Outcasts (Badlands Book 3)

by Natalie Bennett

  “You were right. Maybe you ain’t so good at this,” I quipped, opening my eyes. “You also helped hold a damn machete on top of my head, but we can just sweep that under the rug.”

  “I was ready to kill you to prevent this. Look at us now, though, destined to be epically fucked up,” he joked, laughing beneath his breath.

  “I’m gonna have to shut you down, because I’m one hundred percent sound of mind,” I deadpanned.

  He tossed another wipe down and gave me a serious look.

  “I’m not a poet, Brat. I can’t give you long, drawn out exclamations drenched in honey. Words always fade away, and eventually mean nothing. I let my actions speak for me.”

  Cue a mental eye-roll. “I know all this, Grimm. I get you.”

  “You get me, huh?” he asked, wiping his dick off and then removing his old pants completely to pull on a fresh pair with clean briefs. “Then you wouldn’t have tried to skin me alive, you little hellion.” He knelt, swapping socks and then re-lacing his boots. “I wasn’t going to pull out; I was trying to switch positions. I know he was giving you a pill. Now, get dressed, because I do need to have a conversation with you about a few things, Noah included.”

  “Then what?” I asked, pulling the fresh black tank top over my head.

  “I think you know what,” he answered.

  And I did, which is why when he asked me earlier, I’d told him everything, why I made sure I had the guts big enough to end someone’s life. I wanted every single one of those men dead, especially Noah. I wanted him down on his knees, weeping for mercy.

  He’d survived far too long.

  But was I savage enough to do somethin like that over and over again? Realizing I’d gone off on a mini mental tangent and Grimm was now sliding my new shorts up my legs himself, I began tryna explain.

  “I’ve never felt like this before. I’m not real sure how to deal with it…hate, anger, the pain. It’s never-ending. I feel stuck in reverse, but I swear I’m trying to keep movin forward.”

  “You’re the only thing groundin me right now. I’m not ashamed to admit that.” I pulled my stretchy shorts the rest of the way up and did the top button.

  Grimm began tying my left boot as soon as I had it on, clearly in a hurry to get on with this whole shebang.

  “I won’t tell you to get the fuck over it, but I am going to get you through it. I’m yours, Brat. You don’t need to worry, you don’t have to hide. Trust me to take care of you. I’ll be whatever you need, as long you don’t let those fuckers be the reason you lose your soul.”

  He stood and took hold of my face, his gaze searching for somethin he must’ve found, cause he smiled so beautifully I think my heart stopped all over again. “You and I are going to have so much fun together.” He pressed a possessive kiss on my slightly parted lips, resting his forehead on mine. “Hold onto your hatred, hold onto the pain and the rage. I’m going to show you how fucking beautiful it all is."

  I didn’t have any idea on how to take that promise. Cause that’s what it was—a dark promise, maybe even a sworn oath.

  But I was more than ready to find out.

  Part Two

  She who walks the floors of hell finds the key to the gates of her own Heaven buried there like a seed.

  –SEGOVIA AMIL–

  Chapter Thirteen

  I shined the light down on his broken body.

  His upper half was bent back so far the exposed portion of his skull nearly touched his ass.

  Cobra’s impressed whistle echoed down the old shaft. He knew I’d rather go right in for a kill than drag anything out. The man lying scalped and broken on the top of the old elevator said otherwise.

  “Damn, Grimmy. What the fuck did he say? This isn’t yo style.”

  “You have a style?” Brat asked, still curiously peering over the ledge.

  “Beth told him my name,” I said.

  “My sister?” Brat whirled around, glancing between us.

  Having a third sense that her clumsy ass would misstep right down the shaft, I pulled her away from it.

  Cobra stepped back as well, crossing his arms with furrowed brows. “Arlen’s sister,” he pointed at Brat, “told one of Vance’s men your name? Why? How the fuck is she still running those loose pussy lips of hers?” He glanced at Brat again. “I do mean that offensively, by the way. Your sister is a—”

  “Cum-hoarder, I know. But what are ya’ll talkin about? How would she know these snake dudes, much less talk to em? Romero had her locked away.”

