Page 19 of Rebels & Rejects

She barely gave Oliver a passing glance, nor did he look away from the fight that was getting underway. As I sit and watch him, I notice the tense set of his shoulders and the straight line of his spine. Despite the fact we’re perfectly safe here, he’s on edge. It’s a stance I’ve noticed in him often since he returned. I’m not sure if it’s just being back in Black Creek, our ever-present responsibilities, or the weight of whatever he’s been through in the last few years, but I’ve yet to see him actually just sit down and relax and enjoy himself for a night.

When he first returned, girls were all over him—a fresh face, instantly given the title of my second, and the perfect balance of dangerous yet elusive, who wouldn’t want a piece of him? After two years in prison and several months in a male-only halfway house, I thought for sure he’d be all over that. Fuck knows I’d do nothing but drink and fuck for a month if I’d been locked up that long. But Oliver barely spared them a passing glance, more interested in getting down to work and making himself useful. I dunno if he felt he had something to prove and didn’t want to get distracted, or what, but he’s barely stopped working for a second since he got back. I am all for a strong work ethic, but the dude needs to learn to enjoy himself a little. Fuck knows, in this life, you could well end up dead tomorrow.

Reaching toward him, I clap a hand on his shoulder, shaking off my own dark thoughts as I smirk at him. “You need to loosen up a bit, O.” I jerk my head toward the staircase where the waitress disappeared. “She looks like she’d be a bit of fun for a night.”

He chuckles, shaking his head. “Yeah, and she only had eyes for you. Besides, I’m not interested.”

Another small smile curls the corner of his lips slightly, and this time understanding dawns.

“No way,” I laugh, shoving his shoulder. “You finally got yourself laid. About fucking time, man. Jesus, I was beginning to think all that time locked up in your cell with only your hand for company had affected the goods somehow.”

“Shut the fuck up, asshole,” he snorts, shoving me right back. “Thegoodswork just fine, thank you very much.”

I shake my head at our banter, huffing out a breath of laughter. “Yeah, well, now that you know for sure, you should have a drink and enjoy yourself.” I spear him with a serious look. “Tonight we get drunk, and tomorrow we’ll go after the Satan’s.”

***

From the darkness, I stand alongside my men as we watch the raging party unfold before us. From what Oliver has told me, this sort of thing is expected at the Satans’ clubhouse. Having seen enough, I lift my hand and signal for my men to advance. We’re all dressed in black, camouflaged in the darkness. We have two teams surrounding the house. I’m with my men out the front, watching as party-goers go in and out of the front door, and the flashing of multi-colored strobe lights light up the window into the front room, which is jam-packed with people dancing drunkenly and grinding all over one another. Oliver is with the other team around back, ready to take out any of the Satan’s members who try to escape that way.

No one notices us as we close in on the house, but as we enter the pool of light from the house, the first of the party-goers spot us. Their eyes widen, and jaws drop when they do. It’s a typical reaction, given the neck warmers, pulled up to the bridge of our noses, decorated with a skeletal design that makes the bottom half of our faces appear skull-like. That, and the AR-15 semi-automatic rifles slung over our shoulders aimed, ready to fire.

Of course, we’re only after the Satans’ members. Many of these people are just here to party, score drugs, or are gang hangarounds with nowhere else better to be. Unless one of them comes for us, we’ll leave them alone.

People start to push past us, rushing out of the house as we enter, wanting to get away before bullets start flying. The music is so loud in here that the terrified screams in our presence don’t alert Python or his men to the present threat, and the guy who I’m guessing was meant to be manning the door is too busy banging some chick against the wall.

As more and more people start to push and hurry past him, causing a scene, he finally stops thrusting into the girl he’s fucking. His look of confusion contorts into shock when he sees us, and before he can so much as pull his dick out of the chick, I lift my gun and shoot him point-blank in the head. Blood splatters over the wall and the girl he was fucking. With the silencer in place, the circular hole in the front of his head is the only indicator that a gun went off at all.

As he collapses to the ground and my team spreads out, shooting at anyone resembling a Satan, more screaming starts, and anyone who wasn’t running for the door before is now.

The ground floor of the house descends into mass panic as everyone flees and the Satans’ members left standing start to return fire. Most of them are high and drunk, making their actions slow and uncoordinated, easily giving my men the advantage as they pick off the Satans’ members one by one. Within no time at all, the ground floor is empty, bar the dead bodies scattered over the floor. It's kind of jarring, seeing the place deserted, with the music still blasting. The blood spatter and corpses dotted around the area only add to the macabre atmosphere our presence has caused.

“No sign of Python,” one of my men shouts into my ear. I don’t turn the music down or off, not wanting to alert anyone upstairs to the chaos that’s ensuing below them. With a jerk of my head, two of my men—Razor and Fin—head up the stairs, weapons at the ready.

