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I missed my uncle, and I missed Ma even now she’d completely broken my heart, but that was the extent of it.
Right then, I missed razors, and shampoo, showers, hot meals, Cali, and even Romero. I missed the paradise of burning bodies and the surprise of bumping into a man in a black hooded robe and white satanic mask at three in the morning.
I didn’t miss the house, pool boy, or that ugly wall. Didn’t miss Dad, or even Beth, my half-sister, who I assumed was dead at this point in the game. She’d never done anything but try and hurt me or the family I’d come to love. They may have been Savages, but even wolves had loyalty that coursed through their blood.
“What if I told you I didn’t give a damn about my old life, cause that’s exactly what it is?
Being here with you, killin our way back to our corner of dark paradise where the devil’s awaitin…that’s my life now, and I happen to like it much better.”
“Oh yeah?” He settled his hands on my hips. “Death doesn’t scare you anymore?”
“Oh, it does. But I love it, almost as much as I love you.” I smiled and wrapped one arm round the back of his neck, bringing us closer together. I didn’t expect him to say it back, didn’t even care if he thought I was psycho for sayin those three little words so soon.
I’d been crazy about him far too long to give a damn. I could wait on him to love me back.
“That’s irony at its finest, because I think you’re the only thing I’ve ever been scared shitless of in my life,” he said, his gravelly voice so soft it almost sounded like he’d whispered.
My lips parted, but only air came out. If I made a big deal of his brutally honest confession, he would shut down.
I knew what he was tellin me, and no words would replace the actions that needed to be taken.
I was scared of lovin him, and it uncharted territory for both of us. We didn’t trust the normalcy and feared the solid foundation. The thing with love was that you couldn’t touch it, couldn’t hold onto it and be sure it would never change.
I took a shaky breath, cupped his strong jaw, and opened my wound a little more, letting him in deeper. That was going to be my strategy until he found a home inside me.
“The mayor of Centriole isn’t my real dad. My uncle and my mom had an affair. I didn’t find out until I was nine and overheard an argument. I was raised away from him, but he knew the truth. We were…close. He let me be myself.
“I’ve always been a black sheep, an outcast in my own home.”
“I think I know why the man who raised me set me up to die. I’m an original family disappoint. He never really wanted me in the first place, he just didn’t want to be publicly humiliated by ma.” I laughed, but damn did the truth hurt to the ninth degree of hell. I’d never caused anyone harm back then.
I felt like I’d been pushed into becoming this version of myself. I’d been done a huge favor. Grimm cupped my face, makin me give him my eyes, peerin right down to my brittle core. He didn’t care that I was bitter.
He didn’t care I was full of hate. He looked at me as if I was golden, every single time.
“When you break from the flock to be an individual instead of a mindless sheep, you’re suddenly something foreign, a freak.”
“The woman who raised me after I got out of The Order…she didn’t like me very much either, she made that clear to me and my father. She left when I was nine, haven’t seen her since.”
I took his hand and threaded my fingers with his. “Fuck those people.”
“That’s been my motto a lot longer than it’s been yours, Brat.”
I lightly nudged his shoulder, managing a small smile through my tears.
Chapter Eighteen
We left at sunrise and arrived at sunset. Plymouth was much more of a town than a–city– but it was full of vitality. Just like Rivermouth, the welcome sign was a tribute to Romero, but this sigil had memento mori scrawled across the ram’s head.
People were walkin outside looking completely unbothered. There was a rundown diner with raw pink, freshly butchered pigs hangin in the window. Kids tossed a ball back and forth in an empty field.
The houses I was able to see were like lil cabins, cute and tidy. The majority of them had some type of sugar skull, leviathan cross, or ram head décor in their yards or windows.
A church with a giant inverted cross in the middle of a fire pit looked like the most cared for building around.
Clearly, this town took their worshippin to an extremely disturbing level. Anyone who saw Grimm or Cobra stopped what they were doin and waved or yelled out ave Satanás, like they were rootin for a damn sports team. Sometimes it was truly disconcerting how deep this all went.
Lucy’s sat at the very edge, and I wasn’t sure what to expect, but this…wasn’t it.
