Badlands next generation.., p.18
Badlands: Next Generation Collection, page 18
“You don’t need to thank us. He’s a good guy,” Maliki spoke up again.
“Yes, he is,” Grimm replied, staring him down, “and the other one needs to be put down.”
“Oh, I know that’s right,” Trix’s voice floated out from the hall.
I ignored her eavesdropping, not one bit shocked at his declaration. The Savages were into a lot of strange shit, but their loyalty to one another ran deeper than blood. Just like the Venom.
“You want us…?” I probed.
“Get off your asses and get to our compound. Addy and Nyx are heading off on a manhunt and looks like the two of you are, too. Two plus two,” Cali stated, using my own damn analogy against me.
Wait.
“Just the two of them?”
Romero smirked, telling me that wasn’t fucking likely. I assumed Addy and Nyx didn’t know that.
I looked over at Maliki. He shrugged, his way of saying he didn’t care either way.
“Fuck,” I sighed.
“Do we need to have a discussion about what happens if you break my baby girl’s heart?”
It came from Addie’s mom; I’d expected it from her father.
“I already heard that from Luce.”
“My boy,” she smiled to herself.
I was slightly confused. Why were these people so okay with me being with their daughter.
“It happened to all of us—things that shouldn’t have been, but are,” Grimm said, nodding to Nyx’s mom, right on board with my thought process.
“So how did you know we were leaving?” Maliki asked them.
Romero and Grimm shared a knowing glance before replying with a simple, “We were you.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Viginti Quattuor
It had been three weeks.
That wasn’t that long, but when you were stuck in a zombie land, it was.
The morale at the compound was sat an all-time high, even as acolytes were being tested left and right, followed, and taken out at the slightest signs of deceit.
A new batch was coming in.
The senior acolytes were more hostile towards those they didn’t trust, resulting in a total of six deaths.
Dad didn’t care; he wanted anyone faulty gone.
I think they sensed something big was happening, just like everyone else.
My father spoke to me as he always did, but I couldn’t help but feel our relationship had shifted—not exactly in a bad way.
His awareness of the alliance and my relationship with Zane had yet to be discussed; I was walking on pins and needles waiting for that bomb to drop.
A knock sounded on my door as I bent to grab some more socks from my dresser.
“Come in!” I called, turning to my gear bag.
The heavy footsteps had fluttering erupting in my stomach, my mind already knowing who I would find behind me.
“Aren’t you going to ask who it is?” His husky voice sent a tingle of excitement down my spine.
“What are you doing here?” I forced myself to be calm, slowly turning around.
He raised his brows and used his boot to kick the door shut.
“That really how you’re gonna greet me?”
“I want to know why you’re here.” I crossed my arms and waited, fighting my every reflex to launch myself at him. How could he look so good? Had it only been three weeks?
“Your dad told me what you thought you were going to do. I was going to do the same thing; I figured we should do this together.”
“This is what you were telling me about weeks ago?”
I started to go to him.
“We got a lead.”
So did we.
“Why not take me with you from the beginning?” I stopped in front of him.
“Because you’re the only pure thing I’ve ever been given, and I can’t think about anything happening to you.”
“Nothing is going to happen to me, Zane. I am not a fragile girl.”
“It wasn’t about that. I know you’re not weak. It’s just going to take some time to adjust to all of this—us.”
He still didn’t attempt to touch me, so I wrapped my arms around his neck.
“All we have is time. Empires aren’t built in a day.”
He grinned and shook his head. “Actually, we don’t have time. We have ten minutes.” He slid his hands to just beneath my ass and lifted me up, wrapping them around his waist.
“What are you doing?” I laughed.
“Told you,” he dropped me on my bed. “We have ten minutes.” He dragged my shorts down my legs. “Your dad gave me fifteen and we just wasted five.”
“Do you have a death wish?”
“No, I have a hard dick.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at that.
He pulled his cock out and placed himself between my legs, glancing between them as he swiped the tip up and down my slit. “You get so wet for me,” he smirked, flexing his hips and easing inside me.
I bit my lip to suppress a moan, keeping my arms around his neck.
“Fucking gorgeous,” he murmured, kissing the tip of my nose. I gripped his perfect toned ass and pulled him deeper, wrapping my legs around his waist.
He made perfect use of every minute he had. We bit and sucked at one another, having the same need to feel one another. His cock filled me up entirely, creating a deep suctioning sound every time he thrust.
“Harder,” I demanded.
“Your pussy is paradise,” he soughed, fucking me faster.
The sweat and muffled moans wrapped around us until the pressure inside me unexpectedly burst, sending heat rushing up and down my spine as I contracted around his dick. He followed a few thrusts after, digging himself deeper into my pussy.
“Damn, I can’t wait to wake up to this every morning,” he groaned and kissed my forehead.
“Oh, is that all?” I teased on a shallow breath.
“No,” he murmured. “I can’t wait to wake up beside my queen.”
