Degenerates: Badlands Next Generation Page 3

  My cousin, Samael, had never been allowed to wander the compound. All his lessons and training had been done inside with close monitoring, and for a good reason.

  He was every bit like my, Uncle Grimm with one exception. He had a Primary immunodeficiency, something he had just started receiving treatment for because his parents’ had just gotten a proper diagnosis.

  To think it was okay to be out and about, especially off the compound that was the safest place he could possibly be baffled me. He was smarter than this.

  “And because he went, Bella went,” Luce spoke up from nearly right behind me, staring after Nyx.

  “Which is why Lilith went,” Butcher stated, referring to his baby sister.

  It made sense the three of them would go off together. They spent all their time in each other’s company.

  It was incredibly foolish, but I had no room to speak on that because I was known to be reckless.

  “I’m thinking Jesse and Makayla either weren’t paying attention and went after them, or they decided to make a life-altering, very unwise decision and encouraged them.

  “We don’t know when they left, sometime between noon and four because they climbed into the back of one of the supply trucks to get past the guard shack. It’s back now. They aren’t,” Dad explained.

  He seemed rather calm for a man who had no idea where his youngest daughter was.

  Then again, I couldn’t recall one time I had ever seen my Dad non-composed or overtly emotional.

  In this regard, I had a side of me that was a lot like him, a part of my genetic makeup that made my not give a fuck iron-clad. Then there was the side of me that was just like my mother, feeling too much of everything and refusing to bend for the devil’s will.

  Luce had described it best. We had chests encasing hearts of gold, but were born empty vessels that lacked a soul.

  In its place was something far better though, all thanks to the man we called Dad. Sometimes it was difficult to balance the psyche that came with who we were—keep ourselves in check, but we did the best we could.

  I kept my demons under lock and key, placating them with a bit of bloodshed every few weeks.

  If I didn’t, things turned ugly.

  Something devoid of humanity clawed at my insides until I gave it what it wanted, and fed its debased desires. In turn, it grew a little stronger.

  Thus far I’d managed to keep it complacent. I feared the day it refused to be caged. It already stained my insides with its malignant presence. Luce never seemed to have an issue controlling his as I did—the fucker.

  Some would say we weren’t normal, but I believed the definition of that word was skewed and based on personal interpretation.

  “We have to find them, Rome. Sam can’t be out there,” Mom stressed.

  He said something in response, but I was already brainstorming a map of all the places they would have gone.

  “We will, Pixie. I’ll send out a few groups of—.”

  “Don’t do that,” I cut him off, catching the tail end of whatever he’d been saying.

  They all stared at me, Dad’s dark gaze the heaviest.

  “I didn’t mean to cut you off,” I hurried to explain. I knew better than to interrupt him or Mom when they were speaking. “You two don’t need to go anywhere. And you don’t need to send any groups of anything. I’ll go.”

  “You’ll go?” Mom asked at the same time Butcher said, “You?”

  I could have turned and strangled him.

  “Yeah, why not?” I asked with a slight shoulder shrug. “I have a good idea of where they’d go. Besides, you don’t want to send groups of acolytes to find three rebellious teens.

  “That’s not a good look. It’s rather embarrassing, actually.”

  “Well,” Dad murmured. “That’s the way I should have thought of it.”

  I was going to point out something like; he couldn’t because he was a parent now. He wasn’t just, Romero Deville, the devil in the flesh and self-made king of the Badlands, but family was never to be used as a scapegoat.

  “Sooo does this mean I can go?” I asked instead, struggling to keep the excitement out of my voice.

  “What do you think?” he asked Mom.

  Her blue eyes swept over my face, and for a minute she almost looked sad.

  A small smile touched her lips. “I think she’s more than capable of handling this.”

  Dad ran a hand down her hair and pulled her further into his side.

  “Then obviously I have to go to protect you,” Luce interjected.

  “Uh, I don’t think so,” I shot back, making Mom laugh.

