If I could have spoken, I would have told him the only thing that mattered anymore.
I am the monster they created. I’m the whore they’re ashamed of.
They took my heaven away.
Now, I would bring them hell.
CHAPTER THREE
Present
It was another sleepless night beneath burning sheets. The large electrical fan rotating back and forth wasn’t doing shit to cool down the room. I restlessly toyed with the inverted cross I wore around my neck before finally giving up with a frustrated huff. Insomnia was such a clingy little cunt. While normal people slept soundly, my demons decided to strike up a conversation.
Kicking the sheet from my legs, I glanced over at Jinx, making sure I didn’t wake her. When she didn’t move or speak, I slowly slipped out of bed. Spotting my clothes bundled up on the floor, I scooped them up and tiptoed into the small bathroom.
After I had my shorts and tank back on, I went over to the basin attached to the wall and drank some cold water from the faucet, sighing as the cool liquid alleviated my throat’s dryness.
Twisting my lips around, I cocked my head and stared at my ghostly, pale reflection in the shattered mirror. Dull blue eyes surrounded by smudged black makeup stared back at me. White-blonde locks framed my face. I looked alive, my body breathed, and my heart still beat—but inside, I was dead. Most days it felt like I barely existed.
Placing my fingers on the glass, I began tracing over the lines. No matter which way I went, I always wound up right back where I had begun. My life was nothing but a hamster wheel spinning in place, making no progress, going nowhere.
I pressed my index finger down on a protruding shard, smiling when blood began to spill from the tip.
I watched it try to retrace my path in the twisted cracks, just for it to simply break free and make a crimson trail of its own.
Was it really so easy? I couldn’t seem to find my way out. No matter how hard I tried to break away and venture out on my own, I always ended up right back in a twisted maze, trapped.
I wanted to know where I went wrong. There was a black hole growing in my mind. I hated what I’d become, this empty shell of a girl who had spent so much time hiding who she was that she now had no idea who the fuck she was supposed to be.
I had no issue remembering the things I wanted to forget. The mental prison I was stuck in kept all the memories from my past trapped with me in a cold and lonely cell.
I fucking hated it.
No, that’s an understatement.
I was sick of being sick of it.
Sucking my bloody finger into my mouth, I turned away from the mirror and walked out of the bathroom.
Tiptoeing back through the room, I slipped out into the dimly lit hall and pulled the door shut behind me.
Expecting everyone else in the compound to be asleep at such a late hour, I immediately headed in the direction of whispering voices. The closer I got, the clearer they became. Rounding a corner, I came to a stop in the doorway of the lounge room.
Tito and Grady stood over a table with their heads bowed together. I watched them for a few minutes, wondering if they would notice me standing there, waiting to be acknowledged. There was a mass of papers between them that I couldn’t see clearly from my vantage point. It was glaringly obvious they were up to something, just like they had been every other night for the past few months. Their stealth level was shit.
“We have to do this on the low. No one else can know,” Tito whispered.
“No one else can know what?” I asked, strolling into the room.
They jumped apart, both spinning around to face me. Tito’s brown eyes met mine, and as always, I was reminded of Tilly, his twin. They had the same Polynesian features: shoulder-length curls and flawless brown skin. The only difference between them was that one was alive and the other was dead.
“How long have you been standing there?” Grady asked.
“Long enough.” Forcing myself to look away from Tito, I focused on the table they seemed a little too determined to block from me.
“What the hell are you two doing in here?”
They stood rigid and silent, prompting me to walk around them to see whatever they were trying to hide for myself. “What is this?”
“Research,” Tito answered, turning back around to watch me.
“Research, huh?” I looked down at the tabletop that was littered with notes, article clippings, and polaroid pictures.
“You’re full of shit, and you’re lying to my face. Why would you be researching them?”
I snatched up one of the many sheets of paper that had ‘Savages’ scrawled across it.
“I told you we shouldn’t have done this here,” Grady spat at Tito before turning his attention to me. “Cali, this isn’t what it looks like.”
“So, I’m just dreaming that you two assholes are meeting in secret to plan something that involves them?” I grabbed another sheet of paper, letting it flutter to the floor when I couldn’t decipher the sloppy handwriting scribbled all over it.
One picture in particular caught my attention. It wasn’t like any of my others.
I reached for it at the same time as Tito, slapping his hand away before he could pick it up. He wasn’t in color, the man in the photo. Whoever took the shot snapped it without his knowledge.
There was a scowl on his face as he looked at something not visible to the lens. Tattoos covered every visible inch of skin. ‘Savages’ was inked over his right temple, and directly beneath the corner of his eye was a tiny but noticeable inverted cross. I absentmindedly stroked my necklace, unable to look away from him.
“He might know where David is,” Tito eventually said.
“Might?” Suddenly, he had my full attention.
He sighed. “They’ve been abnormally quiet for the last few weeks. They could be working together. I think they might be about to do something big.
