38. Arlo
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
ARLO
Spiral’s whole body racks as he coughs.
“Shit,” he rasps, trying to catch his breath as we stare at him wide-eyed.
“You’re alive. You’re alive!” Karma jumps atop the table to straddle his waist and smother him.
“Fuck, dead girl. It’s good to see you too.” His limbs are still strapped to the table when he tries and fails to wrap his arms around her. He frowns and looks at the three of us like we’ve grown numerous heads each. “What’s going on? Why do I feel different?”
“You scared us pretty bad, Spiral,” Soren says sternly as he starts to unclasp the leather straps from his arms and legs.
“Yeah, way to get me back,” Micha grumbles, swiping his hand back through his hair as he blinks away the rest of his unshed tears. “Don’t ever do that again.”
“Do what?” he asks as Karma helps to undo the straps around his body.
My lips open and shut. Does he not know what happened?
“Erm… die?”
He looks at me. “I died?”
“Yeah. Don’t ever fucking do it again,” Karma snaps, dragging his face to hers by a grip on his collar. “Because I’ll kill you if you do.” She slams her mouth to his, kissing him like he’ll die again if she takes her hands off him.
“Damn, I’ll keep dying if I get this treatment,” he mumbles between kisses, grabbing her waist and shifting her so she grinds against him.
Micha looks gobsmacked. “Dude, are you not in intense pain right now?”
“Pain? Oh yeah. I was stabbed. By Moxie, no less. I should have seen that coming.”
“No,” I say pointedly. “Because you were zapped and brought back to life.”
He eyes the blown-apart machine. “Wait.” He looks at Karma, who’s smiling brightly, and then down at himself, repeating it another four times. “I’m like you now?”
“Yep,” she says happily.
“So? Are you in pain?” Soren asks, ever the caring one.
Spiral moves his hands back and forth, staring at them like he’ll take flight.
“No. Not at all.” He presses his hands to the sides of his head. “Not even my head hurts. All the pain is gone.”
He starts gnawing on his finger.
“What are you doing?” Micha sputters.
“Testing,” Spiral mumbles. “No pain. Karma, you cured me! I feel no pain!”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Spiral smile like that. A rush of relief washes over me, and I finally start to let myself think that we may be okay. That we can leave this nightmare behind.
“Wait.” Karma holds one hand up. “Why could I hear your heart? I don’t have a working heart, so why do you?”
The group looks at each other like one of us might conjure up the answer. I rack my mind for ideas. “I guess… If Kreo pieced you together, and your body parts don’t match, then they all would have been dead a lot longer. Spiral was resuscitated. You were reanimated.”
“That doesn’t explain why I don’t feel any pain now.”
“What if the electricity shocked your brain to the point it rewired?” Soren offers. “Maybe something was jumbled when you were born, and now it’s unjumbled.”
“Sounds like a load of horseshit to me,” Micha utters. “I wonder if you’ll be more or less crazy now.”
“Well, I’ve never wanted to shove my dicks inside something more than I do right now, so we’ll go with more crazy.”
“That can be arranged,” Karma smirks, shifting back and forth to grind against his lap.
“You filthy thing,” he groans. “I fucking love you.”
“I think I love you too,” she whispers.
“Think? That’s not high praise, Stitches,” Micha laughs.
“Well, before you guysss, I didn’t understand the feeling. I’m pretty sure that’s what I’m feeling right now, though.”
“What exactly are you feeling?” I ask, stepping closer.
She pauses, searching our faces. “Fulfilled. Definitely happy. Oh, and horny.”
“You’re always horny,” Spiral scoffs, to which she shrugs.
“I know Sssoren and Ssspiral love me. What about you two?” She points at Micha and me.
“Are you kidding?” I press a sloppy kiss to her cheek. “You know I love you, Karma. You’re not getting rid of me now or ever.”
“Good,” she sighs happily. “What about you, Sssoul Guardian?”
“Do I really have to say it?” She raises an eyebrow and makes an adorable grabbing motion with her hands. He accepts them with his own and says, “Yes, Stitches. I love you as well.”
“Aw, I love you boysss too.” She pulls me and my brother in by a grip on our cheeks, giving us both a heated kiss on the mouth. “Your turn.”
I can’t stop myself from laughing, but Micha doesn’t hesitate to grab me by the back of my head and smother my mouth.
“Love you, Pipsqueak.”
“You know I love you too, big brother.”
“We love you as well, Daddy,” Spiral says with a shit-eating grin, grabbing Soren’s hand. He smirks back down at the clown.
“Yeah, Daddy,” Micha mocks, and Soren turns his unimpressed face to him. I smother my laugh with the back of my hand.
“Don’t you start, Micha. How are we supposed to keep these two maniacs in check for the rest of our lives?
” He throws his thumb at Spiral and Karma as they giggle and whisper words along the lines of ‘Daddy’s angry’ and ‘Daddy’s a grump’ back and forth.
