Page 46 of Property of Necro (Kings Of Anarchy MC: Illinois #1)

Chapter

Thirty-Four

Standing in Rot’s office, I watch Necro through the camera feeds.

They’re live-streaming again and have been for days now.

If I thought Coffin looked like hell before, Necro takes the cake.

He’s lost so much weight. You can see every rib.

His collarbones are soup bowls, and his abs are cut from glass.

The gutters of his hips, where his camo pants hang loosely, are usually a place I’d love to lick, but he looks like a walking corpse—pale skin, covered in blood.

The dark smudges around his eyes and down his neck have long worn off.

According to the brothers, he hasn’t showered in days, and Creature is going out of his mind with worry.

“He signs sometimes, when he doesn’t think we’re watching,” the scarred face brother says from beside us as we observe Necro meticulously paint with a bucket of blood.

“What does he say?” I ask.

Creature sighs like the weight of the world is bearing down on his shoulders, and he’s ready to let it crush him.

“ He says he wants to die. I tried to take his knife so he can’t use it on himself—the one we all keep in our boots—but he won’t let me.

I can’t get close enough to slip it out, and he’s hyper-aware of everything.

The music stopped once, and he raged ‘til it was turned back on.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“The painting. A little over a week,” Creature explains.

“The murder spree? A month or so. We can’t keep our cells filled.

Mama had to call in a bunch of favors to keep the shipments coming.

Rot can’t keep up with the influx of parts.

We had to take a load of parts to a friend’s crematorium to make space. ”

“What do you usually do with all the bodies? I know the women are buried… But…”

“Rot didn’t show you?” Creature glances over to the man in question.

“Nope,” I reply. “I assume this has something to do with the lab I’ve heard about but not seen.”

“The skulls throughout the church, Rot preserved those.”

Wow. Okay.

“Really?” My voice jumps a dozen octaves as I swing my gaze to the man in question.

Rocking back on his heels, Rot shrugs like a shy little boy. “It’s kinda my thing.”

“Are you going to show me?” It would be nice to see. It can’t be any worse than Coffin’s trophy room, or what Necro does for funsies.

Rot’s nose wrinkles. “Fuck no. It smells horrible in the lab. I’m the only one allowed in there. There’s an intake freezer for the brothers to put parts, but it’s all me. ”

“You process full bodies?” See? I learn something new every day.

Rot flashes me one of those aw-you’re-adorable grins. “How do you think I make money for the club, Red?”

“I don’t know.” I shrug. “I figured doing the video stuff was how you got a cut. You know, from the live streams.” He is the man behind the cameras. It makes sense that he’d get a portion of the money they make, as would Creature, who helps facilitate everything.

“Nope. I get money from the bodies,” he explains, shocking the hell out of me.

We’ve spent months fucking like bunnies, and somehow this topic never came up when we were post-orgasm chatting in bed.

“How?” I ask, genuinely curious.

“Are you sure you really want to know?” Rot tests, and when I nod, he carries on. “Okay. Suit yourself. I have a vat of beetles that eat flesh from bone. I preserve organs in specimen jars and sell them online. There’s a huge market for it.”

“For preserved organs?”

“Yeah. People love jars of eyeballs. Or, if I can get a complete set of teeth and eyeballs from the same person, people go crazy for that shit. Plus, some of the old fuckers still have gold fillings. I pop ‘em out and melt ‘em down. Gold is worth a mint.” Rot rubs his fingers together like he’s collecting all that dough, while I’m stuck on what he does.

People want body parts? Science labs, sure.

Museums? Of course. But every day people, displayed in your house?

Gross. Then again, it’s not all that different from what a taxidermist does to animals.

Humans are animals. There’s a market for everything, I guess.

“And what do you do with the rest of the byproducts?” I ask.

“Compost.”

Excuse me? I can’t be hearing this right.

“You compost humans?” I squeak, staring at Rot wide-eyed. Why would you compost humans? Just burn them. Bury them. Something.

Rot cocks his head to the side, reminding me far too much of his masked brother.

He smirks. It’s subdued and sweet, and it’s totally because he thinks it’s cute that I’m disgusted they compost human remains.

Though I’m not sure why it matters. I mean, they do what they do.

The killing and stuff. This isn’t that far-fetched.

“What do you think happens when people die?” His lip twitches. “They’re food, absorbed back into the earth. I speed up the process, and Doug uses the compost.”

“So, you’re saying the vegetables I’ve eaten here are grown in human remains?” I try not to choke on the words as my stomach turns over.

