Miscreants: Next Generation Natalie Bennett (web ebook reader .TXT) 📖

His screams had stalled a while ago, and the sight of the blood seemed to excite them even more. His eyes were wide, the whites rolling as they went deeper and harder. When the man with the leather mask entered the garage, I knew it was the end for him. I almost sobbed harder from the sheer relief. I begged silently for them to hurry up and kill him just to end his suffering.

He approached Tyson while looking straight at me. His companions made sure they held him down—as if he could go anywhere after what they had done to him.

Leveling the bloodied machete above Tyson’s head, he began to hack away. I shut my eyes now, another burst of bile threatening to spew from my mouth. The sound of wet, tearing flesh…I couldn’t block it out. I tucked my chin to my chest, knowing I would be next.

Misfits:

Coming late 2021/ Early 2022

DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND

Periculum: Unus

Chapter One

They say that some of the best memories can come from a bad idea.

I can personally vouch for the truth in that. But you know what else is true? The consequences that will be waiting to remind you of all your dumbass decisions.

You’d have thought I’d learned this lesson eons ago, yet here I was, reaping everything I’d sown.

Painfully.

Too many shots of tequila combined with too few hours of recovery made for a deadly combination.

I knew better than to drink the way I had the night before, even if I did have a laundry list of valid excuses to do so.

Unfortunately for me, this never worked out well. I had never been the kind of person who could drown their sorrows at the bottom of a bottle, though I envied those that did. There wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to remedy the mess I was. Not to mention I had shit tolerance and wasn’t remotely attractive when I got drunk.

Some girls had the ability to be cute while intoxicated. I became the equivalent of a dying fish searching for water…with a hint of newborn calf. Ugh. The thought of consuming even a single drop more of treacherous ethanol made me disgustingly nauseated.

I’d brushed my teeth—twice—and could still taste it.

While getting drunk off my ass may not have been the healthiest way to go about dealing with my mental and emotional turmoil, it had kept my sanity intact. That had to count for something.

Although, it would be comical if liquor were the spark of me completely losing the plot, all things considered. My odds of making it through life entirely sane had the same probability of a coin toss. Heads, I’d be like my father’s side of the family. Tails, I would take after my mother’s. I had yet to determine which was worse when it came to those crazy fuckers.

I weaved around a couple walking through the lobby of the resort, readjusting my shades and tightening my grip on my suitcase.

“I think I’m dying. Hangovers are so underrated,” Melantha grumbled from beside me, tugging her beanie down further.

“I haven’t felt this shitty since that party we attended the day we graduated high-school,” Gracelyn agreed.

Both of those statements resonated with me. Deeply. I hadn’t wanted to get out of bed unless it was to sit around butt naked, stuff my face with a fry-up, and chug gallons of Powerade. That sounded like pure heaven right about now, but we had a flight to catch.

Feeling a soft vibration against my thigh, I pulled my cell from my pocket and swiped down to see the text. I was expecting it to be one of my parents or my abuelo. Weirdly, there wasn’t any number displayed.

Even weirder was the text itself.

Unknown: Something wicked this way comes…

I stopped walking, brows furrowing as I read the message two more times before typing out a quick reply.

L: Who is this?

Almost immediately, a box popped up. Sender Unknown.

Message cannot be sent.

“You okay?” Mel called back to me.

“Yeah. Sorry.” I fixed my face into a smile and started walking again, slipping my cell back into my pocket.

“To hell we go,” Mel sighed, shouldering open one of the doors that led outside.

“Can we at least be on the plane before you start being all negative?”

“Is there a difference between doing it now or later? You know exactly how things are going to be when we get back.”

“We don’t know anything yet,” Gracelyn refuted.

“I know we’re well overdue for our ‘precious’ societal debuts. We’re going to be dragged into the corporate office so our parents can explain exactly how they’ve mapped out our futures. They probably married us off to some deranged arrogant assholes already. The ones who organize their drawers and ties by color.”

That sounded overdramatic, but sadly, she was right. It was the way things worked in our world. However, I couldn’t openly agree. That would open the door to a conversation I wasn’t ready to have. We’d attempted that already, which was how we’d wound up in our current condition.

Talking about it led to thinking. Thoughts came with feelings, most of which were bitter, angry, and conflicted—for various reasons. My new plan was to immerse myself in denial until we were back home. “Let’s just wait and see what they have to say, and then we can go from there.”

She ignored me.

“Do you think they’ll offer us pamphlets or use a full-blown PowerPoint to really get their message across and explain all the ways they ruined our lives?”

My lips twitched as I fought a smile. “There’s a deadly disease that causes people to only see the bad side of things. My abuelo likes to refer to this as pessimism.”

“Your grandfather is the ringleader of this whole ordeal. And I’m not a pessimist.”

“She’s a realist,” Gracelyn joked, forcing her