  I stepped back and leaned against the wall, pulling her into my side.

  “In light of recent events, I have a pretty good hunch Beth hasn’t been locked up for some time. The acolyte watching over her is the only one allowed in and out of the freezer where she’s supposed to be being kept.

  “Look what just happened a few months ago—our own fucking informants were turning from the inside. Ask yourself why, and then take into account Beth just happened to come around when that crazy bitch, Tiffany, did. She spontaneously ran away, making it out of The Kingdom, and Noah’s working with Romero out of the kindness of his heart?”

  “No one with even a quarter of a brain would fuck with the Savages. Yet, now these Venom fucks are involved. Noah isn’t controlling them, so that tells us someone they feel is just as big as Romero is. And they have to be selling a pretty convincing dream.”

  I waited for them to catch on; it only took Cobra a minute.

  “Well, fuck. Do you think Rome knows?”

  “Knows that he could never trust Noah? Yes, no one is fucking trusting Noah. Does Rome know Venom is involved? No, me and you didn’t even know that, which means it’s on the DL.”

  Cobra ran his hands through his hair, letting out a deep breath. “So the coach is throwing a tantrum because he just lost his QB?” He spoke in code, shooting a subtle glance at Brat, saying all I needed to know without saying a word.

  “Hold up a sec. Why would my father do any sort of business with Noah or the…snake dudes? What they could possibly offer him?” Brat asked.

  She’d caught onto a good gist of what I was saying, but not the most important parts.

  “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you on the road.”

  “I’ll go find a signal to call Rome. You two get your shit,” Cobra said, already zipping down the hall. “Meet me in the old chapel!”

  Brat stared up at me with an expectant look on her face. She wanted answers to all the questions I knew she had, and I didn’t want her to know about any of this. Now, I understood why Rome had kept so much from my sister. The truths, the lies, and the secrets all had the ability to destroy in the right hands.

  I wasn’t him, though. And Brat wasn’t Cali. We were our own people. This relationship was just me and her. She hadn’t held anything back from me, and I was going to give her the same benefit. Ignoring our reality wouldn’t bury or erase it.

  I reminded myself she’d blown someone’s brains out, watched me gut someone, and made me come like a little fucking boy all within the past few hours. Without giving her a warning, I reached out and grabbed her by the throat.

  Her small gasp of surprise was the only emotion she showed.

  Forcing her to walk backward, I made her stand right on the edge of the old elevator shaft. If I dropped her, she would die, or break majority of the bones in her supple little body.

  Keeping my grip as it was, I waited for her to yell, delving straight down the front of her shorts with my other hand, sliding her back a little more. Now, the back half of her boot was over the ledge.

  I pushed two fingers inside her tight cunt, and she moaned. I began to pump them in and out, ignoring how hard my dick was, how fucking beautiful she was, and I waited.

  I waited for her to demand I let her go, tell me I was a sick psycho, scream, cry—show any sign that this was all some mental fluke.

  I’d want her all the same, but maybe it wouldn’t be to this extent. Every time I fucking looked at her, I
was ready to get down on my knees and worship at her alter.

  She made me feel, made me care, laugh, joke.

  I made promises to keep her safe and make her strong, show her how beautiful hell was. She said I kept her grounded. Even if this were inevitable, it was happening faster than I thought it would.

  She humanized me, and to some people that was no big deal, but when you spent damn near nineteen years dehumanized, killing every women you fucked or didn’t fuck for sport, it was unnerving.

  It was having all my don’t give a fucks come back at once in the form of a woman.

  Whose bright idea was it to give death the seed of life? Didn’t they know what I’d do to her? Make her a sinner. Be like my brother and think of myself as a king. Crown her my queen of everything dark and dead.

  The intense fucking sunlight in her eyes was a siren’s song that would tempt the strongest man.

  I wanted to fuck her again and again until a red river was flowing from between her juicy thighs.

