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Chapter Five
BLUE
A flurry of movement out in the yard caught my attention.
Three dogs were feasting on a carcass. They were too far away for me to tell what it was they’d managed to catch, but they were certainly making a messy meal of it.
Their muzzles were stained red. I could practically hear their jaws gnashing on bones as the animal was torn apart.
Shaking my head, I continued on my way. As I was passing by the old cafeteria, I paused again, this time because the woman I’d seen two nights prior was sitting at one of the tables.
No one else was in the large room but her; people never actually ate in there. The kitchen barely functioned outside of two faulty microwaves, and due to a rat problem, food was stored elsewhere.
I’d seen her the day before through an upper window, wandering around outside. The men had looked at her with disgust and the women had given her a wide berth.
The hostility on their faces gave away how they really felt. It was the exact same way they felt about me.
We weren’t welcome here.
From what I’d seen so far, though, it was apparent that this woman had history with these people.
Whatever her connection to Vitus was kept her safe, just like with me.
The one thing I had that she didn’t was the symbol on my neck. The inverted cross Romero had burned into my flesh was now a permanent scar. It made me stand out even more, but it also was my claim to his hierarchy.
I was technically a Savage, and that had turned out to be a welcome buffer. I never thought the mark of the devil would wind up being a blessing instead of a curse.
Unsure of how long I had until Vitus came to find, or sent for me, I decided to make my way over to her.
She looked much better than she had in the hallway. Her bundle of tangles had been chopped off, leaving a pixie cut behind. Her rags had been swapped for clothes that fit, and all the skin that had been marred with dirt and whatever else was clean.
She seemed lost in her own little world, twirling a spoon in a half-eaten bowl of broth. Her head turned towards me as I drew closer, and it took effort not to visibly react to what she looked like.
This was my first time being able to see her up close. The gaunt lines on her sunken face and dark circles beneath her eyes were nothing in comparison to the painful looking burn scars covering her entire left cheek.
I stared at her, and she at me.
Her brown eyes were dead, empty of light and aged far beyond her years.
In spite of her haggard appearance, I knew she couldn’t have been much older than my fresh twenty-four.
“I’m, Mavi, but everyone calls me Blue,” I casually introduced myself, sliding onto the bench across from her.
Noticing she was trembling, I folded my hands on the table in front of me to appear as non-threatening as possible.
Less than a minute rolled by when I realized my second assumption was just as wrong as my first.
This woman wasn’t shaking because she was scared; she was shaking from the withdrawal of whatever drug she’d been doped up on.
There were multiple syringe marks up and down her wrists.
A light sheen of sweat was beading on her forehead, and her posture was stiffer up close than it had seemed from afar.
Dropping my gaze to her fingers, I saw the nails were chewed down to the bloody stubs.
This had Vitus written all over it. Drugs weren’t something people had lying around. Those who sold them were able to live comfortably due t
o their high bartering demands.
