DARK AND TWISTED

CHAPTER 69

We arrived at the serpent gang headquarter in the evening. Their headquarter appeared more modern than the rest of the headquarters I had been too. Symmetrical shape buildings conjoined with one another. It was like huge building blocks. Most of the walls were glass, like giant windows.

On the outside, there was a giant cage filled with snakes of different colors guarding the headquarter instead of their members. A person with ophidiophobia would abhor this place for sure. I was glad they were not an arachnid gang. I wouldn't want to deal with spiders.

The leader with a few members behind her ran outside as she saw us walking towards the building. Their footsteps were loud until Quinn flinched, hiding behind me. 

The leader was a woman. Her hazel eyes got darker as she glanced at my tattoo. Her long strawberry blonde hair was disheveled. She got acne and dark circles under her eyes. Her chapped lips almost bled, I assumed she didn't drink enough water. She was surprisingly tall, almost my height.

"Well, well, well," she scoffed. "Look who's here. A new tiger leader who doesn't have a shame of coming to me after you killed my valuable members."

"Valuable?" I scanned the members behind her. One of them got a black eye. "If you think they're so valuable, I'm pretty sure you will take care of them and never punch them in the eye."

The leader's eyes went wide. She turned around and shouted at her member to get back inside.

"That's my way of teaching them. Mind you own business, lady," she hissed.

"You must have been through some rough days," I stepped closer to her, moving her hair covering her neck to reveal a long scar on it. I noticed that earlier, "who did this?"

She smacked my hand, "Get lost. I don't need you here."

"Your face said otherwise. You need our help more than anything else. Why you don't let your members guard outside? Most gangs let their members to that."

She clenched her fist, "Good bye, Hope Anderson."

"Dragons did something to you, right?"

She stopped in her tracks, "how did you know that?" She turned back and stared at me, wide eyes opened.

"So," I ignored her question. "What happened?"

She looked around like someone was watching. To be honest, I sensed someone was watching us but it could be in my head again.

"Let's go inside. You can park your cars in the garage so people don't know you guys are here," She called one of her members to show the tiger members the garage while Quinn and I followed her from behind.

The members inside got tense as we walked past them. The leader informed that we were not a threat which was a good idea to inform them that because a few of them had already taken their knives out. She led us to her office and shut the door.

Quinn massaged the back of her neck as she fidgeted like everything was new for her, especially the gazes we received earlier. I pulled her closer to me.

"Want to explain something to us?" I sat on the couch.

"I'm Cleo," the leader poured us some water. "You're right. The dragon leader did something," she put down the glasses on the table in front of us.

"The scar?" I motioned at her neck.

"He used my own mother against me. She thought I was doing something unacceptable so she attacked me one day," her lips quivered. "I had to kill her, my own mother. My dad ran away with some woman and left me with my mom since I was a kid. She was everything to me. If I had to kill anyone, it should be my dad. That bastard."

"Like he tried to use me against my family," I glanced at Quinn who was sipping the water, almost spilling it on her pants once she caught me staring.

"That's his technique. What brings you here anyway?"

"We're having a special meeting underground with other gangs to defeat the dragon," I bit my bottom lip. "For killing the people I love."

She leaned forward, "I'm sorry about Christian. He was a good guy for us. But somehow his pain changed him into a darker version of Christian Anderson. You know, I was watching you since the first day you got here."

"Excuse me?" I adjusted my position. "Watching me? Why?

She chuckled, "because I wanted you, of course. Same goes with other gangs. We all want you because we heard somewhere that you're different. I don't know how different. After I knew you killed my elite members, Lindsay and Brenda, I realize I'm not dealing with a regular girl."

"I killed Brenda and Lindsay and I have my own reason."

"You talk just like your father. He saved me once from danger by killing people. He said he had a reason to kill them. That was before I got into this gang. But," she heaved a sigh. "I have no idea what happened. I woke up the next morning with almost half of my members lost their heads, then I found their heads in my office, their bodies were dismembered, all in different places, and it was so violent. I heard the news from the other gangs Christian did that. The lions and bears told me about their members as well. Christian was on his rampage at that time so it was possible he did that. So, I stayed away from him eventually hated him for that."

"Dragon leader," I accidentally said it out loud. But, she heard me so I might as well continue, "I know he's the most violent among us, right Quinn?" I elbowed her.

"Yes, yes," she wiped her mouth. "Dragon leader is extremely violent. He usually will cut his victims into different pieces and sometimes put something like a head in a place where people can see it. Like a warning or a tactic to intimidate someone. It's like he wants to give his enemy heads up about something, like a signal," she explained.

Cleo and I exchanged glances. She was thinking about the same thing. This dragon leader was something else. I had a bad feeling about this.