“Yeah, I heard you,” I asked. “Who gave the order?”
His mouth trembled. “I-I can’t. They’ll kill me.”
“Listen, kid, if you don’t tell us, we’ll kill you,” Macabre’s tone was filled with sarcasm and frustration.
“Pl-please. Please,” he cried.
“Oh, Jesus,” Scorn huffed. “Just tell us who the fuck ordered it!”
His shout mixed with Jameson’s slap to the face, made the kid react, and eventually, we got a name out of him. “Cr-Croak,” he spat out. “It was Croak. He said it’d make me one of them. Said the Scorpions don’t take cowards.”
Scorn stepped forward, his voice calm and cold as stone. “Croak? Croak’s runnin’ the New Orleans Chapter?”
“Yeah,” Tanner said quickly. “He’s the one who told me about the job. I didn’t even wanna do it, man. I ain’t like them.”
Macabre cracked his knuckles. “That son of a bitch has it out for us ever since Tick Tock put a bullet in his skull.”
Jameson slowly stood, taking slow steps toward him. “You wanted a patch bad enough to risk your life. That’s not courage, kid. That’s suicide.”
The kid started crying, actual tears, and my gut twisted. He wasn’t cut out for this life. Some kids grow up hungry for chaos, but this one had been starving for a place to belong.
Jameson turned to me. “What do you wanna do with him?”
The question hit harder than it should have. I looked at the kid, sitting there, wet, shaking, eyes swollen from fear, and for a second, I saw a younger version of myself. The one who’d run from a God-fearing mother with a belt in her hand, the one who thought the Church could save him before realizing demons live there too. I wasn’t about to watch another lost boy end up in the dirt for someone else’s game.
I took a breath. “Kid,” I said, crouching down again, voice softening this time. “What the hell are you doin’ ridin’ with Scorpions?”
He sniffed. “Don’t have nowhere else to go. Got kicked outta my old man’s place. They found me on the streets and gave me a roof over my head, a cot, and a job. It’s not much but that’s all I wanted. A reason to breathe, you know.”
I stared at him for a long moment. “That reason you’re talkin’ about? That’s not loyalty. That’s desperation. And it’ll get you killed.”
He nodded, trembling. “Please, man. I’ll do anything. Just don’t let ‘em find me. They’ll know I’m here. They’ll kill me.”
Jameson looked at me, silent but waiting. I could tell he was gonna let me make the call.
I straightened, pulling my gloves off. “Cut him loose,” I said finally. “He’s a pawn. Croak’s the one we want.”
Hoax frowned. “Prez?”
Jameson studied me. Then, slowly, he nodded. “You, sure, Chaplain? He could go right back at it.”
“Not if I give him a job instead.”
“A job,” he looked up at me wide-eyed.
“You’re gonna play security and look out for the Royal Bastards, Josh. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll make as Prospect one day.”
“Yes, Sir. Anything. I’ll do anything.”
“That’s not how life works, kid. Don’t make yourself so available to people who will mistreat you.”
I looked over at Jameson who was eyeing me. “You realize he’s now your responsibility.”
“Yeah, I get that.”
He then turned to the kid. “If I see you fucking up our territory again…I’ll put a bullet in you myself.”
“You won’t,” his voice shook.
