Miscreants: Next Generation Read online

  There was only one obvious conclusion.

  He hadn’t slept here.

  I couldn’t be sure he got any sleep at all. It wasn’t abnormal for him to be awake for long periods of time now that he oversaw an entire faction. We’d argued about this on countless occasions. Him not taking care of himself, not the faction thing. I’d never criticize him for being a corrupted idol. I was one of his biggest fans.

  Using my shoulder to ease open the bathroom door, I stepped in and shut it with a toss of my hip. I went through the motions of getting dressed, starting with a shower. I had to time it exactly right, so I didn’t end up beneath a sheet of ice-cold water.

  It was quicker than usual since I’d just washed my hair the day before. I was somewhat lucky in that regard. The strands were naturally straight as a pencil and required little upkeep.

  Once I was out and dressed, I tackled all the other essentials that came with being overly feminine. This wasn’t the easiest thing to do when you lived at an old lodging site, but I worked with what I had. Samael told me time and time again that he would make sure I got anything and everything I asked for, all I had to was ask. I refused to take advantage of the offer.

  When I was finished, I took a critical look at myself in the oval shaped mirror. What I saw was an even mixture of my mother and father. I had Mom’s petite features and build with more definition in the hip and chest area. My height was right in between the two, so while I wasn’t short, I wasn’t tall either.

  Deep green eyes stood out against porcelain skin that made the shade of my strawberry blonde hair seem more vibrant than it was. It’d finally grown well beyond my shoulder blades.

  I’d chopped it a few months ago—much to Samael’s very verbal dismay.

  I had been thinking of Mom and Dad a lot lately, my brother too, more than I wanted or liked to. Time hadn’t lessened the pain of their absence nor dulled the memory of the day everything I knew became something I’d known. I hated the feelings that came with reminiscing. Doubts and regrets met at an intersection with anger and sadness.

  I turned away from my reflection and made my way out of the cabin. Before I could fully step onto the small porch, muggy heat pressed me backward.

  It was always hot in the Badlands, but this July had been one for the records. It was freezing in earliest part of the morning and sweltering as soon as daylight fully arrived. I swear the sun was breathing fire from the sky.

  I pulled the door shut behind me, and that’s when I finally noticed him. Obviously, I needed to work on my perception skills. He was facing away from me, staring out at the surrounding tree line at the far-left side of the porch. I’d seen him a few times before. I sifted through my mind, trying to recall his name.

  “Um, Mack?” I guessed.

  At the sound of my voice, he turned around with a friendly smile on his face, large enough that it showed off the double-dime gap between his front teeth.

  “Hey, good morning,” he greeted, smoothing a hand over his blonde hair.

  “Did you need something?”

  “Just wanted to walk the prettiest girl on site to breakfast. I looked for you last night, but I didn’t see ya anywhere.”

  Was this a joke?

  It had to be.

  A cruel one at that, because what he was so casually proclaiming would earn him a death sentence.

  Lucky for him, Samael wasn’t around. I wouldn’t be surprised if he knew he’d come this way, though. Our cabin was all the way at the end of the lodge site, a decent distance away from all the rest. He’d wanted privacy when we first arrived, because he’d hardly let me leave the bed. Mack heading this direction wouldn’t have gone unnoticed.

  “Coming on too strong?” he asked when I didn’t respond.

  “That’s…” I shook my head. “Who put you up to this?”

  “What do you mean?” He blinked at me, seeming genuinely confused.

  I had a hunch on who was responsible, but I’d sort them out later. I needed to deal with this first, which was the last thing I wanted to do right now, especially amid everything else I had in the works.

  I contemplated killing him to spare myself a headache, but in a matter of a few seconds he had begun staring at me like a wounded puppy.

  “Come with me,” I said, hopping off the porch.

  If I were going to do damage control, I couldn’t do it in still-motion. Being caught talking to him would only cause us both problems. I scanned the foliage, half expecting someone to be watching us from within it.

  Was it ridiculous to have to worry about these things? Yes. But Samael took possessiveness to a new level. He was the epitome of manic. It had been this way since we were children.

  “Did I make you mad?” Mack asked as soon as he caught up with me.

  “No.”

  “Ya sure? You look pissed.”

  “I’m not. And to answer your question from before, the problem isn’t that you were coming on too strong, it’s that you decided to come at all.”

  “…Am I not your type?”

  That was his take-away? The answer was a resounding no.

  I didn’t have a type.

  I had Samael.

  This guy could never hold a candle to him. With a quick scan of Mack from head to toe, I began to think he’d been initiated as a giant joke in general.

  It wouldn’t be the first time or the last.

  Not only did he lack the inked insignia that represented the double faction, but he was also dressed like an ordinary lag. He hadn’t been given the customary Stag or Lazarus uniform, and he wasn’t carrying a mask.

  “Look, whoever told you to approach me was doing so for their own entertainment. Men don’t do that around here. Ever.”

  “You’re not allowed to have friends?”

  “I didn’t say that. The guys that I care to be close with are essentially my family. I’ve known them for years.”

  “I could be family.”

