Outcasts (Badlands 3)
This all seemed to have happened so long ago that when I thought of it, it was like seeing it from stranger’s perspective. It only made me wonder: why now? Why was the mayor going through such lengths to find me?
Why was he having Noah keep me locked away? What purpose did it hold? Knowin Ma and Beth were in on it only added fuel to my fire and a deeper sense of urgency to figure out what the hell was goin on.
When the water began runnin cold, I made myself climb out of the shower, wrappin a towel around my body after wringing out my hair.
Brushing my teeth, I let myself see my reflection.
Nothing had changed. I still looked the same. Switchin off my moral compass hadn’t made me look any different on the outside. But everything was different.
I had a past and a present. Like I’d told Grimm, it was a past I wanted to leave behind. I was ready to end this and go home. I was ready to move on and live again.
I stared in the mirror and found a genial smile liftin the corners of my mouth.
The faint red line on my throat was a reminder he’d had the curve of his blade against it less than twenty-four hours ago. Turning, I laughed, shakin my head when I saw the perfect inverted cross beside a G embellished in my flesh.
Chapter Nineteen
Our lead came written on a napkin.
Tucker, the bartender, had it wrapped around the V tattoo of the neck of whomever he’d got the information from.
“Forkfurt Penitentiary?” Cobra read from beside me, chugging down a shot. “How the fuck is anyone living in that place? It’s falling apart.”
I waved for Tucker to come over when he was finished with his conversation. I felt a heavy pair of tits pressing into my left arm as I lowered the right.
I knew who it was; I’d seen her watching me from the second we arrived. I wasn’t going to give her any of the attention she was seeking.
Being so brazenly touched didn’t sit right with me, never had, unless it was Brat.
I couldn’t keep my hands off her, couldn’t not touch her.
Without glancing over, I shoved the bitch attached to the tits away from me. I heard her teeter on her heels, and then fall, landing on her ass with an outraged gasp, making Cobra laugh. I still didn’t look over, that would mean I gave a fuck.
“With you and Rome being locked down I feel a little left out. Don’t suppose you wanna do the whole ménage thing?” Cobra asked.
Had he been anyone else I would have reached over and broken his spine vertebra by vertebra, and then I’d probably piss on him just for the hell of it.
“She’s…”
“Don’t hurt your preci
ous brain trying to explain. She’s the reason we’re here right now, why were about to go invade a prison. I get it, bro. Rome was, is, the same way. I was joking, fucking psycho,” he laughed, holding his hands up in a defensive gesture.
“Isn’t that what you’ve got with Katya? That is why you chose to initiate her, right? Because we both know the mute with the dreads won’t be around much longer, and Blue is fifty-fifty.”
“No. Katya is a cool-ass chick. And I like Blue, she’s my friend. I am capable of being just friends with a chick Grimmy.”
I scoffed in the back of my throat.
“Since when? You only stayed clear of Cali because you knew what would happen otherwise. You won’t touch Brat, because, well, you know what would happen otherwise.” I let it go at that, holding back the rest of what I wanted to say until a better time.
“You’ll find someone,” I felt the need to add. And I meant it.
He was the nicest out of all of us. He openly laughed, had a non-stop sense of humor, and at the end of the day, when push came to shove, you wanted him on your side.
We’d all been through shit. We were all tediously fringing on a blurred line of insanity. Cobra was more fucked in the head than I was, and Romero was so fucked up he had no semblance of empathy until Cali.
This world wasn’t what went to utter shit; the people had. I admittedly had it the easiest, if you could discount the fact I was raised by my now estranged father, a reformed cult member, the current leader of a redneck tribe of cannibals, I could almost be considered normal.