Reese (Pack of Misfits #2) - Raven Kennedy Page 0,63

Stinger, and Jericho—another one of my enforcer roommates—are standing right in front of me, gloating.

My eyes snap over each one of them. “What?”

Their grins widen, and I know. I just fucking know.

Regina pulls out the bottle of Malort from where she was hiding it behind her back and holds it up like a trophy. Dread curdles my stomach, and I start shaking my head. “No way. What the fuck for?” I demand.

“In case you haven’t noticed, our entire warehouse got water-logged,” Regina tells me.

I groan. “That’s not my fucking fault! The sprinklers did that,” I defend. I even back up a step. Pathetic, I know, but I fucking hate drinking that shit. “If anything, it’s Mitzy’s fault. She made them go off.”

Toby chuckles. “I’m so going to tell her you tried to pin this on her.”

“Come on, Luca Leone,” Lulu, the tall blonde says. “Time to face the shitty-tasting music.”

“But—”

Regina shoves the bottle at my chest, the amber liquid sloshing against the glass. “Man up, Leone. Your girlfriend came in here to get to you. The sprinklers rescued your asses. We had to drag all the furniture outside to dry. You’re drinking this. It’s only fair.”

“Unless, of course, you want us to make Reese drink it?” Toby supplies.

“Fuck no. This shit is awful. I’m not doing that to her.”

“Then get to it,” Regina says cheerfully, patting me on the shoulder.

I snatch the bottle from her, scowling. Stinger snickers, and my gaze swings over to him. “Fuck off, Stinger. You don’t even live in this warehouse.”

“Yeah, but I fucking love it when one of you has to drink this shit. It’s the best.”

Cursing under my breath, I unscrew the top, the smell hitting me immediately. Fuck my life.

“Hold on, let me get my camera ready,” Jericho says, holding up his phone. Fucking vicious, I swear.

Toby hands me a shot glass.

“Thanks,” I say dryly.

“Happy to help.”

Pouring one for myself, I shove the bottle to Toby and then down the shot glass as fast as I can. I gulp the liquor down, swallowing my joy for life right along with it.

It burns as it goes down, but...I open my eyes, relieved, because actually, it’s not as bad as I remem— “Oh my God,” I choke as the putrid aftertaste hits me.

It is. It is just as bad as I remembered. Worse, actually. As if my tongue was trying to save my brain and didn’t remind us just how bad it was.

My eyes burn. My tongue starts revolting, hollowing out in the middle as I begin to gag. Keeling over so that my hands are on my knees, I try to breathe through the need to vomit. The wicked sense of piss-soaked petroleum saturates my mouth and has me hating life. The rancid taste takes over my soul and taints me from tongue to teeth.

“Fucking hell, it just gets worse!” I hack out.

My packmates chortle like a bunch of hyenas.

“This is the greatest,” Toby grins. “Jericho, are you getting it?”

“Yup,” the enforcer says.

I manage to straighten up and flip them all off. “I fucking hate you guys.”

“Better go mop up all the water stains and move the furniture back in, buddy,” Stinger says, slapping me on the back as I continue to cough. God, why does that stuff even exist?

“Eat shit,” I tell him.

“But it’s so much funnier to watch you drink it,” he counters.

“Tick tock, Luca,” Lulu singsongs. “We were nice and let you settle in for a couple days since getting back from your rut. But after a week, we’re sick of sitting on beanbags. You gotta go clean off all the furniture and get rid of the water stains, or guess what?”

Toby shakes the bottle at me menacingly. “You get to have another.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I say. “You guys are real dicks.” Tossing my middle finger up again, I go downstairs, their laughter following me.

It takes me all fucking day to clean the damn warehouse. Nobody helps me, but they do set the bottle of Malort on the coffee table and sit in the living room with it, like menacing, psychopathic stalkers.

By the time the place is spotless again, I’m tired as fuck, and I swear, I can still taste that shit liquor on my tongue, even though I ate, drank, and brushed my teeth.

Luckily, the furniture wasn’t damaged, and I managed to scrub the water stains off every surface, including the floors. The pool table probably would’ve been ruined if it hadn’t had a cover on, but it was fine. The