his perfect smile. I reached up and touched the side of his face, as if I needed reassurance he was real.
Was he going to pretend the last few hours never happened? Apparently so. He kissed my open palm before pulling my hand away from his cheek, waking me all the way up.
Unsticking my cheek from the leather seat, I peered through the windshield.
Once my eyes adjusted to the darkness around us, I saw a single light on up ahead and instantly knew where we were.
“What are we doing here?” I asked as soon as I was out on solid ground.
He looked down at me with a sinister smile and wrapped an arm around my shoulders, turning me in the direction of the old farmhouse. “They took one of mine, so I’m going to take all of theirs.”
“Let’s get this done,” Cobra hype-manned, coming around the back of the Jeep with the bloody pillowcase he had stashed in the hatch before we left. He turned it upside down and a severed goat head hit head the ground with a soft thud.
I wrinkled my nose and frowned. “That is fucking sick.”
“Sick like rad? Or sick like ew?” he asked, picking it up by its tiny horns.
“Definitely the latter. Where did you even get that? And where is the rest of it?” Arlen asked, curling her lip up.
“I don’t remember,” he shrugged.
“Come on.” Romero dropped his arm from my shoulders and grabbed my hand, setting off at a rapid pace.
As we neared the wraparound porch, the only sound that could be heard was faint sobs coming from inside the barn.
“Are you going to break in?”
Grimm walked up the stairs and turned the door knob. He strolled into the house like he lived there and spun around to face us. “We don’t need to break in; they never lock their door.” He smirked and disappeared out of sight.
If life were a movie, this was the part that would be paused as a wise narrator explained just how fucked I was about to find myself. This is the part where they would say I should have turned and ran as if hellhounds were on my heels.
It was the part where I would understand why they called my lover the devil. It was his kind way of giving me the pamphlet version of an introduction to the world he talked about that normal people couldn’t survive in.
Going into this house was the beginning of my end, the catalyst for everything that was yet to come.
Romero kept his hand clasped around mine as we walked forward with Arlen and Cobra. The tip of my boot was barely over the threshold when a woman screamed and a man landed at an awkward angle on the hardwood floor a few feet ahead of us.
“That’s one!” Grimm called down from the upper level.
Blood began to pool around the man’s head. He wasn’t wearing anything but a pair of drawers. His lifeless, wide-eyed stare was locked on us.
Cobra walked around him, goat head in hand, and entered the kitchen. Doors slammed from upstairs and footsteps thundered across the floor, making the ceiling fixtures rattle.
Romero looked towards the staircase and let me go, giving me a little nudge forward. “You two, go set the table.”
“What the hell do we need to do that for?” Arlen asked from beside me when we could no longer see him.
“Romero’s methods only make sense to himself.”
“And him.” She gestured to the kitchen where Cobra was dumping cooking oil into a saucepan.
I walked forward, chalking my jitteriness up to bad nerves and Romero’s precarious mood. The kitchen and dining room were side by side. Spotting a china cabinet in the back corner, I steered Arlen with my shoulder and made a beeline for it.
“This place is filthy.”
“That’s an understatement,” Arlen muttered.
Clutter and dirty laundry were everywhere. There was a thick residual stench of cooked flesh in the air.
Searching the dining room for a light switch, I swept my gaze past the kitchen and saw it was even worse.
Dishes were piled a mile high in the sink, chunks of black grime were smeared on faded yellow tile, and a plastic pitcher with questionable content was tipped over on the counter.
Finding a light switch, I flicked it up with the tip of my finger, having zero desire to touch anything around me.
“Table’s already set,” Arlen pointed out.
“Good, we can get started then,” Romero responded, walking into the room half-dragging a woman by the back of the neck. I instantly recognized her from the day we escaped.
“It was Bill. You know I know the rules! I would never be so stupid, Romero.” She clutched at his arm but he simply shook her off.
“Martha, we had a deal and you violated our terms. You had no business being in my woods in the first place. Did I not provide your family with enough to eat?”
I crossed my arms, watching their interaction with furrowed brows.
These people were cannibals. The only way he was giving them food was by giving them other people. Why the fuck would he do that?
He sat her down in a chair and reached in his back pocket, retrieving the Browning knife he always carried. “Place your hands on the table, Martha.”
She looked up at him with tears rolling down her face and shook her head. Chewing my bottom lip, I glanced back into the kitchen to check on Cobra. He was rifling through the drawers, placing things I assumed he intended on taking with him in a pile.
“I need your help, Cali.”
Bringing my focus back to Romero, I uncrossed my arms and made my way around the table, stopping beside the woman.
“Place her left hand on the table.”
Wondering where he was going with this, I pried the woman’s stiff hand away from where she clutched it to her chest and held it down as he instructed.
“I’m going to count to three.”
At his words, the woman began to struggle and push at me with her other arm. Arlen grabbed it and held it identical to the way I was.
“Three,” Romero said calmly, driving his knife through the side of her left hand, removing it and plunging it straight through the back of her right. I winced and turned my head away as she screeched in my ear. Her blood quickly made its way across the table, some making it onto my skin.
“Pin em down,” Romero instructed in the same level tone.
Searching for something that could do what he wanted, I swiped up the steak knife from the now bloody table setting beside me, and pushed it through the hole he had just made, sticking it into the wooden table with a twist.
Arlen didn’t hesitate to do the same.
The woman dropped her chin to her chest and moaned, more than likely slipping into shock. I wiped my blood hand on the back of her shirt and stepped back.
“Look what I got.” Grim
m came from the opposite direction with an unconscious man in a choke-hold and the little boy from the barn like he was a sack of potatoes.
“Give me the kid.” Romero held out his arms, taking the crying little boy from Grimm.
As Grimm situated the man across from the woman who had yet to stop groaning, I gave Romero a questioning look.
“What are you doing?” I asked with a calmness I didn’t feel.
“What do you think I’m doing?” he shifted the kid around so that his back was pressed into his chest and his feet dangled off the floor.
“Grease is ready!” Cobra called out over the sound of the oven door slamming.
“Let him go.” I kept my eyes locked with his, my voice low but demanding.
“Why would I let him go?”
“He’s just a kid, you fucker!” Arlen lunged forward in a stance meant to snatch the kid away but Grimm moved quicker. He let the man fall out of his chair and snaked an arm around Arlen’s waist, hauling her backward.
Not so much as batting an eyelid, Romero lifted the boy higher and gave a sharp twist to his neck, strong enough to sever the connection between brain and nervous system, before dragging his knife across the boy’s throat. He dropped the body right beside his mother’s chair, and then proceeded to torture her further by removing two of her fingers.
I was cemented to the floor, watching everything happen as if through a periscope. Arlen’s screams were muffled as Grimm smothered her mouth with his hand.
Cobra walked in, carrying the saucepan of oil, and placed it down in the center of the table. Romero dropped the severed fingers in and they immediately began to pop and sizzle.
I watched the man on the floor wake slowly at first, startling awake when the scene before him fully settled into his brain. Grimm swapped Arlen for him, letting her break away from him.
She wasted no time taking off out of the room. I heard her footsteps hit the porch and knew she was making a run for it.
I looked at Romero and he already had a knowing smile on his face, two steps ahead of my thought process. With a slight, almost unnoticeable nod of his head, he dared me to run.