“My paranoia needs to know what the fuck is going on so I can be prepared if a shit storm is coming, and we don’t get caught in the middle.
“I need someone on the inside. It was either Simon or Grady, so I’m sending him.” He hitched a thumb in Grady’s direction.
“I get why you would keep this from everyone else, but why me? Why would you hide this from me?”
I was pissed and he knew it. I had been searching for David—my sperm donor—for years. It was damn near impossible to find him because he never stayed in one spot for longer than a few months. I’d heard through the grapevine that The Order was growing and his mindless followers seemed to be increasing with it.
“The fewer people who knew, the better. This isn’t a personal conspiracy against you.”
“This could all be a bunch of bullshit; like he said, it’s just paranoia,” Grady added, backing him up.
“I don’t care if it’s paranoia. If you so much as thought there was a minuscule chance of finding him, why wouldn’t you tell me?”
“Maybe because you aren’t the only one in this room who lost someone because of that piece of shit,” Tito snapped.
“Lost someone? I lost everything, but that’s beside the point. It’s not a competition. Why would you send Grady in, of all people? And why was Simon ever an option? He wouldn’t be able to find his dick if it wasn’t attached to him.”
“Well, I can’t trust many people with this. I don’t want anyone getting killed or falling into that lifestyle. Whom do you suggest I send? You?”
I shrugged. That’s exactly what I was suggesting. He started to laugh, stopping short when he saw how serious I was.
“Absolutely fuckin not. No. Are you out of your goddamn mind?” He picked up a recent article clipping and held it up for me to see. “Do you see what they do to women? Look at this!”
Huffing out a breath, I carefully studied the news photo. The breasts were the only thing left to confirm the person’s gender. Everything else was mutilated or gone.
A large inverted cross had been carv
ed right down the center of her naked torso. He clearly didn’t see what I did.
I saw someone trying to make a statement.
They were sending a personal message.
Whoever had taken the shot did so long after post-mortem. The body had begun to decay, but pointing out that anything or anyone could have taken her apart was a moot point with him.
I wasn’t sure how he expected me to react but this didn’t deter me. My mind was already made up. I had nothing to lose and nothing to fear, which made me the best candidate.
I looked up from the picture with another shrug. “This doesn’t change anything. I’m not this woman.”
“This doesn’t bother you at all?”
He looked at me in disbelief, glancing at Grady as if he needed confirmation from another person that I didn’t care.
“What’s going on with you?”
I didn’t bother voicing a response; he wouldn’t like my answer. At one point in time, the horrific image would have had some effect on me. Maybe the kick to the back of my head had knocked something loose. I couldn’t pinpoint when I’d changed, or really describe how I knew I wasn’t the same. Something just shifted, and I had made zero effort to shift it back.
They had no idea who they let live under their roof. There was a secret side of me I never let them see, keeping her hidden under lock and key. The strange creature that lurked just beneath my skin was caged and waiting to be let out.
I usually took better care hiding my harsher nature, but as of late, I was struggling with being good. My angels and my demons kept crossing signals.
“Actually, Cali is perfect for this,” Grady hesitantly said.
“What the fuck?” Tito voiced my exact sentiments, whipping his head around so fast his neck cracked.
“Hear me out on this,” Grady continued, holding up a hand to silence any protest.
“She may be a smartass, but she is smart. And stubborn. And she doesn’t trust anyone. Oh, and she’s a she, which works about a thousand times more in our favor—you know, cause the whole ‘helpless woman’ thing.” He ticked off each point on his fingers.
When neither of us immediately spoke, his hazel eyes bounced between us, a smug grin spreading across his cherub face. I had half-expected him to repeat what everyone else in the compound whispered about me when I walked by. I should have known better than that, though.
Ever since the day he and Tito had found me, they’d done their best to look out for my wellbeing. They were the only people aside from Jinx who never spoke ill of me. They had never judged me for my obscurity or religiously told me I didn’t belong with them because of my ties to David.
Everyone else needed somewhere to direct their hatred and misery, and I happened to be the perfect target. I was a villain they could blame; they were afraid of me. Sometimes, I didn’t blame them. I knew that there was a flaw in my code. The simple truth was that I didn’t give a fuck.
“Those sound like reasons not to send her,” Tito finally said.
“No, those are the reasons you do send her. Plus, she doesn’t like dick,” Grady slipped in. They stared at one another, some silent battle of wills taking place between them.
I felt like I was missing something but with these two, that was not unusual. I didn’t bother adding my two cents, mostly because what Grady said was true—except for me not liking dick. I didn’t particularly care for anything anymore. I had slept with too many men in an effort to prove to myself that I wasn’t broken. It never worked.
I got nothing from the experiences but a free three minutes and twenty seconds of wasted time. I was left feeling empty and used, just as I had years ago, and it wasn’t worth it anymore; not when I knew what I really needed.