  I laughed. He hadn’t the slightest clue what that would entail.

  “We both know you don’t really want to be considered friend or family.”

  “What? Of course I do,” he protested.

  “No. You want to get in my bed.”

  He was silent for a minute or so, leaving chatter from the birds to fill the quiet as we walked. I could practically see the wheels turning inside his head.

  “Is there something wrong with that? I meant it, about you being the prettiest girl here.”

  Ew. Was him telling me I was pretty supposed to make my legs spread in invitation?

  “Flattery will get you nowhere with me. There are plenty of beautiful women here that aren’t taken. I am.”

  “You…are?”

  I thought that me saying I was in a relationship would be the end of this, but Mack was proving to be determined—cementing the fact that someone had put him up to this.

  I never acknowledged or divulged my relationship status. It was a complicated beast that needed to be left sleeping. Very few people understood the perplexity that was Samael and me.

  “Who’s the lucky guy?” Mack prodded, just as I knew he would.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I quipped. “The spot you want in my bed isn’t available, and the only man who can fill it will take your life in a heartbeat if he so much as thinks you want what’s his.”

  I knew he would have a ton more questions now, but, fortunately for me, we were nearing the end of the pathway that led to and from my cabin. If he seriously wanted to know the identity of my mystery guy, all he had to do was ask someone. Just not the person who’d told him this would be a good idea.

  This in mind, I decided to offer the guy some non-solicited pointers. I came to a full stop, bringing a hand to Mack’s chest so he was forced to do the same.

  “You need to be careful. Not everyone here takes kindly to strangers. If you want to live, focus on being fully initiated. They’re slow to kill one of their own unless you piss off the king of the castle. So, seriously, qui
t letting all your brain cells flow to the wrong head and start using the one between your shoulders.”

  “I’m not worried about being killed off, but I am happy you at least care.”

  How could someone be this stupid? Was he purposely missing how serious I was being right now?

  “What do you mean by them killing one of ‘their’ own? You say that like you’re not one of them.”

  “It’s complicated.” That was the most honest answer I could give him.

  The insignia inked on the underside of my wrist said I was. The Leviathan cross tattooed on my hip made that contradictory. My heart was torn on the matter, but that didn’t change the facts. Savage blood was what swam through my veins and made me who I was.

  “I can handle complicated,” he continued.

  “That may be true, but you can’t handle me.”

  The boyish grin that spread across his face didn’t give me much hope for his future.

  “That your way of telling me to fuck off?”

  “No. That was my way of telling you it’s complicated,” I reiterated. “Now I’m telling you to fuck off.”

  With that, I turned and headed towards where breakfast was always served.

  I managed to put a decent amount of distance between Mack and me. Enough that by the time I got to the pavilions, he was either way behind or had decided to go somewhere else. Hopefully, he hadn’t gone to sulk or go off at the mouth. I’d done him a huge favor by rejecting him.

  I slowed by the main cooking area to say hello to the cooks.

  There were eight altogether, but I only spoke with two—my favorites. They’d been with the faction for well over a year and were like a Nana and Pops to most of us.

  “Lilly,” Kodak greeted cheerfully when he spotted me, passing a platter to a proselyte I didn’t know.

  They couldn’t have been new because they were sporting one of the hooded robes and on their neck was the tattooed insignia customary for the faction. It was crazy to think I’d once known everyone here. That seemed eons ago now.

  “I was beginning to think you were skipping breakfast,” Patty, Kodak’s long-time companion, tossed over her shoulder.

  They were a sweet couple, both originally from a reservation that had been overtaken.

  “Never. You two know how I am about food.”

  “Go take a seat. I will bring you a dish,” Kodak ordered in his thick accent, waving me off as another proselyte stepped up in line.

  This was a long-standing tradition with us. I always came to get a plate, more than willing to wait the same way as everyone else, and was always denied. Samael was responsible for starting the whole preferential treatment.

  Normally we’d have gone back and forth, knowing the outcome would remain the same, but they were way too busy for me to banter with today. Understandably so. Their workload had been increasing right along with the faction’s following. The two of them oversaw everything food related, from cooking and checking inventory to skinning, planting, and gutting.

  I left them to it and continued to the area where the picnic tables were.

  Weaving between them to get to my regular spot, I ignored all the stares that followed, used to them by now. The proselytes typically fell into one of three categories when it came to me.

  Curiosity—because of who I was to both Samael and the Savages.

  Disdain—for the very same reason.

  Friendliness—they didn’t care what my status or station was, liking me for me.

  The last realm of judgement, or lack thereof, was obviously the one I preferred. In general, I didn’t care about what anyone thought of me unless I valued them as a person.

  On the topic of people I considered meaningful… I joined Takara and Poet at our usual table.

  “Hey,” I greeted, sliding in between the two of them.

  “We were just talking about coming to get you,” Poet said, scooting over so I had a bit more room.

  Given that he was built like a beefy, tatted-up grizzly, he couldn’t move much further without crushing the girl on the other side of him.

