Deviants (Badlands 2)

We were surviving off a depleting supply of MRE’s from the backpack he’d managed to keep attached to him when we free-fell from the bridge. Splitting one pack between us wasn’t exactly adding to my nutritional needs. We slept in shitty abandoned buildings or the woods, and slunk around like stray dogs with our tales between our legs to avoid being spotted by anyone from The Order.

He clenched his jaw and took a step forward.

“You know what? This entire situation was avoidable. I told you not to go! I knew this would happen.

“If I was scared, it was of you. You were smiling while he was dying! You’re different now, and it’s the Savages’ fault. The devil himself got inside your head. What happened to you being able to handle it?

“Things wouldn’t have snowballed like this if you didn’t fuck him. You should have left him. Can you really not see what he’s turned you into?”

Judgmental asshole. I wanted to tear his throat out, so much so that I started visualizing it in my head. He was talking out of his ass about a situation he had no real knowledge of.

Romero would never have let me leave him, which added even more confusion to the fact that he’d turned around and left me. Still, though, I couldn’t allow him to be incriminated for my irreparable moral compass.

“First of all, I can fuck whoever I want, however want, whenever I want. You don’t get to dictate who I spread my legs for.

“Second of all, don’t blame him for the way I am. I’ve been this way from the beginning—you’ve just never seen it. You have never known me, Tito.

“You believed the façade just like everyone else did. Just like I believed you would tell me the truth about your sister and not use me for your own benefit.”

“Jinx knew,” he immediately deflected, choosing a topic that would sway the conversation away from what he’d done.

Guilty sonofabitch.

I was hoping he’d trip up and spill what actually went down with that whole situation, because I had yet to get all the details.

He wasn’t the least bit shocked or surprised about Tilly-slash-Tiffany’s involvement in all of this.

That had me wondering just how much he was keeping from me.

“Jinx showed me the pictures and articles you hoarded when she found out who had you. She’s the one who knew you were, uh, different. I chose not to listen.”

I rolled my eyes at his nice way of saying Jinx knew I was fucked in the head. Showing Tito my memorabilia of Romero sounded exactly like something she would do, hoping he’d come get me. As if I’d needed rescuing. I had never been more content in my life. I’d been happy.I had just started to feel like I finally belonged somewhere with a man no one sane would dare climb into bed with.

Fucking Romero and his soulless eyes. I felt him everywhere, and he was nowhere to be seen. His smell, his touch, and the way he tasted in my mouth––how he watched me with his predatory eyes when he was buried between my thighs. The vivid memories were a battering ram to my once stone-walled mentals.

Nothing that happened on Narcoose Bridge made sense, because I knew him just as eerily well as he knew me.

I knew he would never work with David without having a damn good motive. And then there was the issue of delegates turning on delegates while others still went after Romero’s people and vice versa. Toss in that there were outliers on the bridge too, and it left a major question unanswered. Who was the enemy of whom?

Thinking of it all over again brought something Tito had just said to the forefront of my mind. “Where are Jinx and Grady? Were they on that bridge?” I asked suddenly, staring Tito down.

“Where are they?” I repeated when he didn’t respond.

“I’m not sure what happened to Grady. We were never together. Jinx…was taken,” he answered slowly, palming strands of dark curls off his sweaty face.

I narrowed my eyes. “What do you mean, she was taken?”

“The redhead Romero runs with took her.”

“Cobra? He’s alive?!” I couldn’t keep the elation out of my voice.

That meant Arlen could be alive, too.

“I don’t know if he is now…when Jinx and I were running towards you, he was running away. They collided. By the time I turned back to help her, they were gone. He’d been shot at least once or twice.”

“Damn,” I muttered, scrubbing a hand over my face. My head felt like it was going to implode. Thoughts began whipping back and forth like a game of jungle pong.

Arlen could be anywhere, but I refused to believe her heart wasn’t still beating. She was resilient. As for Jinx, I had not the slightest idea why they would take her, and even less faith that she was alive.