The Dead Saga | Book 7 | Odium 7

by Riley, Claire C.

  His dark gaze bored down on me. “I told ya, I was joking.”

  “Ha, ha, ha,” I mocked. “You are hilarious. A regular comedian.”

  “Och, Jesus Christ, what the fuck he sees in you I don’t know.” That time it was his turn to scowl.

  I gave him a dark grin. “Looks like I have heard of blowjobs after all.”

  And just like that, his thunderous look was gone, replaced with him laughing again. I rolled my eyes at him, the throb of my nonexistent arm reminding me that nothing about life was funny or good anymore.

  “If you got what you want from this little exchange, then I’m going to get going. Stormy wants to change my bandages and I have the incessant desire to kick you in the balls right now so it’s probably best for both of us if I make a move.”

  “I have something for you, Nina,” he grumbled sternly.

  “Syphilis?”

  “Nina!”

  “Gonorrhea?”

  “Ack, you’re pissing me off now, woman.”

  “I got it,” I said with a snap of my fingers before pointing them at him. “Genital warts!”

  Highlander put both hands on his hips and glared down in an attempt to intimidate me, but I rolled my eyes in mock boredom. “You can be—”

  “A real bitch? Tell me something I haven’t heard before. Now like I just said…don’t call me a bitch.” My stomach growled, though through hunger or anger I wasn’t sure; every part of me felt angry these days. But what no one realized or seemed to care about was that I had to hold on to the anger. If it weren’t for the anger I’d be nothing. I’d be a puddle of nothing. So I held on to my anger and my bitterness and I lashed out at the world with my nasty, unfiltered tongue to keep myself alive. Because although I wished I was dead, I knew that I was still alive for a purpose. I needed to stay alive until I killed the Savages.

  Highlander reached out with both hands, placing them on my shoulders, and looked down into my face. His expression went from irritation to sympathy in a hot second, and I hated that even more. I didn’t need his sympathy, nor did I want it.

  “I have something for you, if you’ll just contain that little psycho inside of you long enough to come and take a look.”

  “I mean, it’s going to be hard because the little psycho really wants to punch you in the junk right now.” I cocked my head to one side like I was assessing him, and I watched him cover his crotch with his hands.

  He sighed when he saw I still wasn’t budging. “Please, it’s something you’ll definitely want.”

  “Do you have cookies?” I asked.

  “Cookies? No, it’s not cookies.”

  “Then I don’t want it.”

  Nothing like looking a gift horse in the mouth, huh.

  “Where would I even get cookies from?” he asked, exasperated.

  “Not my problem. You’re the one who offered me cookies.” I shrugged.

  “I didn’t…” He sighed. “Fine, I’ll get you some damned cookies too if you’ll just come with me.”

  I chewed on my bottom lip, my stomach grumbling loudly at the prospect of cookies. “How do I know you’re not going to try and rape or kill me?”

  He laughed again, his grip falling from my shoulders. “Like I said, I wouldn’t put my dick anywhere near you. Gotta feeling I’d mentally scar the old fella,” he laughed, grabbing his crotch crudely, and I couldn’t help but crack a smile. “There she is,” he said. “Come on, Queen B, I’ll even say please if I have to.”

  I finally relented with a small nod of my head and we started to walk, me following his lead since I didn’t know where we were going. When we arrived at his and Balls’s little workshop, I threw Highlander a confused look.

  “Is this where you murder me?” I snarked.

  “If I thought I could get away with it without Shooter blowing my brains out…” He winked. He pushed through the door with my glaring gaze on his back. “Balls, ya dirty fecker, where are ya?”

  “I’m in the back,” Balls’s muffled voice shouted from the back.

  I looked around Balls’s workshop as we passed several tables piled high with different equipment and items that looked like they were mid-repair. A heap of metal was in one corner on the floor, and on the opposite side was a pile of wood of various shapes. Tools lined the walls, and shelving was stacked high with various items. I squinted to work them out, noticing batteries and wiring and springs and bulbs.

