Page 55 of Demons in My Bed
Queen Prissy was the HBIC during fight nights. The only reason I knew that meant Head Bitch In Charge was because she had a sash made with that on it. Talon had been trying for months to steal it, unsuccessfully. She was neutral as far as gangs went, but I knew she liked us the best.
“Well? Who’s getting fucked up tonight?” I cracked my knuckles and followed her over to the table where she kept her books.
“Looks like some guy named... Skippy.” She glanced up at me through her incredibly thick, rainbow eyelashes.
“Skippy?” I deadpanned. “What? Am I fighting a man or his Jack Russell terrier?”
Prissy coughed to hide her deep laugh. “Belongs to Buzzard’s crew. Never heard of him before. Good luck. You’re fight six.” Buzzard was the head of a crew from a city forty-five minutes south of Port Black. He’d earned his name because rumor had it that whenever he showed up, bodies would inevitably start hitting the ground. I preferred my own origin story, which was that he looked like a gods damned big bird with a weird floppy neck and a beak-like nose. Add in the slight hunch of his shoulders, and yeah, I’d think a buzzard had fucked a hooker and birthed that son of a bitch.
“Thanks, Queen. See ya out there,” I said, shooting Prissy a wink and heading back to my locker.
Crouching down, I unzipped my bag, looking for my tape and water bottle. I froze when my eyes landed on the small blue envelope sitting at the very top of all of my things. I stood and looked around, trying to see if anyone was watching me. This definitely hadn’t been here when I walked inside. Someone had placed it here while I was talking to Prissy.
My heart was pounding, but when I didn’t see anyone blatantly staring at me, I crouched back down and snatched up the offensive correspondence. Opening it quickly, I found the same blank white card as earlier, but the note scrawled inside was different.
Secrets are cancer, so here’s a truth. I know yours. They were never meant for you!
What the fuck? My hand shook, and I dropped the card back into my bag, wiping the sweat from my brow.How? How do they know?This was bad. I needed to figure out who the fuck was sending these and fast. They needed to be eliminated.
I pushed away my internal freak-out and straightened to my full height. Whoever did this was here, right now. If they thought they could get in my head and fuck with me, distract me? They were fuckingwrong. I was going to win my fight, I was going to find out the information we needed in regards to Scorpio and his bullshit attempt to take us down, and I would find out more about this little witch and what was so gods damned special about her.
It was then that a dark thought settled in the back of my head. Was she connected to this?She just shows up and suddenly I start getting these notes?Yeah, I didn’t believe in coincidences like that.
My demon purred at the promise of getting to do what we did best—stalking the shadows to find out the secrets nobody wanted brought to light.
Chapter sixteen
“Ijustdon’tunderstandwhy I can’t drive this one,” I pouted, pointing at the shiny crotch rocket.
Talon groaned. “Listen. This is tradition. You’ll ride right here on the back while I drive.” He was dressed in a pair of purple, latex pants that hugged his nuts tighter than a squirrel clinging to an acorn at the height of winter solstice.
I huffed, crossing my arms. “Please. Your balls will be getting windburn the second we hit a bump and those ridiculous pants split open.”
Talon’s mouth fell open in disbelief. “Ridiculous? I think you meant sexy as fuck! And haven’t you ever heard of Spandex? Gods, what planet are you from?”
“Where did you even get that shirt?” I pointed to the black tank he was sporting, which had a neon orange silhouette of a woman’s body bending over. She had a bunny tail and ears, and the word beneath her read#fuckbunnies.
“I made it. Don’t worry, I have one for you too. In fact, I made one for each of us,” he giggled.
Over my dead body would I be wearing that shirt.
“Where’s Misha? And why are we riding this... thing?” I’d only ever seen such a thing in cartoons.
The elevator dinged behind us, and Talon grinned. “There’s the big guy now.”
Misha stalked across the concrete floor, a black backpack strapped to his back, tactical black pants with a million pockets and hidey-holes, and oh my fuck. The shirt.
“No. Nope. We’re not leaving here with you wearing that!”
Talon jumped up and clicked his heels together like he was a freaking leprechaun. The big demon didn’t even react to Talon’s show of excitement. “The shirt looks perfect. I think the 3XL was the way to go, but if you keep hitting those weights…” Tal trailed off and shook his head sadly, swinging his leg over the bike. “It’s going to make things a lot more complicated to dress you properly.”
Rolling his eyes, Misha walked over to me. “You sit here.” That was all he said before lifting me by the waist and depositing me behind Talon. “Helmet.” A second later, he buckled the chin strap of a helmet, wiggling it around on my head to make sure it was secure.
I glanced around, confused when Misha rounded the bike, instead of walking over to the shiny, pretty one I wanted to take. “No fucking way,” I whispered. Oh yeah, Tal and I were on a fucking sidecar motorcycle. And if my eyes weren’t deceiving me... Misha was going to ride in the sidecar.
“What is it, Bun-Bun?” Tal glanced over his shoulder, checking to make sure I was okay.
“Uh,” I started, staring wide-eyed at Misha as he somehow folded himself like a lawn chair into the sidecar. The entire thing shook with every movement he made. Suddenly, the only thing I could picture was Kronk from that one Disney movie being squeezed into that little rollercoaster cart with batshit crazy Yzma, and I died. “Oh my gods,” I wheezed, sucking in a breath while they stared at me like I was the weirdo. “Is that yourgroove?”
