Through my damn fingertips.
We were going to make fucking fools out of ourselves with Cirque du Sang next week. They’d take one look at us—obviously unstable, barely keeping our shit together to pass inspection—and they’d send us packing.
Performing with the Cirque had been a dream since we're teens, huddled together in yet another APOS facility, wishing we could change our fates. Technically, the group that raised me and my pack brothers was called APS—Alpha ProtectionSystem—but Nitro coined it APOS, for ‘A Piece of Shit’, when we were around fifteen and the name stuck. I lost count of how many APOS facilities we got tossed in and out of, but eventually even the government gave up. Which was the best thing that could have happened for us. Emancipated together, set up in transitional housing together, blazing a trail into a bloody future… together.
I nodded to the doorman as I exited into the night air; the temperature had dropped dramatically. My motorcycle waited in the lot, a sleek black machine that always did what it was supposed to—unlike my own malfunctioning body. I ran my fingers along its contours, feeling the cool metal against my skin. It was slim comfort that I could still feel things. Sensation remained. The physical world still existed, even if my connection to it was fraying.
I swung my leg over the seat and started the engine, its growl vibrating through my body in a way that tried to break through the numbness inside. I didn't reach for my helmet, though it hung secured to the side of the bike. It was illegal to ride without it, but I needed that rebellion right now. Needed to break the rules. I shouldn’t be the only thing broken.
The streets of Las Vegas spread before me, a neon-lit grid of possibilities. I accelerated harder than necessary, the bike responding with eager power beneath me. The wind whipped against my face, stinging my eyes, forcing me to narrow them against its force. Better. This was better than the nothing… preferable to the void.
I weaved through traffic with calculated recklessness, pushing the limits of safety while maintaining just enough control to avoid disaster. At a red light, I paused momentarily, watching the cross-traffic flow, then I twisted the throttle and shot through the intersection without waiting for a green light. Horns blared. Brakes squealed. I was already gone.
The next light received the same treatment. And the next. Each transgression building upon the previous, each risk slightly greater than the last. I turned down a one-way street, heading directly into oncoming traffic, forcing cars to swerve around me. The drivers' shocked and angry faces blurred as I passed them, their reactions registering dimly through my detachment.
I wasn't seeking death. That would be too straightforward, too final. What I sought was more elusive—a crack in the wall of apathy, a flash of genuine emotion, anything to prove I was still capable of feeling something beyond this suffocating void.
What was the answer? Not fucking therapy—not that any of us went to those asinine sessions. Not drugs—not that any of us took them on time or stuck with them long enough to make a difference. Not beating shit up—not that beating shit up was a change from the norm for us.
And not that fucking Institute that had promised some sort of miracle Omega yet delivered fuck all.
The city streaked past in smears of light and color. I had no destination, no purpose beyond the movement itself. My mind, normally ordered and precise, drifted aimlessly through fragmented thoughts. The control I prided myself on was slipping, had been slipping for a long time now. Sometimes, I found myself thinking maybe I should just let it all go. Just completely lose my fucking mind. I’d channel it into something, the way Asher played with fire.
When I finally slowed enough to register my surroundings, I found myself on a familiar street. The pleasure club's discreet facade loomed before me. I’d circled back, unconsciously returning to the place I'd fled.
The realization struck like a physical blow. All that reckless riding, all those risks taken, and I'd accomplished nothing. Gone nowhere. The futility of it constricted my chest, squeezing until breathing took conscious effort.
I pulled to the curb, cutting the engine with a savage twist. In a moment of pure, uncharacteristic rage, I slammed my fist against the gas tank of my bike. The impact reverberated up my arm, pain blooming across my knuckles. I welcomed it; it was something else I could still feel. Pain. Pain never abandoned me.
"Fuck," I hissed.
I struck the tank again, then pressed my forehead against the cool metal, closing my eyes against the persistent, smokey glow of Vegas. My breathing was ragged, my heartbeat erratic. Signs of life.
This was why Alphas had an expiration date if we weren’t properly bonded.
Loss of control.
Dangerous impulses.
Mind deteriorating.
The darker nature emerges and never recedes again.
Asher’s pyromania reaching a fever pitch.
Nitro’s temper gaining a hair-trigger.
Kane’s obsessive tinkering all he could think about.
Xander’s growing isolation, setting himself apart as if that could save us.
Were we even DemonX still? And, if not, what the fuck were we?
I started up the bike again and roared back into the directionless night.
5
KANE, DEMONX PACK
