Deviants (Badlands 2)

“Dude is determined to ride your dick,” Cobra spat, his smile instantly morphing into a scowl. “You think he knows the truth?” He asked before I could say anything about him implying he wanted to fuck Cali.

“No. If he did, we wouldn’t be at this humble abode.” I waved my hand around the room we’d been placed in.

It was nicer than some people’s houses, equipped with a living area, kitchenette, and a bed. We’d been there for two fucking weeks, playing the good alliance to buy some time.

Unbeknownst to David, we would no longer be staying there after that evening. I’d had a few spotters pinpoint Cali’s whereabouts, and I had a plan already set in motion to trap her.

Had things been different, I’d just have her snatched up and brought to my rendezvous point, but I couldn’t risk her doing something stupid in the state she was in, and I couldn’t fucking make a scene to get her myself.

I wasn’t sure who the fuck was playing on both teams, relaying information that was meant to be private, but I would find out.

I had the few people I knew I could rely on working at it without taking so much as a piss break.

It was this person’s fault Cali wasn’t safely by my side.

Instead, she was who the fuck knows where in the world she’d been way too sheltered from. If this person were smart, they’d take themselves out before I discovered their identity.

“Rome,” Grimm repeated my name, pulling me back to the situation at hand.

“Yeah, I got it.” I don’t know what I supposedly had, because my head wasn’t where it needed to be, and they both knew it.

The thing about having a mass amount of people counting on you and putting you on a pedestal was the responsibility that came with it.

But I had those same people’s respect and devout loyalty—why would I give that up?

I’d worked my ass off and done shit that would make the strongest man’s stomach turn itself inside out to get where I was.

Nothing was handed to me.

I was constantly planning, manipulating, and killing to get what I wanted. This was the beginning of the end, and I was going to make sure it turned out exactly as it needed to.

My life wasn’t a movie or piece of fiction. I was and always would be worse than any made up villain. Love wasn’t going to make me turn into fucking Saint Nick. I didn’t want to save this world. It was exactly how it should be. I damn sure didn’t want to start a revolution, I wasn’t a teenage girl, and I couldn’t give two fucks what happened to strangers.

I wasn’t seeking a way to the light, only peaceful eternal darkness. If I somehow didn’t make it out of this alive, I would be happy knowing that whatever was left of me would forever burn in the hell I had created.

“Are we ready for tonight?” I asked them, getting my head back in the game.

“More than ready. This sets everything in motion. It’s been a long time coming; we deserve this. You deserve this. My sister deserves this,” Grimm answered, openly accepting Cali as his blood for the first time.

I looked at the two men who had grown up with me, who had backed every decision I ever made, and who were just as fucked up as I was. We were a family, and Grimm was right.

We fucking deserved this.

CHAPTER THREE

The smoke was coming from a fire right in the middle of an abandoned intersection.

From our vantage point, we could see everything without completely exposing ourselves. Tito grabbed my hand to prevent me from going any closer. I was so transfixed on the scene in front of us, I didn’t pay him any mind.

“What the fuck?” he whispered, summing up my exact sentiments in three words. We stared at the gathering of men—and, I assumed, some women.

They wore black robes and white masks marked with inverted crosses on either side, so I couldn’t tell who was male or female.

Every pair of eyes w

as trained on Romero—including mine. My legs burned to run to him, but I wanted to watch this play out.

Standing directly to his left were a man and woman with thick pieces of rope around their necks. Another man knelt at his feet.