Page 57 of Cold-Blooded Creatures

“Doesn’t mean it’s not worth telling.” She had come from another compound, from a different city, yet her experience mimicked my own. I knew what it meant to seek what you needed, wanted, craved. Any means justified the ends.

Except she hadn’t betrayed her kind. I had.

Untangling our bodies, Jayla gestured to another store we had reached. “Wait here. I need to pick up some things for Vice and don’t want to ruin your surprise.”

“I still don’t know anything about Vice besides that it hosts some kind of shows because you won’t tell me. Can’t I go in?” No shade offered cover from the scorching globe hanging in the cloudless sky, and dread drenched me at the idea of lingering outside.

“Nope. I’ll be out in a minute. Here, you can have the last eclair in exchange.” She handed me the time-beaten lunch box and vanished into the depths of the mysterious shop.

I did want that freaking pastry.

20

ZION

Their blood was mine. The idiots who’d dared to defy us were going to be drained of it until even my knife wouldn’t paint them in scarlet.

“Where?” I asked Ava, as my trusted team and I marched down the abandoned street drowning in sunshine on the outskirts of our compound. If only the day’s heat could incinerate the abhorrent traitors we were about to pay a visit to. It’d make my job that much easier.

“Up there, third floor.” She pointed to the corner window in the seven-story building and fell in line behind me as we entered the first floor and climbed up the crumbling stairwell, the stairs cracked and missing large chunks, the middle of them deformed from the thousands of feet having left their imprints over time.

Ava knew the rules. I was the first to toy with our targets. I was also the first to get bruised if they were armed.

Not everyone could comfortably function as part of my team. We didn’t care for mercy or pleas. If you risked working against us, we were your certain doom. A slow one.

I kicked down the shabby wooden door, a piece of a decaying lock flying away and hitting the pair of well-worn boots left on the broken metal shoe rack, and we spread out in the half-deserted apartment. Everyone knew the drill. Ava would weed out anyone who displayed a drop of concern for our targets or a lack of viciousness in extracting information.

A newcomer Ava had selected for our team dragged a kicking and dripping-blood-out-of-his-nostrils man out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. “He was scrambling to climb out of a window.” She shoved him into a wobbling chair. “Not sure how it would’ve worked, as we’re on thethird floor.” She directed the last two words at the long-faced man as they quickly tied him to the chair.

The idiot thrashed and pulled on the restraints, repeating that we’d made a mistake over and over. He could try to escape for hours, for all I cared—my team was well-versed on ropes.

“How did you come up with the idea?” I punched his chin upward as a way of introduction. He knew who I was. Everyone did.

Crimson trickled from the corners of his lips, down his chin, and onto his hairy chest. The result of the first stroke of my paintbrush—my fist.

“What are you talking about?” he wheezed out, struggling to free himself.

“You know who I am. Who I represent. You and your friends robbed a number ofourstores inourcompound and decided to extort money out of them forprotection.” I jabbed the nail of my thumb into the cut on his bottom lip and ripped it wide open. His panting mixed with cries, weaving a prophetic melody of the chain of events about to ensue. “You are one of the three identified as your meager ring leaders. And as such, you will answer for your whole group. How did you come up with the idea?”

“We didn’t?—”

The newcomer punched him in the gut, and a coughing fit racking his lungs cut him off.

His bloodied spit flew on the dirty floor, some dribbling onto his pair of loose, blue-checkered underwear, staining the fabric in reddish-brown splotches. “Bitch.”

She shrugged her sloped shoulders. “Yes, I am. I couldn’t help myself. Your whining was unbearably irritating.”

Ava had chosen well. After a few months of basic training in pain management—in others, not yourself—and with Ava’s counseling, she was going to become an invaluable part of us.

“If you don’t want to chat, we’ll cut this short. Your tongue serves the sole purpose of speech, and if you don’t plan on using it, you won’t need it whatsoever.” My knife explored the dip under his cheekbone. “Who are your friends?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbled, his scarce stubble damp from his sobs.

Oh, well.

Stabbing his right thigh, I twisted the blade. Hot blood gushed down his hairy leg, and I licked my upper teeth. Scarlet flowing down a body always painted it in the most heavenly patterns. “Who wants to play?” I asked.

“Seriously?” Ava’s thick, light brown eyebrows shot so high up they were going to fly off from her forehead if she raised them any higher.