  “Grimm.” She swallowed audibly, flooding my fingers with her pussy’s arousal, as if she’d heard my last thought aloud, getting more turned on the harsher my grip got.

  I could end this all right now and let her go, try and go back to how my life was before. I couldn’t, though. Swinging her away from the ledge, I pressed her into the wall, shoving her shorts down far enough that I could get my dick inside her.

  She fumbled with the top button on my jeans, gripping my cast-iron dick and damn near forcing it inside all on her own. I knew she was sore from just twenty minutes ago, and how rough this would be with a wall of peeling paint and half spread legs to accommodate my size. I slammed in to the hilt.

  My balls were already lifting to spill. I’d found heaven, and it was inside her pussy.

  She clenched around me, grabbed my hair, and pulled.

  I fought the urge to come like a little bitch and fucked her like she was a whore.

  She began moaning so loud she could’ve woken the man with the missing scalp lying on top of the elevator just a few feet away from us.

  I belatedly realized she was saying my name. I usually hated that shit, but Brat could do no wrong. It was a quick, thrusting in and out, pounding my balls into her cunt hard and fast type of fuck. She came when I bit down on the side of her neck and slammed her into the wall, like the good little pain-slut she was becoming.

  I came with a low grunt, pumping every drop of my come into her. She shuddered against me, breathing heavily.

  “Damn, we should have been doin this a long time ago.”

  She smiled up at me, and my chest constricted so goddamn hard it almost hurt.

  The advice I’d been given echoed in my head—when you know, you know.

  “I like that you’re filthy. I like that you’re mine.” She smiled again, planting a kiss right at the corner of my mouth.

  Maybe I should have done this shit a long time ago, but then we wouldn’t be who we were right this second. My fucking emotions didn’t know whether to be up or down. I stared at her with my usual mask in place. Maybe I’d gone crazy, maybe I was fucking weak, but I could never set her free.

  I think she got it wrong, because I felt like she’d just grounded me—like an anchor wrapped around my balls. Looking at her like this, I found what I’d been searching for but saw it from a different angle. It wasn’t sunlight I was seeing at all.

  Fuck Romero for always being right.

  Her halo was broken, but there was brimstone burning in her eyes. Her hatred was beautiful.

  I’d give her a crown forged of blood and bone from every motherfucker who’d laid a hand on what was mine.

  I hoped she was ready to paint some shit red. We weren’t going home until their bodies were at our feet.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Assume the worst. Expect it to be even worse than that.

  That’s how I was going to think of all the things Dad could’ve done. Grimm said he’d tell me on the road, and I was patient enough to wait. Besides, I wasn’t really excited to know how much shit Dad had started. Cobra’s ridiculous code talk hadn’t gone over my head. I knew full well what a coach and quarterback was.

  I wasn’t surprised he’d had help from over the wall, either—just who it was helping him. Why Noah? What role did Romero have in it?

  They were questions I didn’t even know if I wanted the answers to, but couldn’t afford to be naïve about.

  I followed behind Grimm with a bottle of water, munching on a pack of old saltine crackers he’d procured for me out the duffel after a pee break. I had his atomic bag on my back, the straps tightened so it wasn’t slouchy. I was assuming we were about to head out; course, Grimm was being mysterious and didn’t explain it, but he’d gathered up our minimal supplies, shoving them in the bag I now carried, so that was my guess.

  The sun was starting to set, giving the old hospital a creepy aesthetic. We found the chapel easily enough.

  Cobra hopped up from an overturned rotten pew the moment he saw us.

  “They’re here. Talk fast before I lose my signal again,” he said into a cellphone that looked more like a giant walkie-talkie with a long antenna. I hadn’t seen one of those in ages, but I’d heard they got reception best in situations like these.

  “I’m sending some acolytes to Plymouth. Go to Lucy’s and she’ll have a lead waiting along with them.” Romero’s voice crackled over the line, and it didn’t take a magician to figure out he was pissed.

  “From there, you do what you have to do, but I want Noah alive. I’m gonna piss on him as he bleeds out like a fucking pig over a fire.”

  “I can feel the brotherly love from here,” Cobra joked.