“Not remains,” Rot corrects like a scientist. “Compost. I grind the bones I can’t sell, and the organs break down pretty quickly.”

“What kind of organs?”

“Epidermis, mostly.”

I pull a face. I can’t help it. “So, skin,” I reply, not the least impressed by his use of anatomical words.

That doesn’t change the fact that I ate vegetables grown in human remains.

In epidermis. Bleck. Just say the word. Skin.

It’s skin. Skin that he flayed off the bone.

A skin suit that Buffalo Bill would get hard for.

Gross. Can you imagine the layers of fat stewing in the compost bin?

Gross. Gross. Triple gross. You’ve seen some of the guys they kill. They’re big dudes.

Wait.

Oh. No.

No.

No.

Fuck.

Does that mean we’re eating neo-Nazi vegetables?

Holding my stomach, I gag.

We are.

Rapist, pedophile, racist, misogynistic, vegetables.

Ew.

I should not ask questions. This is something I could live without knowing for the rest of my life. I’ll never look at a carrot the same again.

“Don’t look at me like that, Red.” Rot chuckles, far too entertained by my strife. “Humans are animals, too. A wise hunter doesn’t let any part of a deer go to waste. Why should this be any different?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought much about it. I try not to think about it, actually. Knowing what you guys do and dissecting how it’s done are two very different things,” I lament.

“Well, you’re never leaving again, so you might as well ask the questions and think about the shit, because it’s part of your life now. For good.”

“Oh. It is. Is it?” I challenge.

“We saw how sad you were. We know you missed us, too. Don’t play. ”

“I’m not.” I did miss them. All day. Every day.

“Good. Now we gotta figure out how to handle this asshole before he does something idiotic and kills himself.” The dark-haired hottie thumbs to the screens, where Necro continues to paint.

“Is he really suicidal?”

Rot hums as a wave of sadness washes over his features. “I can’t tell you what happened to Necro. That’s his place. But he was born to be disposable. He doesn’t think he’s worthy of happiness or living a normal life unless it’s to serve a purpose. A path. Every time he sins, he punishes himself.”

“The concept of sinning is a construct to make people obey. It’s not real,” I volley, hating that Necro lives with such pain, that he’d want to die because of it, when he has so much to live for.

“It is to the believer,” Rot says, and he’s right.

“So, this is religious indoctrination?”

“Not exactly.”

“He was born into a cult,” Coffin cuts in, his tone gruff and sexy.

“Coffin,” Rot grates, balling his fists down at his sides, ready to square up. “Shut the fuck up.”

“No. He won’t tell her.” He notches his chin at me. “You know he won’t. If she’s stayin’, then she should know.”

“Not if ,” Rot grumbles.

“Fine. Since she’s staying…” Coffin flips Rot off and turns to give me his undivided attention.

“Necro had no parents. There was no one there to love him, hug him, or tell him he was a good boy. He doesn’t know feelings or how to handle the ones he does have.

You don’t cry. You do n’t feel. You do. That’s all he knows.

He wasn’t given a name, and doesn’t know when he was born.

Our foster dad spent a long time tryin’ to help Necro assimilate to real life outside of the underground bunker he was born in, including getting him a birth certificate and a Social Security number.

We’re the ones who named him and picked his birthday. ”

“That’s awful,” I mutter, not knowing what to say. It’s all just so… tragic. And here I thought my childhood was terrible. Sure, it was no walk in the park, but I have a name. I’ve had an identity my whole life.

I glance at the screen, and my heart aches for the man beyond. For the boy who had nothing and no one. Not even a name. No wonder he’s so distant. No wonder he sent me away.

Coffin massages my shoulder, and his tone is extra soft when he replies, “His name is Azrael, after the angel of death. We thought it was cool.”

“It is cool,” Rot chimes in, a smile in his voice as he stands beside me and gently grips my butt cheek. It’s not sexual. It’s grounding, like he needs to touch me to cement that I’m really here. The heat of his skin penetrates through the cotton of my t-shirt as his clean scent calms me.

“And now he goes by Necro,” I whisper, watching said man. His lean muscles shift as he works, and he bobs his head to the music he loves most.

“Yeah.” Coffin wraps an arm around my shoulders, and I rest my head against the side of his pec, snuggling him there, soaking in his warmth.

Earth and spice and man cling to him. It’s such a contrast to Rot, but a yummy scent all the same.

“He enjoys playin’ with dead fucks and uses those dead fucks to bring art to life. It suits him.”