Page 35 of Pretty Ruthless Monsters: Complete Series

QUINN

I’m jerked out of a sound sleep sometime later by the sound of someone banging on the door like they’re trying to break it down.

I bolt upright, groggy and a little disoriented. Gray light is coming in through the window, letting me know that it’s morning—but just barely.

The banging on the door pauses and then starts up again, and that wakes Nico up too.

“What the fuck?” he mumbles under his breath, but then I watch his eyes clear as he barks, “What?”

Atlas pushes the door open, his gaze sweeping over us.

I can only imagine what he sees, and I fight the urge to cover myself.

When he saw me downstairs last night, I had thrown on shorts and a tank top, but I stripped everything off before getting back into bed with Nico—who’s also naked.

It’s not like Atlas doesn’t know that we fucked, but the scene he just walked in on leaves nothing to the imagination.

Other than a tightening of his jaw, he doesn’t say anything about it though. Instead, he lets his focus slide to Nico, his expression serious.

“Shit is going down,” he declares.

That shakes the last of the sleepiness out of me, and I’m instantly on alert. “What is it?” I ask. “The attacker?”

“No. Our gangs are going at it. A fight broke out, and it’s bad.”

“ Fuck ,” I curse with feeling, almost at the same time that Nico does.

“I thought we made ourselves clear,” Nico grunts.

Atlas shrugs, cracking his inked fingers. “Not clear enough, apparently.”

Nico and I both get up and grab our clothes, tugging them on quickly so that we can go deal with this shit. Nico goes downstairs first, taking Atlas with him, and I follow behind a few minutes later, dressed and ready.

“Do we know anything else?” I ask as I meet them downstairs. Killian is there too, all three of them standing in a tight huddle.

Atlas glances at me and then away. His jaw is still stiff, and whatever camaraderie I thought the two of us had last night as we sat on the couch together under the flickering light of the television, it seems to be gone now, almost like I fucking dreamed it.

In the cool light of morning, he appears to hate me more than ever.

“Not much,” he finally answers, as if he’d rather be talking to anyone but me. “Just that a fight broke out, and it seems like people were only too eager to jump into it.”

I growl under my breath, irritated with all of this. “Who started it?”

It’s half rhetorical, but Atlas lifts an eyebrow and then looks away from me, as if he’s not going to dignify that question with an answer.

“We’ll find out when we get there,” Nico says, jerking his head toward the door. “Let’s go.”

We leave the house and get on our bikes, tearing out of the neighborhood and riding to the location of the fight.

Atlas is in the lead, and we all follow, tearing down the quiet, pre-dawn streets.

It’s closing in on five in the morning, so there aren’t many people awake to see us riding in a line at top speed.

The few people who are commuting to work or whatever get out of our way on the road, giving us a wide berth.

Finally we pull off the main drag and down a shitty little side street, weaving around pot holes that will probably never be fixed and broken-down cars that have already had all their useful parts stripped out.

Even over the roar of the bikes, I can hear the fight before I see it—the yelling and jeering of a crowd of people. The men can clearly hear it too, because they kick their speed up a notch, and I follow suit.

Seconds later, we pull up outside what looks like a bar.

It’s rough and seedy, with grimy windows and half broken fluorescent signs hanging in the windows.

There are people spilling out of the open door, shouts and grunts rising up as a massive brawl plays out in the street.

From what I can tell, it looks like it was a late night of drinking that turned into a bunch of bad decisions and re-awakened grudges. Which then led to this mess.

We cut our engines and get off the bikes, barely trading glances as we wade into the fray.

Most of the people around the fringes of the action are just egging it on, and as we shove our way through that, we can see the tangled knot of the actual fight. People brawling in twos and threes and larger groups. Some on the ground, some upright, but chaos either way.

I wrench two people apart, recognizing one of my own gang members who was trying to keep a member of Carnage in a headlock.

I give him a furious glare, and I’m gratified to see him wither a little.

“Oh, shit,” he mutters. “Boss, I?—”

“Fucking save it,” I snap.

Around me, people seem to be realizing what’s happening. That the leaders of both gangs have shown up and are pissed the hell off.

I see Killian practically rip people away from each other, shoving them to either side of the crowd of people with his lips set in a hard line.