  “Are you sure about this?” Grimm asked.

  “Don’t ask me stupidass questions, and Arlen, don’t fucking die.”

  “Wasn’t plannin to, fucker,” I muttered.

  “Smartass—” His voice cut off. I thought the line had gone dead, some secret blessin, but there were muffles in the background.

  “Have fun, Arlen! I’ll be here, round, depressed, and cheering you on.” Cali’s voice boomed through the speaker loud and clear, making me smile.

  “Call me when you get to Plymouth,” Romero snapped. The phone made an elongated beep and then cut off.

  “Let’s go,” Grimm said, taking me by the hand.

  “Where exactly are we goin, and why will there be acolytes?”

  “You know where we’re going. We’re going to kill shit, girl. And wherever that is, Rome is sending us some manpower,” Cobra answered.

  The surrealism of the situation was quick to sink into my mind. We were really doin this. I had wished it, I had told Grimm, and now it was happenin.

  “Who has a pre-game conversation before they go to kill people?” I asked, tryna distract myself from my inner thoughts as we made our back towards the parking deck.

  “People getting ready for a game, and you’re on the winning team now, sis,” Cobra grinned.

  “Sis?” I asked. “So I’m no longer the random chick who was probably going to die?”

  I was joking; we’d long surpassed that, but he’d said somethin along the lines of that to me upon the first kill I’d seen them do inside an old church. Such good times.

  I could see he was legit excited about doin this, to the point the man was nearly bouncing on his toes.

  “How does Romero know we’ll need acolytes for…whatever you just said?”

  “Romero is always twelve steps ahead, and never shows his full hand. He more than likely knows exactly what’s going on by now, has a bloodbath pile accumulating, and is waiting on us to make our move,” Grimm said.

  “Sounds much too stressful. Speakin of, how’s the baby?”

  “Baby S is fine,” Grimm answered.

  Lawd, I didn’t think the whole baby S, a.k.a., baby Savage would stick. That kid was going to be a ruthless little fucker.

  A loud bang echoed from somewhere in the building. We stopped and loo
ked at one another, none of us saying a word.

  Then, at the same damn time, Cobra and Grimm each pointed in the direction behind us. Clearly, they’d heard somethin extra that I couldn’t.

  “They probably had a look out, and seeing as how not a single one of them exited this hospital, he went for help,” Cobra said quietly.

  “Venom,” Grimm explained at my look of confusion. “The name of the gang with snake tattoos.”

  “For real? That’s what they came up with? Venom is a really stupid fuckin name,” I quipped.

  “Yeah,” Grimm laughed. “It is.”

  “You ready?” Cobra asked me suddenly.

  “For what?” I asked at the same time Grimm said, “Take this,” and passed me a pearl white switch blade he’d just removed from one of his back pockets.

  “We’re gonna take this staircase on the next left, go down the stairs, exit on the next level, go down the hall, circle back up, and haul ass to the parking garage,” Cobra explained.

  I had to walk myself through what he was saying twice in my head before I had it down pat. How the hell did they all think on their feet so fast?

  “Why the hell would we run? I thought the Savages didn’t get scared?”

  “Excuse the fuck out of me, but it was to keep you safe, princess,” Cobra drawled.

  We entered the staircase and I wound up sandwiched between them, clearly on purpose.

  “Why does Noah want me so badly?” I asked as we exited onto the next floor.

  “Because he has a god complex,” Cobra snorted, stepping through the open doorway that led to the next level.

  “The same reason he was giving you those pills,” Grimm answered.

  I ain’t know what he meant by that, and didn’t get a chance to ask.

  A woman’s short scream blasted through the air. It was so unexpected, I almost fell over my own two feet. If we’d gone left, it came from the right. It was followed by a door slamming.

  “Keep moving.” Grimm nudged my lower back. “They might not be here for you after all.”

  What the hell? “So those fuckers are gonna hurt some other woman, and we’re gonna keep going about our business?” I protested and tried to stop walkin, but Grimm was right at my back preventin me from doing so.