  Yet nothing seemed to be finished.

  “Is this why the hot water stopped working?” I grumbled. “Because he can never finish anything?”

  Highlander ignored my irritation, his long arms pushing the bead curtain apart so we could step through. In the back, Balls was sitting at a long wooden desk. He was wearing a welding mask and was hunched over something. Small sparks were coming from it, and he hissed under his breath and put his tool down before pushing the helmet off. His serious face flitted from Highlander to me and back to Highlander, an unspoken conversation going on.

  Balls and I used to get along, but since he almost got my friend killed, I’d tended to avoid him so I didn’t accidently kill him. Of course, it was a lot harder to kill someone now that I only had one hand, so I guess he was pretty safe unless I turned into a starfish and grew it back.

  He cleared his throat and stood up, gesturing to the table. “Nina, I erm, I know that you’ve been struggling since the erm, since…”

  “Since I had my hand hacked off by Scar? Since I nearly died from infection…twice? Since I lost all of my friends? Since the man I loved chose someone else? Since the end of the fucking world? Yeah, yeah, we all know the sob story, Balls, get on with the show and tell.”

  Balls winced. “Well, I was going to say since you lost your hand.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Please don’t say ‘lost your hand.’ That’s just insulting and stupid. I didn’t lose it. It’s not a purse that I misplaced, Balls. I’m not going to stumble across it and pop it back on like, ‘oh crap, that’s where it went, silly me!’ It’s my hand. A hand that used to be on the end of my wrist and is now rotting in the ground somewhere because someone sliced it off.”

  They exchanged a look and Balls continued, much to my annoyance. I was so done with that conversation. With that place. With that life. I wished I’d just give up already. Just stop breathing and quit existing. But I didn’t. I woke, I wandered aimlessly, I bitched people out, and then I slept again. It was one long, unhappy carousel ride.

  “We’ve been working on something for you, is what I’m trying to say,” Balls said hesitantly. It was actually kinda funny how nervous I made him.

  Highlander snorted under his breath. “It was actually my idea,” he said haughtily, because he wanted to make sure he got enough credit for whatever the hell this was.

  I glowered at them both. “Is it a gun? I’d like a gun so I can kill myself and put myself out of the misery of having to listen to you two, please. Obviously not before I killed you both though.”

  Highlander smirked. Balls actually looked offended. I didn’t give a shit either way.

  “Well, it may have been your idea, Highlander, but without me you couldn’t have done it.” Balls dropped his mask onto the desk with a heavy thump. “You’d do better to remember that.”

  “You’d do better to remember that it was still my idea, and without an idea all you’ve got is a bunch of parts and no balls!” Highlander roared with laughter and I was almost tempted to laugh too when Balls went red in the face.

  I huffed out my irritation, my hand propped on my hip. “When you’re both ready, can we get to the killing part?”

  Balls raised an eyebrow at me and Highlander slapped me on the shoulder. “I told you there was no killing involved.”

  “Then I’m out,” I said, and turned to leave.

  Highlander grabbed me and spun me back around. “Come and look before you storm off back to hell, you hellion of a woman.” He directed me toward the table, and when I reached it I stared down at the weird
pile of metal and leather on it, wondering what the hell kind of torture device it was. It looked painful and weird.

  “What am I looking at? All I see is brown leather and metal. Is this some weird BDSM you two are into? Shooter isn’t going to like this,” I tutted. I reached out with my good hand to pick up the item, and as I lifted it off the table I realized what it was and dropped it back down like I’d been burned. Like it was hot metal and I was cool ice and just that single touch was melting me.

  I stepped back from the table, my gaze fixed on the thing as I shook my head.

  “It’s custom built,” Balls said softly—too softly for him—and I turned to glare. “Don’t give me that ‘I want to rip your dick off’ look, Nina.”

  “Ohhhh, but I do,” I bit back.

  “It’s almost healed. A little padding and you’re good to go,” Highlander said, his voice as rough and tough as it always was. “Stop being a victim now. The narrative is getting boring.”