  “It almost sounds like you don’t want me there. That hurts,” Luce pouted.

  Hurts my ass, I thought.

  “Go load up some gear; I’ll have the XL brought around to the front of the house. Make sure you take your acolyte.

  “And you,” Dad turned his head to address Luce.

  I bit back a snappy retort that my acolyte had a name.

  Annie had been brought up different than all the other acolyte children. I knew she didn’t mind the title. She was the one who signed on to become my guard, but I never referred to her as just an acolyte.

  She was my friend—practically an older sister.

  “Come on,” I said to her, stepping away from the conversation Mom and Dad were now having with Luce and Butcher.

  I fastened my knife holster beneath the small of my back, and then slid the Kambit dagger into place before pulling both of my shirts over it.

  My Glock was the next piece I added, placing it in a side holster. Crouching down, I tightened the shoestrings of my boots and checked their zippers.

  Mom came in just as I was standing back up.

  She clasped her hands behind her back and leaned against the wall, silently watching me finish getting ready.

  I glanced at the Sigil Of Baphomet tapestry hanging behind my bed. A goat head similar to the one tattooed on my right arm, stared back at me—his empty eyes as answerless as I was.

  “I’m sure Bella’s fine mom. And I’m going to bring her back,” I said, slipping my arms through the straps of the gear bag Dad had brought to me a bit ago.

  “Is that why you think I came in here?”

  Ready to go, I turned in the direction of my small cabin door, which was right next to where she was standing.

  “I assumed so,” I replied.

  She stared at me, blue eyes flashing with an emotion I didn’t understand.

  “You know I never used to worry like this? I was a lot more carefree, headstrong, reckless,” she intoned with a laugh. “But then I had you three, Arlen had Nyx and Sam. Blue had the twins and Bella.” She pushed off the wall and came to stand in front of me. Since we were the same height, that put us eye to eye.

  “I did come in here because I was worried, but it wasn’t just for Bella. You may be our princess, but first and foremost you’re my baby girl. Somewhere along the way, I missed how grown you’ve gotten.”

  She reached out and placed my ash blonde hair over my shoulder. “I can only hope life doesn’t hit you as hard as it did me,” she wistfully stated.

  I didn’t have the perfect words to soothe whatever it was she was feeling or what brought all this on.

  Admittedly I’d never left the compound without a flock of acolytes surrounding me. But I could do this. I’d be back in less than eight hours if, Belladonna and her group had gone where I thought they had. Maybe quicker if I intercepted them on their way back.

  My baby sister did not need to be off the compound. She could handle herself fine, but that was in training. I didn’t want her finding out how drastically different that was firsthand, not yet.

  That thought had me understanding exactly what Mom was feeling, or at least a good chunk of it. I hadn’t experienced any of the hardships she or Dad had, but I’d heard all the stories, though—about, Aunt Arlen and, Blue too.

  I wished I could tell her she did not need to worry, bu
t I wouldn’t make a promise I wasn’t sure I could keep.

  She knew that too. Still, I felt the need to do something, so I wrapped my arms around her and simply said, “I’ll be back, with Bella.”

  This I could promise.

  Unless I died, nothing would stop me from finding my baby sister and bringing her home.

  Chapter Three

  Tres

  Just like Dad had said, the shiny black XL sat idling in front of the main house. The Savage insignia—the same Sigil above my bed—painted on the side, stood out like a beacon.

  He had failed to mention Luce would be following behind me in his heavily armored Jeep, accompanied by both Butcher and Cameron.

  I ignored all three of them and their victorious grins. Whatever, this wasn’t a big deal to me. Luce and I were like Ying and Yang for the most part, when he wasn’t intentionally goading me.

  “I got two cans of Diesel loaded in the rear,” he said as I tossed my bag into the backseat of the XL.

  “Hopefully we won’t need either one,” Nyx replied from the other side of the large SUV. Charon, her crow, sat perched on the roof as if he knew what was going on.