I smiled so big I think my cheek bones cracked.
I could work with that.
Epilogue
It was almost the same scenario.
Minus a certain redhead that tried his best to make everyone smile. He had yet to open his eyes. At this point, no one knew if he was going to ever wake again.
Trix drove us away from the compound, leaving behind one aunt who was broken hearted and another who was doing her best to be positive.
Nyx’s bike was with us this time, but I wasn’t entirely sure where she was. I could see her, but I didn’t think my best friend was in there anymore.
There was a new guy with us, bringing our total to six with Luce running coordinates.
I sat beside my Zane, hand resting in his.
This was our thing now, no matter how bad one of us may have fucked up with the other, because we were realistic enough to know there was so much to learn about who he was, and who I was.
This simply meant we wouldn’t let go. Our story was just beginning, and we had no way of knowing how it would end.
He was a ruthless villain, a meshuggener. A barbaric royal unlike anything you would read about in the olden fairytales. We were one in the same yet so different—Savage and Venom.
One day, he would be a king. I would be a queen. And now I was his, and for better or for worse, he was mine. When this was over, we would be legends.
Translations
Part one—Unus
Fatum—Fate
ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt
(Fate leads the willing, and drags the unwilling)
Part Two—Duo
Illictus—Forbidden
Part Three—Tres
Traditus—legends
Amant similes diabolis
(They love like Devils.)
Hellions
Vicious. Chaotic. Gods.
Blurb
Maliki
Vicious.
Nyx
Chaotic.
Maliki + Nyx
Vicious. Chaotic. Gods.
What once was sweet has turned vile.
I covet death.
He thrives in darkness.
Our sacrilegious desires run rampant.
Our maleficent demons demand to be sated.
Mercy finds no refuge in our hearts.
Insanity takes courtship within our minds.
Together, we embark on a path saturated in blood and rotting corpses.
We won’t stop until we find what we’re looking for.
If we must set this world on fire, we’ll do it and dance in the flames.
When this is over, you’ll hear the crows singing our names.
Playlist
(Spotify)
Ally Hills—Wrong
Jacob Lee—Demons
Halsey—Empty Gold
I Prevail—Breaking Down
Johnny Cash—Hurt
Halsey—Haunting
YUNGBLUD, Halsey—11 Minutes
Rob Zombie—Living Dead Girl
Ryan Caraveo—Grim Reaper
Blessed—Sorrows
NF—Mansion
Billie Eilish—Hostage
Billie Eilish—Lovely
Billi Eilish—Six Feet Under
N.W.A—Straight Out Of Compton
Lil Wayne—Don’t Cry
Family Tree
Romero + Cali
Adelaide
Lucifuge
Belladonna
Grimm + Arlen
Nyx
Samael
Cobra + Blue
Braxton AKA Butcher
Cameron
Lilith
PRELUDE
Veni, omnipotens aeterne diabolus.
What can I say that hasn’t been said a thousand times before?
By now, you should know my world isn’t for the faint hearted or weak willed. It’s a beautiful wasteland built upon pain, bloodshed, and violence.
There are only lions and sheep, predators and prey, those doomed to fall and those destined to rise.
I have been the sheep, the prey, and the fool who fell for the lies spun from a silver tongue. Now, I will become the lion, the predator, and flip the fucking script.
The ones responsible for the hurt will learn that their most fatal mistake was showing me a mercy I won’t reciprocate.
I’m a harbinger, a shepherd of souls, and I have a list of names that need to be sent to an early grave.
Like a reckoning, they won’t see me coming.
Just as I, never in a hundred years, would have expected him.
Maliki Erebus.
He stroked the deepest parts of my tar-black soul without having to touch me with his hands. He dared take residence inside my ghost town of a heart. What we had was at times unsteady, sick and twisted, but it was also addictively enthralling.
We were the ugly truth of the world we came from, born with tragedy coursing through our blood.
He was angry, a vicious sadist full of rage.
I was lost, a masochist trapped in a state of chaos.
We were hellions embarking on a path of carnage, feeding our demons and using one another.
We turned pain to power, and we thrived on our insatiable lust for darkness and death.
Together, we were two vicious, chaotic gods.
Unus
cruor
Facilis descensus averno
(the) descent to hell is easy.
Chapter One
Unus
I find it strange the way a heart breaks in silence, how a chest can split open without making a single sound. It’s as if the universe takes a moment to pay your devastation the same respect you’d garner from a funeral. I stood there with a heart once solid now made of fragmented glass.
Every inhalation brought with it the aseptic smell of medicine and an undertone of bleach.
The only sound punctuating the thick air was the steady beeping of the monitor Cam was hooked up to.
If there was ever a moment I wanted to scream, it would be this one.
Why?
Nothing—not anyone or anything—could make me understand.
Why him?
I couldn’t pretend he was sleeping when all I could see were the wires, tubes, and catheters attached to various parts of his gauze-wrapped body.
