Rogue (Dead Man's Ink, #2)(19)
“With you.”
“No, you’re staying here.”
“Funny, because I was sure you told me a couple of hours ago I could have free roam of the place if I wanted. Did I imagine that?” It takes me a second to realize my hands are on my hips, my own eyebrows raised in challenge. He’d better not take that back. He promised me I wouldn’t be cooped up in here any longer. If he reneges on our deal, it won’t matter what awful problem Cade and Carnie want to show him right now. He’ll have a much bigger problem on his hands: me.
Rebel narrows his eyes. “I’m not saying you should stay here for the fun of it, Soph. It’s for your own good.”
“I’m an adult. How about you let me make my own decisions for once, huh?”
He stares at me a second longer before rolling his eyes. “Okay, fine. But remember, whatever happens, this was your call.”
I drop my hands from my hips, trying to hide my surprise. “Great. Thank you.”
Outside, Cade takes one look at me and shakes his head. “You won’t want her seeing this, man.”
Rebel casts a look at me over his shoulder, a guarded look in his pale blue eyes. “She’s an adult, Cade. She can make her own decisions, apparently.”
******
A hundred meters from the compound gate, a lone tree stands by the side of the dirt road, silhouetted against the rising sun. From the moment we leave the gate, making slow progress as Rebel hobbles after Cade and Carnie, I can see that something’s not right. It’s not until we’re much, much closer that I catch sight of the reason why Cade seems to be so agitated though.
A body.
A body hangs from the tree, upside down, suspended by one foot. The other leg hangs at an awkward angle. The foot which should be at the end of that leg is missing. The hands which should be at the ends of the arms hanging freely below are also missing. And the head… the head is gone, too. Blood mottles the naked flesh, covering the torso, the buttocks, the legs…
The rope, looped around the thick bough of the tree, creaks as the body spins, facing us, revealing that it’s the body of a woman. There’s what looks like a scrap of blood stained paper stuck to her body, black writing typed across it, but I don’t see what it says. I drop to my knees instead, and vomit into the red dirt beneath me.
“Jesus. A gift, from Los Oscuros? What the f*ck is wrong with this guy?” Rebel hisses. From where I’m bent over double on the ground, I can see that his hands are shaking. I lock onto that sight, willing myself not to look up at the poor woman hanging from the tree, at the awful things that have happened to her. Rebel’s hands shake and shake and shake. And the woman’s hands are…are just gone.
Cade grunts. “And what the f*ck is up with their choice of font, too?”
“Yeah.” Carnie spits on the ground. “Really says a lot about your intentions. I mean, how are you meant to take someone seriously when the message they send you is printed in motherf*cking comic sans?”
“You cut their body into small pieces. That’s how you take them seriously. Hector’s f*cking with us,” Rebel says softly. They continue to talk, but my ears are ringing. I can’t focus on the subdued conversation that takes place over me, but I can feel the tension pouring off the three men. I can literally taste their rage. I throw up again, screwing my eyes shut, unable to breathe.
Oh my god. I can’t… I can’t… I can’t…
“Bron,” Cade says. “Her name’s Bron. She’s Keeler’s girl. I recognize the tattoo.” I make the mistake of looking up, then. I see the small tattoo of a rose on the inside of her right forearm, just above her wrist. The bloody stump where her arm terminates is still dripping blood. I heave again, though nothing comes up this time.
“Fuck.” Rebel sinks to his knees beside me, his face now completely ashen, devoid of all color. He reaches for me, pulling me to him, though he doesn’t really look at me. He’s staring at the piece of mutilated flesh hanging from the tree like a slaughtered cow. Slowly, he strokes a hand absently over my hair, the cool blue of his eyes hardening, darkening somehow, turning steely and cold. “Sick motherf*cker,” he whispers. “That sick, evil motherf*cker picked her off because she wasn’t inside the compound.”
Cade laces his fingers behind the back of his head, turning away from the woman. He squints into the distance, out into the desert, his mouth pulling down at both sides in a grimace. “Yeah. Yeah, looks that way.”
“Does Keeler know?”
Carnie kicks at the dirt, shaking his head. “No. No one else knows. I found her this morning when I came back from town. I went straight to Cade.”
“Good. You did the right thing. I—f*ck. God knows how we’re gonna break this to everyone.” Rebel sounds composed but his voice is utterly empty. I cry in his arms while he strokes my hair, wishing I hadn’t been so damned stubborn. If I’d just let him have his way, I wouldn’t have the image of Keeler’s dead girlfriend burned into my memory. This isn’t something that will ever go away. This isn’t something I’ll ever forget about. This is something that will give me nightmares for the rest of my life.
“They’re gonna want blood,” Cade says.
Rebel’s chin rests on the crown of my head, and for some reason the intimacy of the action calms me a little. “I know,” he says. “And they’ll get it. We just have to make sure we go about this the right way. He’s trying to bait us. Trying to provoke us. If we’re angry when we go after him, we won’t be thinking straight. We get sloppy, we make mistakes. This has to be contained.”