Page 95 of Cold-Blooded Creatures

If wickedness had a smell, Ilasall would be it. The foul stench of sweaty soldiers clad in their synthetic uniforms consisting of black cargo pants and skintight, dark green t-shirts as they patrolled the streets. The nauseating odor of moldy concrete emanating from endless apartment buildings, all identical, ten stories tall, a maze designed to keep you wandering without aim, emptying you of questions except on surviving today and the next day. The dreadful reek wafting from the open entrance toa nutritional bar shop, so potent the scent alone scraped at the back of your throat.

And those posters of the Head of Ilasall, the man named Peter, hanging on the walls in practically all establishments… They weren’t obligatory, but most chose to plaster them on the sparkling-in-the-sun windows or inside their shops and stores and restaurants and service spots and offices to display their support.

Even the many—the count I refused to calculate—green-banded citizens I’d traded favors with had a poster of some kind in their homes. One went as far as framing it above their bed, and the hour I’d endured splayed on my back… The deep brown eyes of the city head tracking my every move had made it almost impossible to pretend that I’d enjoyed their hands on me.

The government had sanctioned countless versions of the pictures, yet they all were identical in one aspect—our city leader looked at you from above, his jaw stony, his eyes dark, his lips set in a thin line, his blond hair accentuating the paleness of his complexion, and his clad-in-a-white-button-up-shirt shoulders set back in an open display of power.

Lowering my voice to not raise suspicion, I seethed, “I loathe this place.”

Gedeon nodded in greeting to the four soldiers in formation marching past us. The tallest of them, dressed in a uniform embellished with a triangle-shaped golden patch, cast us a once-over and vanished into the street we came from. “Maybe this will take your mind off things: I have a surprise for you tomorrow morning.”

My heart stuttered. Another surprise? The last two had contained six orgasms and a murder drenched in torture. Nothing could be better than that.

And for what? They hadn’t promised me anything else as far as my memory carried me. And I already had puff pastries filledwith cream waiting for me once we got back. I didn’t care what kind. As long as they were sweet, they were the best kind.

Nobody paid attention to us the rest of the way as we crossed the three blocks up to a small grocery store crushed between a lifeless residential building and a restaurant dedicated to the green-banded as others couldn’t afford it. We grabbed a couple of red plastic shopping baskets and dispersed along the shelves brimming with fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, and sweets in a game of pretend shopping.

A ding of a bell above the door signaled the last customer had left, and Zion and Ava rushed to chat with an elderly woman behind the counter.

“She has been working with us since she met my mother,” Gedeon said, as we navigated the shelves toward them.

“You knew your parents?” Like most, I had no idea who my parents were. Ilasall took the infants away immediately after birth and brought them to schools to be cared for and raised as part of a group. No family ties equaled no loyalty to anything but the city and its needs.

“Not like you think.”

My brow furrowed in question, but he shook his head in a silent answer—later.

“When do you need it delivered?” The woman hid her notepad and pens under the counter as we approached the cash register, and Gedeon placed our basket of groceries on top. If anyone came in, we’d resemble actual shoppers.

Zion slid the backpack off his shoulders and unclasped the cover’s buckles. “No later than tomorrow or they will stink up your place.” He unloaded the cardboard boxes stained with deep red and wiped his hands on his loose black pants—also known as the second thing he’d made a fuss about during our trip. Evidently, they were tooairy. At least they could hide the scarlet streaks better than his pale blue shirt.

Her nose wrinkled as the woman poked the packages with a pencil. “What did you do? They reek.”

“Not my idea.” Zion moved away, making space for me to take the lead, and rolled his sleeves up to his elbows. “She came up with it.”

A blush crept up my cheeks at his grin.

“Tell me then, what’s in there?” she asked me. The silver of her waist-long hair complimented the deep navy color of her half-sleeved blouse, like stars streaking a night sky, both pure and evil. “Or shall I askwho?”

“Do you really want to know?” Gedeon inquired, examining the gleaming shelves stretching to the entrance of the store, not a single soul in sight.

“Body parts,” Ava piped up, and waved Gedeon’s dirty look off. “What? Believe me, she’s seen and been through stuff worse than this.”

“She’s right. Now which package is going to whom?” The woman pulled out a large plastic crate from under the counter and placed it on top. “They’ll be delivered tomorrow morning. I’ll cash in some favors.”

I lifted the largest box up out of Zion’s backpack and deposited it in the crate she’d indicated. “We agreed this one should go to the Head of Military. It has pairs of feet and hands from one of their soldiers. You know, because they march and all.”

After Zion had come back from training his teams last night, he’d shared the idea of sending the soldier’s remains back to the Head of the Military as a message to not fuck with us. But I’d figured this could be a great way to send proper warnings to everyone I had my sights set on.

“This second one has a head, so, obviously, it has to be delivered to the Head of Ilasall. But the last is my favorite.” I lifted the smallest box out of the backpack and placed it on topof the other two. “It has a pair of balls and a dick with green and black wristbands on it. I want to send it to the Head of Welfare, my former employer. Hopefully, he’ll choke on it.”

The sun-spotted skin around her bright eyes wrinkled as she laughed in such a genuine way it warmed my chest. “Creative. Been a while since we had someone with an imaginative mind. These two are either too strategic or too crazy in their ways.”

Zion grinned at her. “You know you love us.”

Looking over our shoulders, she quickly stuffed the plastic crate under the counter. “How can I help you?”

I twisted on my heels and was promptly tossed like a doll. Zion shoved me behind his back as Gedeon hovered in front of him, effectively hiding us both from whoever had dared to venture into the grocery store.