There hadn’t been a word about when they’d gradually begin waking him up. His CVC line just continued to be pumped with alternating drugs.
On some level, I understood the delay. I wanted my friend back, but I knew the man who woke up would be a very different version of him.
We all knew.
None of us were ready to accept it.
If there were a god, I would have made a deal so that Cam and I could swap places. He had so much more to offer, to go on and thrive for than I did. It should have been me in this goddamned bed. But that wasn’t how things worked, and even thinking such thoughts betrayed the religion that, until now, had always kept me and my loved ones safe.
The only gods in the Badlands were the sick and twisted who wielded enough power to be worshipped as such. There was a devil who wore a crown of flesh and bone, and demons scattered in every direction. Some of them lurked in our heads; others slept in our beds. The rest walked amongst us hiding their true nature beneath impeccable facades.
My eyes swept over the room, taking in the bright green curtains and fresh flowers on an end table. It reminded me of spring, of happier times.
The slight creak of leather had my gaze snapping to the loveseat where Blue slept, my muscles coiled in anticipation, I held my breath waiting to see if she was going to wake up. The sadness in her eyes made me feel guilty every time I looked at her, and I couldn’t deal with that right now.
She rarely left Cam’s side these days, which was more than understandable. Her daughter was still missing, one of her sons was in a coma, and the other was as good as dead. He’d already been renounced from the Savages, nothing but a walking target to the family he so easily betrayed.
I somewhat relaxed as she rolled to her other side, twisting beneath the blanket Cobra had covered her with.
Fingers tightening around the rim of the glass bottle in my hand, I brought it to my mouth and tilted it upward.
The bitter liquid sloshed down my throat to burn in my stomach. I had no idea what I was consuming. I wasn’t one to drink copious amounts of alcohol. It impaired judgment and opened up a well of secrets best left shuttered.
I’d raided Dad’s man cave for this. The dark green bottle was affixed with the logo of a stag with a cross above its head. The bitter irony compelled me to select it over the others. It tasted like damnation, if damnation had a taste, but that was irrelevant. It was a necessary cure for my sobriety.
With one last glance at the sweet ginger boy forced to remain trapped in his abyss, I turned and left the room, shutting the door softly behind me.
I made my way down the silent corridor, wondering where to go next. Samael’s room wasn’t an option.
If I was caught by Mom, she’d want to open me up and carefully dissect my feelings. I knew she meant well, but I didn’t want to talk. I couldn’t.
There were so many other important things to focus on. With Cam nothing more than a breathing vegetable, my baby cousin traumatized, and Lilith and Sam still missing, my issues paled in comparison to everyone else’s.
All I had was a broken heart. Just a betrayal. This happened to everyone at some point, didn’t it?
I’d had to grant one of my best-friends mercy by giving her death. Things could have been worse, right?
The gut-wrenching memories, endless rage, and constant pain had to fade soon?
One day, I wouldn’t be sick of the strange woman I saw in the mirror anymore.
The compound was twice as active as it usually was during the midnight hour. Acolytes that provided servitude during the late night were bustling around, faces obscured beneath their black hoods and masks. I paid them little attention, keeping my gaze diverted.
This used to feel like the safest place in the world, like nothing could ever hurt me here, but, all along, the catalyst of so much pain was standing right beside us.
My feet carried me along the path, the bottle occasionally finding its way to my mouth as I walked. I didn’t realize where I’d been heading until I was standing in the center of his room.
Weeks ago, it was as if a hurricane had blown through here. Cobra had ransacked it trying to find something, anything that would tell him why his own son would betray us.
Blue being Blue calmed him down and picked everything up, with Aunt Cali’s help.
I stepped back and used my boot to kick the door shut, enclosing me in the dark. It seemed forever ago that we were in here together. I didn’t need to be able to see to picture how barren the walls were aside from a family photo and a Sigil Of Baphomet canvas.
I stood there doing the same thing everyone else had: trying to figure out why.
I needed to know why he chose to drag me down with him. His betrayal would have hurt just as badly without making me a casualty and costing me a friend.
I needed to know why he dragged my baby brother, Lilith—his little sister—and Bella into this mess. They were just teenage kids. He didn’t have to take them away from their family and strip them of their youth.
I gnawed my lower lip, running a hand through my hair. The alcohol was making me a bit fuzzy, but a few of my demons liked me this way, eager to see me fade away. The rest were struggling to keep me afloat, refusing to let me go.
Desperate for a break from the never-ending battle in my mind, even if it were just for a few moments, I took another pull from my bottle and sat on the floor, kicking my legs out in front of me.
The bed I’d slept in, right beside him on countless occasions, was just a few feet away. The room still smelled like him, and it was making me nauseous, but I stayed anyway as some form of self-punishment.
How could I not have seen this coming? I should’ve known something wasn’t right. Dad taught me to notice everything; now, he looked at me with the same pity everyone else did.
