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

was frustrating when someone knew all the answers but wouldn’t give them.

Why was he suddenly so passive about this? He never gave when it came to our families. I’d brought up going to see them multiple times in the past.

Settling back in my seat, I crossed my arms and looked out the window. We’d been driving for nearly thirty minutes now, getting closer to what civilization was.

From what I saw thus far, the lodge was like a palace. Death seemed to cling to every corner. The first body was nothing to bat an eye at. A man or a woman strung up like a scarecrow wasn’t anything unusual for the Badlands. It more a sign that a faction had been through the area already,

Sticks were in the ground with decapitated heads atop them, many being children…that was a different story. I’d never seen anything like this before. Some were recent. Their flesh hadn’t peeled away and rotted yet.

If you looked closely, it appeared as if the heads were moving due to the sheer number of bugs eating away all the things the naked eye couldn’t see.

With the temperature as hot as it had been recently, these body parts were essentially baking.

The buildings I saw were in complete ruin. Some of them had not one but three tags from different factions layered on top of each other.

So, they were essentially wiping themselves out.

After approximately fifteen minutes another body appeared, strung up like the first and near a mile marker on the side of the road. I could tell it was a woman easily enough and assumed she had been dead for at least three days. It was hard to pinpoint with all the other variables that came into effect.

The environment in which she died and the temperature in the Badlands would make a difference to her level of decomposition, but it was apparent she’d been pregnant.

There were vultures desperately diving their beaks into the sockets where her eyes once sat, tearing away rotting flesh and muscle.

On the heated pavement lay what would have been her baby. In the mess that hadn’t been eaten by some wild animal yet, there was the tiniest hand and foot—neither attached to the fetus anymore.

The volume of gas and rising pressure within her would have forced various body fluids to exude from all her natural orifices, which is how her uterus would’ve prolapsed. It was basic things we learned growing up. About death and decomposition—not coffin births.

There were no rules or moral guidelines in the Badlands. Men, women, the unborn and the living…they were all the same. Gender and age weren’t salvation. If anything, it worked against you.

Generally, though, only the most barbaric kinds of humans made a sport of hunting the weak.

“What’s happening around here?”

“It’s foreplay for war.”

“Like battleships?”

Snickering came from the back seat.

“Lilith.” He said my name flatly. “It’s gang wars. Turf wars. The tension’s been building for years. The more civilized the area, the more likely you are to run into a hostile situation. Everyone wants to be on top, control key resources and hot spots.”

“But the Savages do that.”

“The Savages do some of that,” Aurora corrected. “Do you know how large the Badlands is?”

“They’re involved in this too. You’ll see,” Mal continued. “It’s a control thing. That faction is still growing, along with the other top contenders. The Savages need the space and resources too. You think Romero would give up his faction’s position so another could take its place?”

“Certainly, not,” I replied without even having to think about it.

“But…where does that leave us?”

He didn’t reply right away, so we ended up driving along in silence.

“I have that worked out. It isn’t something you need to worry about.”

I glared at him.

“How can you say that? I have to be worried if it involves you and the others.”

“No. That’s why I’ve kept your ass far away from all this. I would never drag you into the same war I’m going to protect you from.”

I couldn’t find fault with that. Samael had never not protected me. Even with this spectacular fail of an escape I’d made, he still kept me safe. I wanted to stand beside him, though. Not behind him.

Leaning my head against the window, I watched him from my peripheral, thinking of the past few days and comparing it to these last couple years we’d been together. He reminded me of someone…

Liege.

That one word really said everything. The only person I had ever witnessed being called that was known as the devil himself. How ironic that this same man was his blood relative? I wasn’t sure this was a good thing.

Romero was something else. He was wildly successful, though. Him and our fathers. I studied Mal’s side profile. Was that how he was able make it this far? When I thought of the connections he had—taking into consideration there were likely a ton more I didn’t know—it struck me that someone had to have been sponsoring him. I think I could connect some of the dots now, but it wasn’t something I was going to say aloud.

It wasn’t that strange since Romero was his uncle, but what was his end game? Why did he need my Mal?

“What is it?”

“I just realized you remind me of Romero,” I answered honestly.

“I can see it,” Rory agreed. “Such a beautiful man too.”

Mal scowled at the road ahead. “So, you’d fuck him too?”

Where did that come from? I bit my inner cheek, trying hard not to laugh. If he wanted me to be honest, then…

“I’d sooner rip a dick off than sit on one, but if I had to choose, he would be top pick,” Aurora cut in.

“I would do it now,” Poet seconded.

“This conversation is over.”

He drove a around bend