  It was the one thing I liked about him: there was no bullshit. He didn’t treat me like I was going to break, even when I was shattering in front of him. Yet his words right then were so misplaced. Pain cut through me as bright and visceral is a knife through flesh.

  “Try it on. There’s still some adjustments to be made.”

  I reached out and picked the weird metal arm back up. It was a half sleeve that looked like it would strap over my shoulder and attach at the elbow. I only lost my hand, but after an infection ravaged through me after my little trip out to try to save Mikey, I lost more, and more, and more. Until eventually they chopped it off from above the wrist but below the elbow.

  One good clean slice right through.

  I’d passed out from the pain.

  I had stayed passed out for a good couple of weeks, begging to be put back under whenever I came around. Until I eventually woke and Shooter said it was time to stay awake.

  The worst had passed, and I was alive.

  I was alive, and it was time to get on with living.

  My life had had ended a thousand ways since this all began, but I truly felt dead inside now. And a crazy medieval contraption that mimicked an actual arm wasn’t going to change that.

  I was a victim.

  I was weak and helpless.

  I dropped it back down and ran out of Balls’s workshop, slamming the door behind me.

  3.

  Nina

  “Heading to church in ten, if you give a shit,” Gauge said as he sat opposite me.

  I’d headed right to the food hall to get some food after leaving Balls’s workshop. I still needed to go and see Stormy so she could check my arm, but I figured I deserved some breakfast first before she got to prodding and poking me.

  “I don’t,” I replied without looking up.

  I loved these eggs. They weren’t like the eggs that you used to get—ten thousand hens all cooped up in a dark and horrible barn, breathing in each other’s feces, their bony feet disfigured. No, these eggs came from beautiful, well-looked-after, free-range hens. I would know, I looked after them sometimes. They were the only thing I showed affection to anymore. And I use the term affection loosely. They were still hens, after all, and I hadn’t completely fallen off the crazy wagon.

  “Nina.” Gauge grumbled my name like he was a magician and my name was his magical word to make something spectacular happen.

  “Gauge…” I mocked, shoveling another forkful of eggs into my mouth. God these were really, really good eggs. On a supply run a couple of weeks before, some of the bikers had traded with a family they’d met at a farm—some milk, flour, and corn in return for fixing up some stuff. They’d spent a good week there, mending fences and gates and securing the place as best they could before leaving with a truck full of goodies. I’d received a whole bag of corn just for me and my hens, and the hens had been producing some of the best eggs ever because of it.

  My hens tended to live off the land, but apparently Thanksgiving was on its way and Shooter wanted to kill a couple of my new feathered friends for dinner, meaning he wanted them to be as tasty as possible. I should have cared more that he was going to slaughter some of my little hens, but I didn’t. I didn’t care about a whole lot these days.

  So I selected the oldest birds of my little flock and began giving them some of the good stuff. They didn’t lay many eggs these days anyway, but what they did lay, thanks to my little corn supply, was damned gorgeous.

  “He could do with you being there,” Gauge grumbled again. He, meaning Shooter. I hated it when Gauge did this—acted like Shooter was a little boy that needed his mommy to tell him everything was going to be okay, and not a grown-ass scary man that could kill someone with a single bullet from an impossible distance. Yeah, that was how Shooter got his name. He was like a sniper with a gun, only his gun could be any gun. That was how good he was. Apparently, back in the day, he’d shot some guy while skidding down a mountainside. It was impossible odds—the distance huge, the target moving—but he’d gotten a good, clean shot in and the name had stuck.

  “And I could do with a million dollars,” I retorted dryly.

  He raised a graying eyebrow at me and I shrugged half-heartedly.

  “Not really. Money is completely useless now, so a million dollars would be stupid, but I’d take having an arm again if it’s up for auction.” I dropped my forkful of eggs to my plate and sighed before looking up at Gauge. He was staring at me… No, no, he was scowling at me, his graying beard twitching as he tried to hold his temper in check. “Do we have a lead on them yet?”

