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Her question had a barrage of answers I could have given; I chose to keep it simple, with a Cliff Notes version.
“Grimm is mine, Cobra is my brother, and the woman who started this all isn’t with them. She’s at home about to have the devil’s spawn.”
“You mean Calista, right?” she asked, helpin herself to my peanut butter.
I grinned, because that was such a me move.
“I forget how widely known she is. To me, she’s just Cali.” I sat the peanut butter between us so she could stop stretching over my lap to get it.
My line of vision was cut off by Grimm’s return. He wordlessly sat down, and nearly dragged me onto his lap.
“What’s the deal with you and them?” I asked her, shiftin to get comfy.
“We kind of just banded together. Blue and I know each other from being in the same city. Parker was a tag-along. We didn’t have a destination until now.”
“They’re coming with us to get Noah.” Cobra joined us, answering my silent question.
“Why would you do that?” I asked Katya directly.
“An initiation.” She shrugged. “We have nowhere to go, no real protection. Why not join the cult no one wants to mess with?”
“Understandable,” I said slowly. I’d understood long ago. What else was there for people to do when being a loner often equaled death? Safety in numbers seemed a logical solution, in my humble opinion. Isn’t that why people had banded together inside Centriole?
And who better to join than the gang that dominated the Badlands, just like Katya said? But… “What initiation?”
“Do you remember when you wanted in? We made you come with us to the church and the cannibal farm. They’ll be coming with us to wherever we get sent,” Cobra answered.
“Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t seem to care if they made it in or not; neither did Grimm.
“Blue and I spontaneously left the city because it sounded better than the norm. We had families and friends try and talk us out of it, but we just wanted to see what was in the great beyond. You see how well that’s worked out for us?”
She was making light of their situation, but I obviously knew what it was like to be smacked with reality.
“What city are ya‘ll from?”
“Prescott, you know, the one with the blue trees?”
I blinked like an idiot, course I didn’t know, because Dad said there was no other city aside from The Kingdom.
“If you had all that, why come here?”
“We have rape, murder, thieves, and corruption. The slick streets just pretty it all up.”
“This may be hell, but it gives you more freedom than what many consider heaven.”
I didn’t have a response to that, but I heard the sadness in her voice. I had the distinct feelin she’d killed long before the hospital hallway.
We each had our own story to tell.
We all had our own demons, and had the option of making peace with em or vanquishing em in our own way. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter, because we all had to go to sleep and wake up again until we died.
Hopefully, they’d survive long enough to figure it out. Katya and Blue seemed like the type of women you’d want around.
“Come with me, Brat,” Grimm suddenly said, lifting me off him.
He took my hand and led me a little way from our group. Leaning himself against a tree, he pulled me to stand in front of him.
“Just spill it Grimm,” I huffed when it became clear he was hesitatin.
