Outcasts (Badlands 3)

“What?” Grimm asked, glancing at me from the corner of his eye.

“Just thinkin.” I laid my head on his shoulder and hid another smile.

Cobra, clearly feeling left out, hooked his arm through mine on the other side as we went down the last hall to the parking deck staircase.

Who’d have thought lil ol me would be in the shittiest of situations, again, but able to smile and laugh as dead bodies piled up by the hour? I’d killed two men, and had never felt stronger. I had my reaper to thank for that.

I had a man I considered a brother back.

I felt adrenalized. This new me wasn’t so bad after all; seemed she got shit done.

Chapter Sixteen

I was a bit surprised Grimm’s Harley was fine, as was the 4x4 muscle car sitting beside it with a giant metal bar across its grill.

They sat in the back corner of parking deck C in perfect condition.

“The engines are going to draw them to us like flies on shit,” Cobra pointed out, leaning on the hood of his car.

“How big is this group? Are they like the Savages?” I asked.

“No one can top what Romero built, but even ten people is ten bodies that need dealt with. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say there’s at least that many, since little Blue,” he stopped and pointed at the trio standing a lil ways away from us lookin completely at odds, “already told us they’re all over the city. They’re so desperate to get their hands on you that they invaded one of our territories. I don’t think we’re going to amicably talk our way out of this,” Cobra said.

“Negotiating is for pussies.” Grimm finally spoke up, placing a now empty gas can into Cobra’s trunk. “I don’t negotiate, I send people to an early grave.” He walked behind me and slid the bag off my back, casually tossing it in Cobra’s backseat in exchange for another he secured on the back of his Harley.

“Well, we need to get to Plymouth. So let’s head out and take different routes. That’ll make them go two separate directions. They won’t bother us once we leave this city.”

“The Venom is nothing but a group of boys trying to play in a league of men. This is a safety zone for them. Romero won’t bring a bloodbath here, not with all the old crabs that could get caught in the crossfire. We both know there are acolytes lurking beyond Rivermouth, waiting to take them out,” Cobra explained.

“So you go left and I go right, and then we meet in the middle? That’s all you had to say,” Grimm replied.

Cobra sighed, shaking his head. “You three! Get in the damn car,” he called to Katya and her friends.

“You’re going to take us with you?” Blue asked, sounding as surprised as I felt.

“Thank your friend with the bloody thighs and perfect ass. She sat on a man’s face so sis could dig a knife in his throat. That bought your ride out the city.”

There was so much wrong with his sentence I didn’t know where to begin.

“Is it any safer to go with someone like him? He’s a Savage,” Parker whispered, not as quietly as he should have.

He had a good point, considerin. But I still didn’t appreciate his prejudice.

“He offered ya’ll a ride. Haven’t you ever heard the saying don’t look a gift horse in the mouth or somethin? Don’t be a prejudiced dick. You don’t know him, so get in the car, or get the hell out of the way.”

Cobra thanked me with a bright smile, climbing into his driver’s seat.

“Or something?” Grimm laughed, guiding me to his bike. He climbed on and waited for me to do the same.

“My hands are dirty.”

“Your hands are bloody, and I think that’s sexy. If we didn’t have somewhere to be, I’d sit you on my bike and spend the next few hours doing the same to your pussy.”

“Da-yum,” Cobra laughed, cause, of course, he heard every word of that.

Grimm needed to dirty talk twenty-four seven, I’d realized. The thought of fuckin this magnificent man in front of an audience was more than a little temptin, but I’d rather do it somewhere we might not die as we were coming.

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