Miscreants: Next Generation (Badlands 8)

With that, I turned and headed towards where breakfast was always served.

I managed to put a decent amount of distance between Mack and me. Enough that by the time I got to the pavilions, he was either way behind or had decided to go somewhere else. Hopefully, he hadn’t gone to sulk or go off at the mouth. I’d done him a huge favor by rejecting him.

I slowed by the main cooking area to say hello to the cooks.

There were eight altogether, but I only spoke with two—my favorites. They’d been with the faction for well over a year and were like a Nana and Pops to most of us.

“Lilly,” Kodak greeted cheerfully when he spotted me, passing a platter to a proselyte I didn’t know.

They couldn’t have been new because they were sporting one of the hooded robes and on their neck was the tattooed insignia customary for the faction. It was crazy to think I’d once known everyone here. That seemed eons ago now.

“I was beginning to think you were skipping breakfast,” Patty, Kodak’s long-time companion, tossed over her shoulder.

They were a sweet couple, both originally from a reservation that had been overtaken.

“Never. You two know how I am about food.”

“Go take a seat. I will bring you a dish,” Kodak ordered in his thick accent, waving me off as another proselyte stepped up in line.

This was a long-standing tradition with us. I always came to get a plate, more than willing to wait the same way as everyone else, and was always denied. Samael was responsible for starting the whole preferential treatment.

Normally we’d have gone back and forth, knowing the outcome would remain the same, but they were way too busy for me to banter with today. Understandably so. Their workload had been increasing right along with the faction’s following. The two of them oversaw everything food related, from cooking and checking inventory to skinning, planting, and gutting.

I left them to it and continued to the area where the picnic tables were.

Weaving between them to get to my regular spot, I ignored all the stares that followed, used to them by now. The proselytes typically fell into one of three categories when it came to me.

Curiosity—because of who I was to both Samael and the Savages.

Disdain—for the very same reason.

Friendliness—they didn’t care what my status or station was, liking me for me.

The last realm of judgement, or lack thereof, was obviously the one I preferred. In general, I didn’t care about what anyone thought of me unless I valued them as a person.

On the topic of people I considered meaningful… I joined Takara and Poet at our usual table.

“Hey,” I greeted, sliding in between the two of them.

“We were just talking about coming to get you,” Poet said, scooting over so I had a bit more room.

Given that he was built like a beefy, tatted-up grizzly, he couldn’t move much further without crushing the girl on the other side of him.

“I overslept.” I snatched a grape off his tray and popped it into my mouth. Then, catching a whiff of whatever he showered with, I inhaled deeply to smell more of it. Something like honey.

“You smell good. What’d you use?”

“Some new stuff Mal had brought in. Makes the hair luxurious, doesn’t it?” He shook his head, causing his shoulder-length waves to bounce around.

“Yes, the brown is exceptionally radiant today,” I replied with a laugh.

“Don’t get him started again. I’ve had to put up with that all morning,” Takara griped. “Want my orange?”

I accepted the fruit and immediately began to peel it. I wasn’t joking around when it came to my love of food. It had yet to do me wrong.

“Have you heard what’s going around today?”

“Nope. Do I want to hear it?”

“Let’s just say, the rumor mill is something else this morning,” Takara stated, tucking a strand of long black hair behind her ear.

“People have nothing better to do than stir up bullshit drama,” Poet added.

Their tones were casual, but I knew this was their way of cluing me in. If whatever was being said wasn’t relevant, then they wouldn’t have brought it up. We never participated in the gossip circles.

One wild guess was that it had something to do with Mack. I wasn’t going to speak on that now.

There were topics we didn’t discuss around the proselytes, me being one of them. Sometimes the newer recruits were foaming at the mouth for any sordid detail I might let slip, just so they could run to Samael and repeat it.

It was a fool’s endeavor, but that didn’t stop them. Their relaying of information was never worth it. The second they finished spilling what they knew, Samael would all too happily make blood spill from slits in their throats. Unless he specifically asked, disloyalty to me was disloyalty to him. There wasn’t any room for that here.