While they clear out the upstairs, I direct my men to search the rest of the house as Oliver steps through the back door, doing a quick once over of the kitchen before his eyes meet mine. Unable to talk over the music, I nod my head in a silent gesture that all is good, and he returns it with a sharp one of his own before moving back out the door, directing his team to search the other properties on the street.

I take my time, moving from room to room, counting the number of bodies, and taking in the state of the house. It’s apparent no care has been given to it. Mold grows in the corner of the living room, kitchen cabinets are missing their doors, the banister is missing several balusters, and some idiot has punched a hole in the wall. The whole house stinks of weed, cigarettes, and alcohol.

Having done a loop of the ground floor, I make my way up the stairs, noticing more dead bodies slouched on the stairs and against the hall in the landing. Peering into the first bedroom, two more men with Satan tattoos lie face down on the mattress. One has his jeans and boxers shoved halfway down his ass, and the other is naked from the waist down. I barely spare them more than a passing glance as I walk past the doorway, moving on to inspect the next room. Before I can reach it, though, a noise from the bedroom at the end of the hall gains my attention—most likely Razor and Fin finishing up. I make to move toward it as Razor escorts a young woman with long ash-blonde hair out of the room. Her eyes are rounded in fear, and she’s soaked in blood, making what I can see of her pale skin appear ghost-like. It’s not an altogether surprising find, given we just massacred the entire house. If she was fucking some guy in the room when my men stormed in, she could have gotten caught in the crosshairs, although it is a surprising amount of blood. It almost looks like she slipped and fell face-first into a pool of it.

I’m faintly aware of someone finally turning off the goddamn music downstairs, and a heavy silence falls over us as I take in the girl. Before I can say anything, Razor’s words have my eyes snapping up to meet his. “Boss, you might wanna check this out.” He tilts his head toward the room behind him, and as I close the distance between us in several long strides, he moves to the side, giving me a clear view of the room.

Holy shit.This was definitely not the work of my men. Blood saturates the bed, dripping onto the floor. There’s splatter on the wall behind the bed frame, and lying supine in the middle of it all, is a Satan’s Advocate member—with his shirt pushed up to his nipples, and his pants and boxers shoved down, his limp dick lying out in the open.

“What the—” I begin, moving into the room.

“The Reaper was here,” Fin states. Not that he needs to. His calling card is etched plainly into the man’s skin for all to see. I run my gaze over the confident slashes across his stomach. It’s obvious there was no hesitation here. Whoever sliced him open was experienced and sure of themselves.

I’ve heard of the Reaper. Everyone has. He’s been taking out gang members for the last few years, although I’ve just never seen his handiwork up close before. It’s impressive. Completely in contrast to gang kills which are usually quick and efficient. For me, personally, there’s next to no emotion involved when I kill someone. It’s a means to an end—like tonight—but I don’t need to be a psychologist to know that just by looking at the brutality inflicted on Python’s body whoever the Reaper is, their kills are driven by emotion.

But what’s his motive? It’s not a question anyone seems to know the answer to. His kills can be anyone from a gang leader, to a random mid-level member, to a simple hangaround who barely has anything to do with the gang. There’s no obvious pattern other than the fact they all have affiliations—even if somewhat tenuous—with one of the various gangs in Black Creek. Surely, if he just wanted to eliminate us, he’d go for the leader every time. I get the impression whoever the Reaper is, he’s trying to make a statement. I just don’t know what it is he’s trying to say.

Once I’ve taken in every inch of the R carved deeply into his abdomen, I lift my gaze to look at the man’s face. Python. The leader of the Satan’s. I guess that explains why he wasn’t downstairs. His neck has been cleanly sliced, again showing no signs of hesitation, and the man himself stares sightlessly at the ceiling above him.

“Boss,” Razor speaks up after a long moment. I was so caught up in analyzing the handiwork of the Reaper that I almost forgot he and Fin and the girl were still here. “We found the girl in here when we kicked in the door.”

I raise an eyebrow in surprise as I turn to look at the blood-soaked girl trembling beside Razor. Razor’s a large man, much like myself, except where my body is honed out of muscle, he’s carrying his fair share of the weight. But it works for him. It gives him this formidable appearance and makes everyone think twice before messing with him.

Beside him, the girl looks tiny, even though, in her heels, she’s probably around six-feet tall. She’s dressed in a short black skirt and a matching top that exposes her toned abdomen, highlighting the flare of her hips. Her milky skin is splashed with red, giving her a grisly appearance, and beneath the blood which is quickly drying on her skin, I can just about make out the faint markings of a tattoo along her shoulder and across one side of her chest. It should probably make her seem like a victim—the lone survivor of a massacre, but it doesn’t. For some reason, it suits her. Like she was born to bathe in the blood of gang members.

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