“We can hear you, you know? You’re not exactly subtle. ”
“Really?” Spiral pulls a face. “I thought I was the most subtle out of all of us.”
“For fuck’s sake.” Soren sounds annoyed, but he’s fighting the smile from his face. “Let’s just agree. We all love each other. We’re all going to grow old together.”
“And we’re all going to fuck for every second of the rest of our lives,” Spiral adds.
“You have no excuse now, mutt. Karma’s magic pussy doesn’t need to stop the pain. Which means you want to fuck her because it’s her,” Micha says.
“Damn straight I do.”
“So, what do we do now?” I ask, looking around the dark room.
Micha furrows his eyebrows. “Obviously leave. We have the car packed and ready by the trailer.”
“But we don’t have anything to run from. We could actually plan something. Like a place to stay.”
“Karma and I haven’t explored,” Spiral whispers, tugging on one of her pink bells. “How about we all go exploring?”
“I’d rather we settled down somewhere,” Soren announces. “Somewhere safe and warm. Preferably away from civilisation.” Karma parts her lips to protest, and he quickly adds, “Yes, we’ll bring you people to hunt.”
She claps excitedly. “Thisss will be fun.”
“I do have one place we could go,” Spiral suggests.
My stepbrother taps his chin exaggeratedly. “Let me guess. Somewhere dark, creepy, and deserted?”
Spiral blinks. “Yes. How did you know?” He shakes his head and waves off Micha when he rolls his eyes. “I only know this place because of Dolly.”
“The clown? Why would we go where she’s been?” I ask.
“Because no one would think to look there. It is deserted, after all.”
“Moxie got away,” Karma spits. “We need to find and kill her firssst for what she did to Ssspiral.”
“I still can’t believe she did that. Fucking traitor,” he mutters to himself, along with a handful of other obscenities.
“Funny. That’s what she called you,” Micha smirks.
“I think we should leave her be, Karma.” She looks at me and narrows her eyes.
“I know you want revenge, but Spiral is alive and okay.” I watch as the clown—whose makeup is so smudged it looks scary—mindlessly sways back and forth.
“Well, as okay as he’s always been, I guess.
We have the chance to forget and be free. ”
“But I want to kill her.”
Soren swipes her pouting bottom lip with his thumb. “We know you do, darling. But I think Arlo is right. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
She looks so much cuter now that her lips aren’t pulled into a permanent uncanny smile.
“Okay. Fine. I’ll leave her alone.” She turns away and whispers, “For now.”
“Heard that,” Micha laughs.
“And I think we should do something with those.” I point to the cramped cages that hold a number of different animals huddled into corners. They’ve all been experimented on in some capacity.
“We can’t take them to a shelter. They wouldn’t know what to do with them,” Micha says.
“Shall we let them go?” Spiral suggests.
Soren walks over to the first cage. “I think that would be the humane thing to do. There aren’t many other options.
” He flicks up the latch and lets the metal door swing open.
Whatever’s inside doesn’t immediately move out, but Soren carries on until the last cage is unlocked. “Go on then, you lot. Get out of here.”
Suddenly, there’s a rush of wings, scattering feet, and chittering as the animals dash out of captivity, fleeing through the tent and escaping into the real world. I hope they’ll be okay out there.
Micha clicks his tongue. “Come on then, Spiral. Lead the way to this mystery hideout.”
“Yes, yes, I will,” he mutters. “But there’s something I need to do before we go.”
No one is surprised when Spiral flips Karma over and rips her bloodied pink jumpsuit from collar to groin, tugging it down the rest of the way and throwing it to the floor.
He rids himself of his own jumpsuit, and she smiles wide—her own smile—as she accepts him happily.
He settles between her legs, his bottom cock nudging between her folds.
“Are we really doing this here?” Micha asks, but I’ve already ripped my shirt off, working quickly on my trousers.
“When in Rome,” I shrug.
“Fine.” Micha pushes me to the table. “Hop on, Arlo. Spiral’s got two cocks for a reason.”
Karma giggles excitedly as I manage to crawl on top of her in front of Spiral and straddle her hips.
“Hi, baby.” I press a quick kiss to her lips.
Spiral groans and spreads his hands over my hips. “Look at this sexy ass. Do I have permission to spank him, Master?”
My heart skips a beat.
Micha smirks and grabs Spiral’s nape. “Good manners, runt. For that, yes, you have permission. Be as rough as you want. He likes it. Don’t you, little brother?”
I bite my lip and hum.
Spiral’s hand comes down on my ass. I groan and lean down to kiss Karma. Her tongue slips into my mouth, her hands fisting my hair.
Soren taps my head as Spiral’s finger circles my asshole. I look up to see Soren with his tentacle out, the large appendage looking for something to fill. “You two have a job.”