  “Yeah, that would be bad,” I agreed.

  We could idle for hours off one gallon. If we burned through a full tank before we got home, then something would have to of gone very wrong.

  “You ready?” I asked Annie through the driver side window.

  “Yes,” was her monotone response a second before the glass began to rise.

  Her behavior was as it always had been. Annie was Annie, and beneath her acolyte robe was a sawed-off shotgun she’d built herself, and I’d yet to see her miss a shot.

  The front door of the house swung open and, Dad, Uncle Grimm, and Uncle Cobra all stepped out together.

  Mom, who’d come up shortly before I did, followed with Arlen and Blue.

  They stared at our group, and we stared back at them.

  “I feel like I’m looking at a fucking visual flashback,” Uncle Cobra exclaimed, taking hold of Blue’s hand.

  “You know what they say about history repeatin itself,” Arlen quietly stated, standing in the enclosure of Uncle Grimm’s arms.

  I certainly hoped she wasn’t being literal. Their pasts were full of things I couldn’t imagine dealing with.

  Everyone having said their temporary farewells but me and Dad, they began to get into their vehicles.

  The twins and Luce got in his Jeep. Nyx climbed in the back of the XL, leaving me the last one outside.

  “You sure about this, princess?” Dad asked, now standing in front of me.

  “I can handle this,” I said with a smile.

  “I never doubted that, Addy. There’s an F3 cell in Luce’s bag. If anything happens, anything goes wrong. You call and tell me.”

  If that happened, he would more than likely already know, he was always one or two steps ahead of things. I nodded my understanding and gave him a tight hug. I wasn’t sure what most people’s relationships were with their parents’, but I wouldn’t trade either of mine or anything they stood for.

  When we separated, I repeated a similar pattern with both of my aunts, and then my uncles—giving my Mom one last hug before I got into the passenger seat of the XL.

  As we drove away from the main house, towards the front of the compound where the guard shack was, I looked in the side mirror watching my family grow smaller and smaller before they were replaced by flourishing crops on either side of us. Before we reached the massive security gates, one of the acolytes manning them granted us passage.

  “Where to?” Annie asked, slowing at the end of the long road that led away from our home.

  “District 9,” I replied, pointing to the left.

  “Should’ve known,” Nyx flatly stated.

  “I remembered them whispering about it two weeks ago.

  “I just didn’t think they would be idiotic enough to sneak away to a place that hadn’t been cleared yet.”

  “You really think that’s where they went?” she asked.

  “Yeah, why do you think I didn’t mention it to our parents?”

  “Wise,” Annie commented, well aware of how quick our moms’ would have lost their shit.

  I had a feeling Dad knew too, which is probably the main reason he was letting me go. At most, there would be a few waifs lingering about, and that was no threat at all to me. But even with that being the case, it didn’t take away from the fucking asinine level of rashness entering a place not cleared or tagged as Savage territory yet.

  I knew Lilith, Samael, and Bella could handle their own if something were to happen, for the most part.

  Hopefully…

  An hour into the drive, Nyx had fallen silent in the backseat. All that could be heard was the sound of the XL’s engine purring and my brother’s Jeep behind us.

  The headlights guided our way, showing nothing but trees and an occasional run-down house. I had never been this way before, not in the dark at least, or going to District 9 specifically.

  I adjusted in my seat, rolling my window down to let some fresh air in.

  Closing my eyes, I leaned my head against the seat rest and tried to get more comfortable.

  “Hold on!” Annie suddenly shouted.

  My eyes flew right back open as she slammed on the breaks. I sat up, bracing a hand on the dash as she whipped the SUV to the shoulder of the road, narrowly avoiding a girl that had stupidly darted out in front of her.

  Tires skidded and screeched loudly across the asphalt, leaving behind the smell of burnt rubber. Luce swerved to avoid the same collision, but he wasn’t quick enough.