  He stared at me for a beat before answering. His graying hair was messy around his face and he looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks. He’d been doing everything he could to find out where the Savages had vanished to since the day we’d turned up at their caves and found that they’d abandoned them. We’d blown the hell out of those caves without even bothering to try to steal any supplies that might have been left behind, and I was glad. Everything in that place was death. Weapons carved from bone, clothes made out of skin, and food made out of our friends. It was a regular American Horror Story and I was glad when it collapsed in on itself, trapping its horrors within.

  “Maybe,” he finally grunted.

  He was being careful around me, choosing his words with caution. He knew how much I wanted to find the Savages and destroy them. Hell, we all did. But they had taken everything from me. They had led me down this path and I wanted nothing more than revenge before I died. I wanted it so bad I woke in cold sweats, calling out in anger as I imagined my blade slicing down the center of Aife.

  Of course, that was never going to happen.

  Not now that I was like this.

  I picked my fork back up, shoveling more eggs on to it. “You either have or you haven’t, Gauge. It’s one or the other. You can’t maybe find someone. You can’t maybe kill someone either. When you have a definite lead, come find me. Until then, we have nothing to say.” I pushed the forkful of eggs into my mouth and stood up, picking my now empty tray up with my one hand and walking away.

  “Nina!” Gauge yelled, catching up to me in three long strides. “Stop fuckin’ running.”

  “I’m not running, Gauge, this is the speed I walk.”

  He snorted on a laugh. “You walk like you’re running?”

  I ignored him and kept going, ignoring the looks we were getting as we headed through the clubhouse grounds. In the past couple of months, things had changed around there. A lot. After we’d gotten back from our hunting expedition of the Savages’ camp, Amara had told us that they’d lost almost all of their camp. Someone had set a fire somewhere and the whole place had gone up. They’d saved everything they could and gotten the hell out of there and had found their way here.

  Thankfully, Shooter had left a couple of his men behind to—and I say this with a sarcastic roll of my eyes—protect the women. The women didn’t need protection. Not any more than any other person did. But they had needed to know the way to the clubhou
se.

  The clubhouse had become everyone’s home now, and it had been expanded to accommodate a lot more people than previously. Though it had taken some getting used to from Shooter and Gauge, people had started to couple up. Amara and Gunner were now together—like together together. Even had their own cute little one-roomed house. They’d need something bigger at some point, because yes, Amara had finally given birth to a healthy baby girl. She was still only a month or two old, but one day she’d need her own room. I’d watched Gunner staring at both Amara and their daughter, Indigo, in awe at every opportunity for the past year.

  Whatever he’d done before, he’d never forgive himself, but he knew he’d deal with that in the next life. This one was for living. And he and Amara had brought new life into it.

  Personally, I thought they were insane to want to bring life into this hellhole, but each to their own I guess. I’d rather put a gun to my head than have a baby, something that Shooter and I had argued about at great length.

  “It would do the club good to see you there,” Gauge grumbled from behind me, and my footsteps staggered to a stop.

  I turned to face him with a disbelieving look on my face, and he shrugged because he hated that fact as much as I did.

  “You gave them hope, Nina,” he said, his features hard. He shook his head and dragged a hand down his beard. “But they’re beginning to lose it.” His brows pulled down lower and I wondered how much of his pride it hurt for him to admit that.

  Gauge and I didn’t have the best relationship. I mean, he didn’t get along with many people. His past was ugly, from what I’d been told, and like me, he’d lost everyone he’d ever loved.

  “Maybe that’s for the best,” I said, my tone dark.

  “Those men, they abandoned the Rejects not for Shooter, or me…but for you. They turned on their club and their leader because of your words. You incited a rebellion and you can’t walk away from them. I hate that more than I’d care to admit, but it’s the damned truth. They follow Shooter, they’re Highwaymen now, but it’s you that they look up to. They need to see you, Nina.” Gauge’s gaze watched my hard expression wordlessly before finally he shook his head. “Ten minutes. Just turn up, show your face—”