Miscreants: Next Generation by Natalie Bennett (essential reading .txt) 📗

“I’ve got wipes in my bag.”

She slipped it off her shoulders and passed it to me. “I knew I could count on you for personal hygiene,” she teased.

“Well, of course,” I replied haughtily.

We moved up a small hill and walked to the side of the house. The bushes had grown so uncontrollably they’d begun to merge. I tugged my bag open and retrieved my small casing of wipes, removing two before handing it to Kara so she could get her own.

I popped my button and lowered my shorts, squatting alongside Kara, our bare asses a few inches away from the side of the depleted house.

“I feel like I’ve been holding this for ages,” I confessed with a sigh.

“We have. I can feel myself getting lighter.”

Finishing up, I tossed the wipes down by the bushes and started to fix my shorts. Hearing what sounded like voices, I slowly redid the button, looking at Kara to see if she’d heard them too.

“What is it?” she whispered, adjusting her jeans.

“I think I heard someone.” I looked towards the far end of the house, unable to see around it. “Come on.”

I grabbed my bag off the ground and tugged on the drawstrings, heading back out to the street.

Poet’s hazel eyes moved between the two of us. “You guys good?”

“She thought she heard someone.”

“That’s plural,” I corrected.

He and Travis both stared in the general direction of the house.

“Best we keep moving. There shouldn’t be anyone here at all, unless it’s someone from your faction.”

“He’s right. Let’s keep going. We definitely don’t want to have any run-ins.”

Settling back into our horizontal line, we continued in the same direction we’d been going, all of us on the lookout for any sign of life. Another ten minutes rolled by before I heard anything else. I held a finger to my lips to signal them to hush, then pointed to my ear and mouthed, “Did you hear that?”

Takara nodded just as the voices came again, much more distinguishable.

“I can pick out two,” Poet said lowly.

I tried to determine where the sound was coming from. Wherever it was—whoever it was—we were getting closer.

I felt extremely exposed out in the middle of the street like this, but it wasn’t like we had a ton of places to hide. We still needed to get the hell away from the lodge site, pronto.

“What’s the quickest way through this town?”

“Take the next left,” Travis replied.

I picked up my pace, moving over to that side of the road so I was on the sidewalk. Catching movement from the corner of my eye from an upper window, I didn’t stop, but I made the others aware of it with a small hand gesture.

“Someone’s crying,” Takara whispered. “A woman, I think.”

“Yeah, I hear that too.”

I took the left turn and my eyes instantly fell to an all-black pick-up.

The vehicle was way too clean to belong here, as out of place as we were. It sat off on the side of the road, partially parked on the curb. When a man bolted from one of the houses a few feet ahead, I slowed to a near stop. Another came out after him, whistling. His pace lacked any hint of urgency.

He glanced our way and waved but didn’t stop his pursuit, as if he had no cares in the world—more than likely due to the fact that he had a big-ass gun in his hands.

When he took aim at the guy fleeing, Takara grabbed hold of my wrist, nudging my body in the opposite direction. The gunshot reverberated in my ears, carrying through the air. We took off as the bullet found its mark, sending the fleeing man cartwheeling forward.

Racing back the way we’d just come from, we took another left so we were running down the road we’d turned off of.

A second gun shot went off, the echo making me run faster. I looked over at Travis, seeing him struggling.

“Where do we go? How do we get out of here?”

“Straight, right…shit…left?”

“Why did that sound like a question?” Takara breathed.

“It’s left!”

He’d better be right about this, or I would shove my blade so far down his throat it’d pop out of his ass.

Hearing an engine, I took a quick glance over my shoulder, but there wasn’t any sign of the pick-up. Without holding still, I couldn’t place which direction the sound was coming from.

I got my answer less than two seconds later when an old beetle-shaped vehicle appeared at the end of the street.

“Who the fuck’s this?” Poet rasped, skidding to halt, holding an arm out so that I would stop alongside him without falling.

Swallowing, I attempted to catch my breath. “Not Stags or Lazarus.”

“Whoever they are, they’re obviously insane. Who in their right mind would so boldly be in Mal’s territory?” Takara asked.

The black truck popped out on the street behind us, the roar of its engine matching the pounding of my heart.

Dammit. They had us boxed in.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Travis panted, clutching at the straps of his backpack.

“Hey!” I slapped his arm. “You need to chill. Calm down and get your shit together. I can smell the piss you’re about to release in your pants.”

“Sorry,” he murmured, making a point to look down at the ground. He began whispering beneath his breath, something that sounded an awful lot like a prayer.

I was the wrong person to be doing that around, all things considered. But hell, if it stopped his panicking, I’d pray with him.

“I got eyes on this one,” Poet said, turning so that he was facing the black truck.

Placing my back against his, shoulder to Takara’s, she and I faced the blue car. The door swung open, and a man got out. Black goggles obscured