  I whipped my head to the right, actually hearing the sound of solid steel colliding with flesh and bone. The girl flattened, disappearing beneath a Jeep tire as it rolled over the top of her, coming to a complete stop a few feet ahead.

  Before anyone was in park, my seatbelt was off, and I was climbing out of the truck, Nyx right behind me.

  “Shit,” I muttered, taking in the condition of the girl’s body.

  She was on her stomach, what remained of her pelvis nearly one with the ground, right leg turned in an almost complete one-eighty degree angle with tired marks on it, the bone protruding to the right.

  She sounded like a dying cat. An inhuman like keening came from where she lay.

  “I got it,” Nyx sighed.

  She removed her scythe blade from beneath her leather jacket and engaged the curved blade, silently making her way over to the girl.

  Standing above her, she reached down and grabbed a handful of wild curls, tilting the girls head back and exposed a freckled throat that she slit in one quick motion.

  “Well, damn,” Luce said, approaching them with a lazy gait.

  There was a faint popping sound as he used the toe of his boot to flip her over onto her back.

  “She isn’t marked,” Nyx announced, wiping her bloodied blade off on the girl’s tattered nightgown.”

  Cameron walked closer, cocking his head to the side for a better look. “Poor thang,” he commented after a minute, swooping down to grab both of her wrists, proceeding to drag her now lifeless body to the side of the road.

  I let my eyes drift over the tree-lines on either side of us, trying to spot what she was running from. A plea for Satanas came from my left, followed by the snapping of twigs.

  That one word let me know whoever was coming was one of ours. No other faction preached the devil’s name for their faith.

  The six of us faced the general direction where it sounded she would come from. I pulled my Glock from its holster, expecting that whatever had her so terrified she called my father’s name, would be in close pursuit.

  Makayla burst through the trees running at full speed, right past all of us. There were scratches on her skin and bits of twig in her hair.

  “Hey!” I called after her.

  She stopped abruptly, nearly tripping over her own two feet. Had I not said anything I wondered if she woul
d have simply kept going?

  “Adelaide,” she managed to spit-out while trying to catch her breath, hands resting on her knees.

  “Lucifuge!” she exclaimed a minute later, belatedly noticing him beside me.

  She darted back in our direction doing something short of leaping into my brother’s arms.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Nyx muttered.

  I fully agreed. Luce wasn’t anyone’s hero. If he saved you, then something would be given in return, and bargaining with Luce was making a deal with the prince of hell himself.

  “What’s going on? Where is—?”

  “They’re still there. He’s coming! she screamed, fear etched into her features.

  “Who’s…?” Seeing she was solely focused on Luce and not paying me any attention, I rolled my eyes and looked at Annie and Nyx.

  Understanding me without my having to say a word, they both gave a subtle nod, and then we began inching towards the tree-line, disappearing into the thicket before Luce or the twins could stop us.

  Immediately the moon became obscured, ensnaring us in a tangled web of gnarled branches, uneven terrain, and darkness.

  I heard Butcher curse, but that didn’t matter. Had we waited a minute longer it would have been the three of us left to wait and them going to check things out. At least this time I took Annie instead of just roaming off on my own like I usually tended to do, leaving her to catch up.

  “We’re going downward,” I quietly warned, keeping the Glock slightly raised in front of me.

  We moved down a narrow trail as quickly and silently as we could, which wasn’t the easiest thing to do under the circumstances.

  Twigs snapped beneath my boots as I struggled to keep even footing, occasionally grabbing at a tree-trunk to prevent falling.

  “There’s no one here,” Nyx softly said, sounding as stupefied as I felt.

  She was right. There wasn’t anyone in pursuit of Makayla, and I couldn’t hear anything either.

  But, both she and the curly haired girl had come running from these woods as if a fire was lit beneath their asses.

  As we approached where there was a gap in trees, I began to relax. We entered a small clearing where a strip of moonlight had still managed to shine. It bridged a gap between another thicket, and through them, I could make out a small, seemingly undisturbed house.