Miscreants: Next Generation (Badlands 8)

“Mostly impossible and suicidal.”

“Yeah, but that’s not much different than what you three just did. It takes big balls of steel to piss off that guy.”

“How do you know he’s going to be pissed?”

“You guys just killed two of his people…and she’s his stolen treasure.” He pointed to me.

Oh, so he was one of those.

There were lots of stories floating around about Samael and me. Some described us as a romantic tragedy. Others claimed my older sister was the one he’d been madly in love with. Ultimately only one was closest to the truth, and the origins of it tied into our childhood.

A cautionary tale of a silent wolf and his precious lamb. Everyone feared for the day the predator would snap and slaughter his prey. After all, wolves were notorious for making meals of lambs, weren’t they? But this story had one major flaw. How weak they portrayed this lamb to be was wrong.

As wrong as the other rumors about him stealing me away like some helpless maiden.

That always made me scoff. He’d taken me away in a rather unconventional way, but he didn’t kidnap me by any means.

Takara gave me a soft smile, knowing exactly how I’d wound up where I had. I wasn’t going to bother correcting the guy. I didn’t know him well enough or care to change his beliefs. People could think whatever they wanted.

Refusing to get hung up on any more thoughts of Mal, I decided to take in the sights around us. There was a time and place for everything; an abandoned town wasn’t the spot to have a breakdown.

Besides, this was my first time being away from the lodge in forever.

Patchy grass, yellowing and brittle from constantly being in the sun, had grown everywhere. On the sidewalks, beneath old buildings, in the middle of the street.

All the homes and stores were clustered close together.

They were arranged side by side in a way that meant you could climb from one window to the next. Very few still had any glass.

It was obvious no one had lived here in ages. Maybe some animals and lags took shelter here when passing through like we were, but people couldn’t survive in a place like this for long. The town itself didn’t seem as if it should exist.

“I don’t want to slow us down, but I really have to pee.”

“Same,” Takara agreed quickly. “I didn’t want to be the first to say it. I have to go too.”

“Uh.” Poet rubbed the back of his neck and started looking around.

“There’s an old service station somewhere up ahead,” Travis offered.

“Or we could pick one of these houses with overgrown bushes,” I replied.

“Which one?” Poet asked.

I looked to the left and chose randomly. “The one that used to be blue.”

“We’ll wait here. Be quick.”

I nodded and motioned for Kara to come with me.

“I’ve got wipes in my bag.”

She slipped it off her shoulders and passed it to me. “I knew I could count on you for personal hygiene,” she teased.

“Well, of course,” I replied haughtily.

We moved up a small hill and walked to the side of the house. The bushes had grown so uncontrollably they’d begun to merge. I tugged my bag open and retrieved my small casing of wipes, removing two before handing it to Kara so she could get her own.

I popped my button and lowered my shorts, squatting alongside Kara, our bare asses a few inches away from the side of the depleted house.

“I feel like I’ve been holding this for ages,” I confessed with a sigh.

“We have. I can feel myself getting lighter.”

Finishing up, I tossed the wipes down by the bushes and started to fix my shorts. Hearing what sounded like voices, I slowly redid the button, looking at Kara to see if she’d heard them too.

“What is it?” she whispered, adjusting her jeans.

“I think I heard someone.” I looked towards the far end of the house, unable to see around it. “Come on.”

I grabbed my bag off the ground and tugged on the drawstrings, heading back out to the street.

Poet’s hazel eyes moved between the two of us. “You guys good?”

“She thought she heard someone.”

“That’s plural,” I corrected.

He and Travis both stared in the general direction of the house.

“Best we keep moving. There shouldn’t be anyone here at all, unless it’s someone from your faction.”

“He’s right. Let’s keep going. We definitely don’t want to have any run-ins.”

Settling back into our horizontal line, we continued in the same direction we’d been going, all of us on the lookout for any sign of life. Another ten minutes rolled by before I heard anything else. I held a finger to my lips to signal them to hush, then pointed to my ear and mouthed, “Did you hear that?”

Takara nodded just as the voices came again, much more distinguishable.