Jinx was strictly a friend—the only real friend I’d ever had. She was a gorgeous, but despite what Grady refused to believe, I harbored no secret desire for her.
I stood watching them discuss my pros and cons as if I wasn’t in the room, shutting them both down when I couldn’t take it anymore.
“It doesn’t matter what either of you thinks she should or shouldn’t do, because she is going to do whatever the fuck she wants.”
They stopped going back and forth and stared at me with slightly open mouths.
“The Savages isn’t a gang of gentlemen trying to do the world a favor. They live by their own code. This isn’t the goddamn boy scouts we’re talking about!” Tito preached, throwing his hands up in frustration. “They’re outcasts. They’re undesirables. They’re sick in the fucking head.”
He wasn’t saying anything I’d never heard before. Quite honestly, it sounded like he was describing me.
“No one wants to do this world favors, T, and I don’t blame them. It’s a real fucked up place to live.”
He opened his mouth to respond, promptly snapping it shut, unable to refute what I had just said. We lived in a world where the human race had no humanity, were merely animals who hadn’t been taught how to behave.
There was a place referred to as The Kingdom. Supposedly, the grass was a vibrant green, it was always sunny, and love conquered all—a real fucking utopia that had no use for bad batches like us.
Outside those towering walls was the Badlands, and in the Badlands, the weak struggled against the strong.
Anarchy reigned.
The world had been like this long before I was born. If The Order and the Savages really did have some diabolical plan for the rest of us, there wasn’t shit me or Tito could do to stop it.
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?” he asked me outright.
“Highly unlikely.”
“You should probably grab a seat, then. We have a lot of shit to talk about.”
He turned around and shut the door, letting out a deep breath before facing me again.
“Let’s start with his name.”
CHAPTER FOUR
His name was Romero.
That was the first time I had ever heard someone say it. People were too superstitious to speak it, as if he were some demonic entity that would appear and slit their tender throats before dragging their fragile souls straight to hell.
We’d spent hours discussing risks and potential outcomes. With time being sensitive, we had to do the best we could, converting their months’ worth of information into a last-minute plan.
Sighing, I looked out the Touareg’s window and watched all the empty fields, vast open wasteland passing us by.
We were getting farther and farther away from anything remotely civilized.
Into the wild. That’s how I thought of it—away from petty moral barriers and society’s fragile sensitivities.
“This could all be nothing,” Tito told me for what had to be the tenth time in less than two hours.
“Or it could be everything.” I pursed my lips and narrowed my eyes. I wished we could play the quiet game until I was no longer stuck in a car with him. Our eyes stayed locked in the rearview mirror until he was forced to look away or risk veering off the road.
“I just don’t want you to end up like his last girl.”
His last girl? That instantly piqued my interest and further irritated me. I didn’t know about any girl.
“Why? What happened to her?”
“That isn’t relevant to your situation. He’s just trying to change your mind,” Grady interjected.
“Trying to chit-chat me out of this is a waste of your precious breath. This is the best lead I’ve had in four years.”
The only response he gave to that was a shake of his head. I knew the only reason he caved on this was because he knew I’d just take their information and do it anyway. I didn’t particularly like being told I couldn’t do something because my balls were on my chest and not between my legs.
For the first hour of our drive, he had told me every horror story about Romero that he could think of, not realizing what he was doing. The brutality didn’t scare me; it intrigued me. Truthfully, I wanted to see who these people were and the way
they lived. Every scrap of information, no matter how disturbing, only made me want to meet him more.
I needed to get away, needed something to pull me out of the murky cesspool of the thing I called life.
Every day I felt like I lost another part of the woman I shunned in order to assimilate. I needed to do this. It was everything I’d been waiting for.
I couldn’t tell them any of that, though. They would never understand the parts of me I hid. Jinx was the only person who had ever tried, and I’d just had to leave without telling her goodbye. I sincerely hoped she would understand why.
“This is it.” Grady pointed in the direction of a treeline looming in the near distance.
Squinting, I peered through the front windshield, trying to spot what he was referring to. Tito drove a half mile further before pulling over. We sat in silence for a few moments. I couldn’t say for sure what they were thinking, but it was more than likely about how crazy this whole thing was.
I was going to solicit the lions that ruled over a land of sheep. They would either sink their teeth into me or let me in their pride.
When Tito’s brown eyes met mine again, I knew on some level that he did understand, and I knew he wanted to find David just as badly as I did.
“Alright, let’s do this,” he said, climbing out of the SUV.
I put one hand on the door to follow him. Before I could even push it open, Grady reached back and snagged my wrist.
“If things start to go south, you get away, Cali. Run like hell, and I promise I’ll find you.”
I could only nod my head. Vocalizing emotions had always been one of my weak points. He nodded back before letting me go and turning around, allowing me to get out. Shielding my eyes from the sun, I walked to where Tito stood.
Savages Page 2