  “I overslept.” I snatched a grape off his tray and popped it into my mouth. Then, catching a whiff of whatever he showered with, I inhaled deeply to smell more of it. Something like honey.

  “You smell good. What’d you use?”

  “Some new stuff Mal had brought in. Makes the hair luxurious, doesn’t it?” He shook his head, causing his shoulder-length waves to bounce around.

  “Yes, the brown is exceptionally radiant today,” I replied with a laugh.

  “Don’t get him started again. I’ve had to put up with that all morning,” Takara griped. “Want my orange?”

  I accepted the fruit and immediately began to peel it. I wasn’t joking around when it came to my love of food. It had yet to do me wrong.

  “Have you heard what’s going around today?”

  “Nope. Do I want to hear it?”

  “Let’s just say, the rumor mill is something else this morning,” Takara stated, tucking a strand of long black hair behind her ear.

  “People have nothing better to do than stir up bullshit drama,” Poet added.

  Their tones were casual, but I knew this was their way of cluing me in. If whatever was being said wasn’t relevant, then they wouldn’t have brought it up. We never participated in the gossip circles.

  One wild guess was that it had something to do with Mack. I wasn’t going to speak on that now.

  There were topics we didn’t discuss around the proselytes, me being one of them. Sometimes the newer recruits were foaming at the mouth for any sordid detail I might let slip, just so they could run to Samael and repeat it.

  It was a fool’s endeavor, but that didn’t stop them. Their relaying of information was never worth it. The second they finished spilling what they knew, Samael would all too happily make blood spill from slits in their throats. Unless he specifically asked, disloyalty to me was disloyalty to him. There wasn’t any room for that here.

  Thankfully, this didn’t happen all that often. Samael and the few that helped oversee things from a production standpoint were good at weeding out the bad apples. They were pickier about who got let in, which made it even more apparent that Mack was someone’s idea of petty entertainment.

  “What’d you two do last night?” I asked, changing the subject.

  “The question you should be asking is who did Kara. I crashed early,” Poet replied.

  “Hmm, keeping the dirty details from me, huh?” I nudged her gently.

  “The only details to share are the ones about my massive shame and disappointment because of the guy I took to bed,” she grumbled.

  Poet began to laugh, covering it with the clearing of his throat when her eyes cut to him in a glare.

  “Who was it?”

  “Tigger,” she mumbled, hiding the side of her face with one hand.

  My fingers stopped peeling as my brain processed what she’d just said. “The Tigger that sort of looks like a walking thumb?”

  Her silence and Poet’s loud laughter were all the confirmation I needed.

  “Kara,” I groaned.

  I knew looks weren’t everything, but neither were brains apparently, because Tigger didn’t have either of the above. Not to mention, Takara was too good for most men, and that one for damn sure.

  She was fun and spunky and had no problems saying exactly what she thought or felt. She was also freaking gorgeous, both inside and out. Being wholly Vietnamese, her small form covered in gorgeous ink. She looked like a doll you would protectively place on the highest of shelves.

  “Hey,” she held her hands up as if warding both of us off, “in my defense, the last cock I saw was some old geezer’s when I was an A.R.C bitch. All I wanted was some excellent D. Was that too much to ask for?”

  “Totally understandable. You gotta give me more details, though. Was it good? Was he giving capital D or lowercase?”

  “Yeah, was he swinging big, thick sirloin
?” Poet asked with a chuckle.

  His question drew laughter from some of the surrounding proselytes.

  “Ew.” I laughed, shoving him playfully.

  “Put it this way, his dick was so small he kind of just laid on top of me and vibrated for a few minutes. I know it’s the power of the stick and not the size, but…ugh. I’m so ashamed.”

  I started to laugh, stopping abruptly when one of Samael’s beloved puppets came strolling from the opposite direction.

  “Go find somewhere else to sit,” he ordered, his voice sharp.

  Everyone but the three of us took off like roaches that had been caught beneath a spotlight in the middle of the night. He slid into the space directly across from me, pushing a food tray in my direction. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were laced with something.

  “That came directly from Kodak. It’s not poisoned.”

  Annoyed that he’d just called out the direction my mind had gone, I leaned back and crossed my arms.

  “You wouldn’t be responsible for the puppy-eyed recruit outside of my cabin this morning, would you?”

  “Someone was outside your cabin?”

  His feigned ignorance pretty much confirmed he was the culprit. He was always doing crap like this when he got bored, usually to everyone else. I would never understand how anyone fell for his offer of mentorship when arriving here. They practically begged for it. Nothing about Amo was nice or sweet. He was a sick, chaotic demon with a pretty face. Like most of us, I suppose. But he was also a giant asshole.

  I gestured to my tray. “You didn’t bring that to me out of genuine kindness. So, what do you want?”

  He leaned forward, propping his arms atop the table.

  “I did, actually. Samael was going to send your big sister. I know how much you just love her.”

  Okay. He had me there. Between Asmodeus and Rory, I wasn’t a huge fan of either, but I was picking Amo every time.

  “Mal’s with Dawn, or he would’ve come himself.” He stopped and studied my face for a reaction that I was smart enough not to give him.