Outcasts (Badlands 3)

“Carter?”

“In here!” the man advancing towards me responded.

“I’m co—” Whatever his friend was gonna say ended abruptly, and a familiar voice let out a loud whoop immediately after.

There was another splash, and then Carter was gone. It took me a split second to realize the man with blood smeared on his face and down his arms was Grimm, currently gutting the man who’d tackled me.

I say gutting, because there was really no other way to describe what looked like a mini scythe slicing right up the middle of the man’s stomach. The skin made a crinkly sound as it was spread apart. The muscles in Grimm’s back and arms flexed from the strain of him dragging his curved blade upward, cutting through abdominal muscle and tissue.

Immediately, a smell much stronger than the stagnant water reached my nose, almost like a burning chemical.

Blood and somethin akin to grease ran down the man’s front as intestines became exposed.

With a small grunt, Grimm all but kicked the man back off his blade. He went down but he wasn’t dead yet. His body violently convulsed, making mini bubbles in the water.

“Ugh, that smell is—”

“Like roses!” a voice exclaimed from above.

I looked up and immediately found a pair of silver eyes.

“Cobra?”

“The magnificent,” he beamed, holding a hand out to me.

I smiled back at him, glancing at Grimm, who was sloshing his way towards me.

He was covered in blood, corpse juice, and tainted water from head to steel toed boot, yet he looked damned good, in my opinion.

“Here,” he said when he reached my side, hoisting me towards Cobra, who easily lifted me the rest of the way out of the pool.

Bless him for not mentioning the way I knew I smelled.

I was sat gently to the side so he could grab Grimm and one handedly help pull him out next. He wasn’t breathin hard or nothin. I sat there feelin like a deflated balloon.

He looked down at me with a storm in his eyes. “Didn’t I tell you to stay put?” he asked, pulling me off the dirty floor.

“I’m gonna go try and get a signal.” Cobra was quick to interject, winking at me before making a hasty retreat. I only then noticed he had blood on his hands too, no doubt the result of that whoop I’d heard.

I stared at Grimm, doing another sweep to make sure he was really okay before shoving him in the shoulder. I put effort into it but he was like an immovable stone.

“You’re a real dickhead, you know that? You can’t hand someone a gun who doesn’t know how to use it, and then poof into thin air.”

“I didn’t think you’d be that shitty of a shooter. You aim and pull the trigger Brat, preferably not to shoot me next time.”

I swiped strands of filthy wet hair off my face and glared at him. “Well, I sure as hell can shoot at close range, and this shitty shooter was the distraction that saved your ungrateful self. Why would you leave me in the first place!? You can’t do that. You’re not allowed to leave me behind, Grimm!” I reckon from the sound of my voice, I was close to hysteria at this point.

I really didn’t like this. Being such a hormonal mess was embarrasin enough, but doing it in front of him was a million times worse.

When it registered that he’d said somethin about me shootin him, my eyes went right to his arm that had the most blood on it.

I didn’t see a bullet hole, but neither of the men he’d shot back at that shithole of a house had gaping holes from where’d he’d shot them.

“I-I shot you?” I rushed forward, feeling all over him, not thinkin this through at all, like I could find the wound and magically heal it with my hands alone.

He had too much blood and was too wet for me to tell what was what. When his body shook underneath me, I stopped and looked at his face to see if he was about to collapse.

“Cobra!” I yelled, a split second before I saw Grimm was laughin.