Atlas is reading two people the riot act a bit away, and Nico stands somewhere in the middle, his eyes sweeping over it all like he’s taking it in.

“With me!” I shout, letting my voice carry over the lingering sounds of chaos. All of my people snap out of their rage at that and start falling in line, coming over to me.

They have guilty expressions on their faces, like they already know what’s coming. Most of them have bloody noses or bruises on their faces, and some of them seem to be sporting worse injuries, holding their sides and breathing hard.

“What the fuck happened?” I demand. At first, no one speaks up, and I fold my arms, pinning them with a glare. “Someone better say something. What. Happened?”

Finally, someone steps forward. “Carnage started it,” Fabian says, glaring across the way at where the Carnage members are still being corralled by their leaders.

“Oh, fuck you,” someone from that side spits.

“Shut the fuck up,” Nico snaps, cold and pissed off. “You’ll get your fucking chance to speak, and it’s not right now.”

He nods for a stunned looking Fabian to keep going.

“Right. So some of us were here drinking, just shooting the shit, you know? We came out to the lot to head out, and Carnage was here. They keyed the shit out of Cabby’s car, and fucked with his tires. Probably did more, but that’s all we saw.”

Cabby is one of the older members of Enigma. Someone who knew my father well and has been around since I was a kid. He also drives for rideshares when he’s not doing gang shit, hence the name, and his car helps him make money. Which explains why Carnage would target it.

“Why?” I ask shortly.

“Cabby fucked the wrong bitch,” someone else says under their breath.

“If he didn’t want his shit fucked up, he should’ve kept it in his fucking pants,” someone from Carnage snarls.

“When did this happen?” I glance back at Fabian. “Before we joined up together?”

Fabian nods. “About eight months ago, I guess.”

“So it’s old bullshit that’s being dragged out, even though we told all of you that all that shit was in the past?”

I’m even more pissed off now, angry that all this was over some petty shit. Nothing life or death, nothing that serious, and they’re all out here brawling in the street about it.

I open my mouth to go off on them, but surprisingly, Nico speaks up first.

“I told you to drop that shit,” he snarls. “I told you we were done with the old grudges and that we were working together now. Did some of you manage not to hear me? We’re on the same fucking side now, and this isn’t how allies act.”

“But they—” a scruffy looking man with a cut over his eye cuts in.

Nico rounds on him so fast that he has to stumble back a step.

“I didn’t fucking ask what they did. I don’t care that you were retaliating for something or that you thought it was your turn to get a lick in.

That was shit from before, and it doesn’t apply now.

It’s supposed to be a blank fucking slate. ”

I blink in surprise at how Nico is handling this. He’s all command, not letting his people get away with disobeying orders. He’s not overly harsh, not looking to demoralize them, but calling them out for their shit.

Killian and Atlas have moved to have his back, the two of them flanking him the way they usually do, presenting a united front.

And it’s clear that it has the effect they want.

Everyone on the Carnage side looks like they regret throwing hands, even the ones who still seem like they’re spoiling for a fight.

They’re not stupid enough to pop off in front of their leaders.

“Who fucked with the car?” Nico asks, looking around at all of them. “I want to know who it was.”

There’s silence for a moment, and then two people step forward. Nico looks them up and down, like he’s considering something.

“Was it just you two?” he asks.

“It was our plan,” one of them responds. “Some others helped.”

“But you started it. Fine. Since you can’t handle your shit the way you’re supposed to, you’re on toilet duty.”

There’s a groan from the shorter man. “Come on, Nico. Not toilet duty,” he practically whines. “You know we hate that shit.”

“Yeah, I thought we made new people do the toilet shit,” the other man adds in.

Nico just shrugs. “You should’ve thought about that before you fucked up so bad. For the next two weeks, you two will be handling it. Suck it up and don’t let this shit happen again.”

A couple of people on my side are smirking, clearly pleased that the Carnage members are being made an example out of. I raise one eyebrow, deciding to follow suit to show a united front.

My people might not have started the fight, but they didn’t do anything to put an end to it either.

“I don’t know what you’re smirking about,” I tell them in a cold voice. “You were just as out of line as the Carnage members were. You were at the same fucking meeting where we told you to knock this shit off. I don’t care if they acted first. You should have stood down.”

“And just let them run all over us?” Fabian asks, clearly angry.