Miscreants: Next Generation (Badlands 8)

With Jin sporting head gear tonight, these people probably thought he was me. This worked out better than I expected.

“Did we get here too late?” Amo continued to goad.

“I think we got here just in time,” I replied in the same tone.

Aside from the rough looking blonde, they all stared at us with varying expressions. The only one I cared to focus on was Lilith. She was standing behind one of the inbred with a dinner knife to his throat.

Despite wanting to wrap both my hands around her slender fucking neck, it was refreshing to see her again.

“What are you wearing?” I circled around the table so I was standing beside her.

Lilith would look gorgeous in a trash bag if she wanted to wear one. This style of clothing wasn’t her at all, though. The pigtails and blush made her look younger than she already did—like a little kid. Seeing as the men at this table were visibly much older than either of us, I think someone had a fetish.

“What are you doing here?”

Was she fucking serious?

“You don’t sound very happy to see me, Lils.” I grabbed her wrist and applied more pressure than necessary. “Drop the knife. He isn’t going anywhere.”

She winced, ultimately doing as I said with gritted teeth. I pulled her closer, leaving the knife to fall to the floor. When she looked up at me with her big, green eyes, it reminded me of when we were kids and she knew she’d pissed me off.

Little to nothing about this girl had changed.

She was still my same Lilith—just older and without anyone to save her from me now. I gently touched the discoloration on her cheek. There were a few more bruises marring her arms and dried blood beneath her usually spotless nails.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. We didn’t come alone,” Amo directed at the dumbass with long braids.

I hadn’t overlooked the shotgun leaning against the wall in a corner. I wanted to see if any of them had the balls to go for it right in front of us.

The old lady was the second to speak. “What are you boys doing here? If it’s about that girl, just take er and go. We don’t want any trouble.”

“You brought trouble to your door the second you touched what was mine.”

“How could we know she was yours?”

“So, you didn’t see her mark?” Amo questioned lazily.

There was one clear-cut answer to that question. You couldn’t miss the insignia on the underside of her wrist.

That’s precisely why I put it there. It was a companion to the Savage one, which they clearly hadn’t found or else they’d have known exactly who she was. There were only two people who walked around with both. She was one and I was the other.

“Let’s cut them some slack, Amo. Three of ours fell into their hands because of someone’s reckless naivety. They were so excited thinking they’d hit the jackpot that they forgot common sense.”

The man Lilith had yoked up began to nod in agreement.

“You sure it’s not from being a product of Mommy’s brother plowing her pussy? Or was he the grandfather?” Amo queried.

The woman slammed her hand down on the table. “You dare come into my house and disrespect me?”

“Your house?” I tilted my head and regarded her questioningly. “This is our house now, sweetheart. So why don’t shut the fuck up so we can get settled in?”

Unsurprisingly, none of her sons spoke up on her behalf. What a bunch of pussies. I looked down at Lilith, perusing her from head to toe again.

“How did this happen to you?” I asked her directly.

“She—” the man beside us began to reply.

“She has a voice,” I interjected.

“He made me fight.”

Made her fight. I combed over what Amo and Brody had told me, combining it with what I’d already known about the Roboys. They took men and women and made them fight in an arena. People put money on who would win, buying these individuals off like livestock once the fights concluded.

“What else did he do?” I stared the man down, watching for even the slightest hint of movement.

“He put his hands on Takara after he cut her shirt off and…”

“And?” I prodded.

“He kissed me.” She looked at the floor to avoid my stare.

This confession was too fucking déjà vu-esque for my liking.

“Oh, that’s going to earn you instant disqualification, Knox,” Amo chided.

I inhaled, expelling a deep breath quietly as rage twisted and distorted inside my chest.

One.

That’s the number of times someone other than myself had ever gotten close enough to touch her. Even when Amo, under the guise of Creed a few years ago, made it seem as if he was fucking her, I wanted to tear him apart. And that had been my own idea.

Any form of disrespect against her was highly offensive to me. I didn’t fucking tolerate it. If someone were going to degrade my girl or put their hands somewhere they shouldn’t be, it would be me—when I had my dick shoved down her throat or buried inside her pussy.