No. This man’s look of fearlessness of me was what I hated the most.
He dove at me again, crouching low this time so that the swing of my bat missed him, and his blade sliced into my side—deep enough to draw a shit ton of blood, but not deep enough to kill just yet. I called out as pain burned up my side and I dove back out of his way.
When he crouched low and moved forward again I raised the bat above my head and swung down instead of sideways, hitting him on the shoulder, and heard a distinctive cracking sound as my bat, and his shoulder, split. He cried out and dove forward again, slashing aimlessly at me as I dropped my useless bat to the bloody ground and dodged backwards, sidestepping his sweeping slashes.
I reached for the first weapon I could find, my grip slipping over the cool metal of an oddly shaped short bar with a lump in the middle, and I swung as the other man charged at me again. I hit him in the side of his head, the metal so heavy that I felt it as the heavy center crushed part of his skull. I pulled the object back out and he swayed on his feet and stared at me.
Blood slowly started to slide out of the side of his head and he blinked. His grip loosened on the knife and he opened his mouth to say something but no words came out. My hands shook and I felt the object being taken from my hand. I turned to look and saw Wolf standing behind me. He handed me some long cord and nodded toward the man who was moments away from death.
“Finish him,” Wolf said. “Finish him and this is over.”
I looked down at the black cord in my hand and walked toward the other man. His eyes no longer bulged, and the veins in his arms no longer protruded. He swayed as his gaze followed me, until I was standing behind him and pushing him slowly down to his knees.
The circle of men surrounding me waited in silence as I wrapped the cord around the other man’s neck. I got a firm grip on either side of it, and with a sharp pull I twisted the cord and pulled it tighter around his neck.
He didn’t put up any fight, and in reality I knew that the cord was unnecessary to kill this man. He was already dying and wouldn’t last longer than two minutes anyway, yet this was their ritual. Their warning and their promise. And this was necessary in their eyes.
As I let go of the cord and he fell forward, I let my gaze fall to Wolf and the item in his hand. It looked like a crank of some sort. Wolf smiled at me, flashing his perfect white teeth. He slipped the crank into a plastic bag before slipping away from the circle.
The crowd parted and Bull entered. He looked at me with a serious expression and I raised my chin and squared my shoulders to him. His gaze moved over the man on the floor and the puddle of blood slowly growing underneath him.
“He double-crossed us,” Bull said, finally giving me some sort of explanation for the fucked-upness that had just happened. “Sent two of our brothers to jail and another to ground.”
“That was your beef, not mine,” I gritted out.
Bull nodded. “I know. But I needed to know how far you would go to survive.”
“This wasn’t about surviving,” I gritted out.
Bull chuckled darkly. “No? Sure looked like survival to me.” Bull stared at me, his dark eyes boring into mine though his stance was casual. “This life ain’t for everyone.”
“Maybe it ain’t for me.”
Bull gave another humorless laugh. “After what I just saw, you were made for this life, kid. It’s in your blood, no doubt. I don’t know where you came from or what your deal is, but this is it.”
I shook my head in response and turned to walk away. The bikers behind me moved out of my way without hesitation and I strode across the room. “You’re wrong. This ain’t the place for me.”
But I knew I was lying.
I knew it because a dark part of me had enjoyed killing that man.
I heard Bull’s footsteps following me. “I think this exactly the sort of place for you. A place where you can let out that rage of yours. A place where you’ll always belong, and always be wanted. A place filled with brothers that will always have your back, time and time again, no matter what.”
I reached the stone steps and came to an abrupt stop, my boots scraping on the dusty concrete. I let out a heavy breath. All those things he was talking about, I hadn’t had any of that before: a brotherhood, a real family. I’d never belonged, and I’d never been wanted. And I sure as hell never had anyone watching my back. What would that mean for me, to have something like that?
“We’re a family,” Bull said, his voice right behind me.
“No, you’re a thug gang.”
“No!” he barked out. “No, we’re brothers, a family, a club, and we protect our own. We have our own laws, our own rules, and our own ways. And I want you to be a part of that.”
“Why?” I asked. I felt my shoulders slump as I spoke and I stared down at my bloody, shaking hands, and yet I was surprised by how clean I felt.
A heavy hand fell to my shoulder. “Because I see a little of me in you. And I had the same raw luck when I was a your age too.”
I turned back around to face him, staring up into his hard face with my own gritted expression.
“And me,” came another voice from behind him.
