Page 108 of Priest and his Anarchist

It’s probably the most human thing I’ve ever heard come out of his mouth.

“That’s real sweet.” I smile, and when he pulls us away from the colorful lights of the town, everything turns dark around us, with nothing but the illumination from the dash.

Unzipping my top, I toss it into the back seat before working on my pants, leaving me with nothing on but my underwear. It’s not like he hasn’t seen it all before. To every detail and scar.

“Where are we going? And if you say you’re taking me somewhere to kill me, Priest.” I turn, even though his eyes are on the road. His jaw and cheekbones are sharp enough to send me crazy, but I continue with my threat because I mean it. “I’m much harder to kill now.”

“Your ease to die was never your problem, Madness.” He doesn’t turn when he answers, shifting gears and leaning on the window. As if on brand, the fact that I’m basically naked doesn’t excite him the same way it would most. “It was never the problem.”

Music plays between us as I pull up my stockings, thigh-high white frilly socks, black boots, and white pleated skirt before shoving my face through the hole of a casual black knitted sweater.

Tapping down the mirror, I’m aware of the silence that sits between us. It should bother me, but it doesn’t. It never has. We both simply exist and the other does the same.

After swiping my face with a wet cloth, I clip my hair away from my face and get started on my makeup.

“Are you going to ask me how I know about you being at Del Morts?”

I should have touched wood.

Dabbing concealer beneath my eyes, I shake my head. “No. I learned a long time ago that if you wanted me to know something, I’d know. My effort to find out would only kill me in exhaustion, much like swimming up a rip instead of out of one.” I fan mascara through my lashes, line my lips, and gloss. Thesong shifts to Slipknot’s “Vermilion” and we both pause. Neither of us willing to say anything. Does he know what this song means? Does he remember? Does he know…

“Interesting, but okay.” He palms the side of his face, and I sigh, pushing my bag back on the floor.

“He told you I was at Del Morts, but he didn’t say what I was doing.”

He snickers. “Better fucking not be what I think you were doing.” When I don’t answer, he turns his head, moving between me and the road up ahead. “Fuck. And to think I thought I was the reason why you were so fucked up.”

I tap the camera logo on my phone. “It wasn’t terrible. I guess I had no idea of the place.”

“Del Morts?” His tone hikes. “No one fucking knows of the place unless you’re meant to know. It’s the machine that keeps us running.”

I know that all too well, but I try to keep myself busy in other ways that won’t allow my mouth the chance to slip. I snap a photo of my black ribbon on my thigh where my holster usually is, the strap marks still indented in my skin. Opening Instagram, I type out the caption, Vermilion 1 & 11. The car idles to a stop, and I look up in time to see Priest pulling us through the entrance of high arches that read Cirque de Diavolo. It’s a colorless theme park with nothing more than dead promises of fun and laughter.

Everyone stares as we roll through, and I’m suddenly reminded of whose car I’m riding as passenger in, and that he’s no longer the son of the EKC, he is the EKC. Everything goes through him, he makes the changes, calls the shots, and has the very power to start the damn purge if he wanted, since he has the trigger for every single King affiliate at his fingertips, and they very much are based all over the world. Some you wouldn’t even know.

Your boss. Your boss’s boss. Your neighbor. You never know who they are and whether they’re connected and what their job may be under the belly of their life.

My thumb beats against my thigh when he pulls us up near the front of the sign, near Halen’s car. I’ve noticed that she’s the one who is always racing.

He doesn’t cut the engine, but his next words stop me. “Good luck finding someone who will touch you now, Madness, since you rolled in as the Devil’s lap puppy.” My blood spikes, swelling the muscles in my throat.

“Oh really?” My head tilts. “You forget who you’re playing with, Priest.” I didn’t realize he had slid the ribbon off my thigh until he turns me around with a gentle twist at the shoulder. The graze of his fingers against my head when he pulls the knot steals my breath, and that simmering rage that bubbled to the surface moments ago liquidates between my thighs.

He takes me by the chin, turning me back around to face him. “You and I both know that you can’t play that game.”

I lean over the middle compartment of the car, lifting my hand to the side of his neck, where his tattoo ends. I recognize now, up this close, but I don’t want to say anything unless I’m wrong.

“But maybe I want to try.”

He smiles, but it’s not one I want to be on the receiving end of. “Go on then.” It deepens before the corner lifts slightly. “Try me. See what happens, but…”

My heart thrashes against my chest.

“I don’t share, Madness, despite what you may think because of Vaden. So if anyone so much as touches this—”He buries his hand in my hair. It’s not until I feel it release around my shoulders that I notice he’s untied my ribbon.

He lowers it to his lap, but I’m too locked in to take my eyes off his. “I’ll gut them alive, drawing a cut right here, downthe middle—” He traces the line of my arm, keeping his tone level. “Before stuffing them with that same shit they put in teddy bears. Then I’ll sew them back together, being sure to add a roll of ribbon on the tip of his tongue and parade him around every party on this side of the continent. Every event. I’ll do this, Madness, until every single person in our world understands that if they so much as look at you for too long, they’ll be right there with him.”

I swallow, but it feels like sandpaper. “You’re stubborn.”

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