It started as best out of three. Rock, paper, scissors. I lost.
So there I was—half inside the garbage can, face buried deep in stale rot—while Dane held onto my legs so I wouldn’t topple in headfirst.
We hiked miles out after that. Through trails no one used. Hidden enough that no one would hear the shots. Then we set up our little range. Bottles lined up across a fallen tree trunk.
I can still hear the crack of the rifles. The sharp explosions as glass shattered into splinters.
At first, it was just fun. Then it became a competition.
And that’s when I realized Dane had better aim than me. Consistently. Clean shots. No hesitation. While I kept missing. Adjusting. Missing again. And he kept laughing right in my face. It got under my skin fast.
By the time the last bottle was blown to pieces, I’d lost every damn round. Badly.
I remember the sound of his laughter—loud and unrestrained.
And then he was face down in the dirt. My knee digging into his back hard. My fist clenched, ready to swing.
All while the bastard was still chuckling.
That’s all I remember. Not what I said. Not what he said. Just the heat. The way my skin burned. Muscles locking tight.
One second I was standing there, seething—and the next, he was on the ground. Like something in me just snapped.
Since then, there’ve been three more incidents.
Same pattern leaving fog of fragments instead of memories. One of them even got me my road name. Ruin.
At seventeen, I had obliterated the inventory room at Sinful Chugs in that same fitful rage. Some idiot from school got it into his head that I was screwing his girlfriend. I wasn’t.
But she? She was trouble. The kind that thrives on chaos.
She followed me to work that day and slipped into the inventory room while I was busy logging shipments.
Dim lights. Stacks of crates. The sharp scent of alcohol in the air.
I was hauling boxes of gin and whiskey, checking labels, updating stock. That’s all Dad trusted me with back then. No bar work. No floor. Just inventory until I proved I was ready to prospect.
She cornered me in that room. Sharp eyes. A mouth that knew exactly what it was doing.
I don’t even remember her name. My brain—fucked up and hormonal—didn’t clock the setup. Not until the door slammed open.
Her boyfriend stormed in and ripped me off her. Dragged me into it before I could even process what the hell was happening.
Turns out there was a bet—who’d win in a fight? The school quarterback or the Wardens royalty? It had been a toss between Dane and me.
She chose me to mess with. Big mistake. Because maybe Dane would’ve just knocked the guy out and walked away. I didn’t.
I remember flashes. Wood cracking, glass exploding, the smell of spilled liquor soaking into everything. There was shouting too. Clean swings of fists. Bones breaking.
And when it was over, a hefty eighty grand worth of inventory had been destroyed.Ruined, as Dad said.
All because I lost control.
I spent the next two years after that learning how to rein it in. To stay present. To remember instead of letting that same blinding rage take over and wipe everything out.
It didn’t happen overnight. It was messy. Frustrating. But eventually, I clawed my way into something that resembled control.
I wouldn’t even call it anger management. Not entirely. It was more about refusing to be influenced by the kind of men around me—the ones who fed that instinct instead of fighting it. Especially Dane’s father, Savage.
