Die for me.
Men nothing like me and everything like me at the same time.
Crow stands silent against the wall, eyes watchful beneath his dark brows. Some prospect watching with hungry eyes, desperate to earn what I'm being given. Butch with his scarred knuckles wrapped around a bottle, nodding with respect. Each man bearing his own scars, visible and hidden, each one bound by the same code that brought me here.
Not one looks away. Not one flinches as Chains approaches with the glowing brand. The air fills with the smell of heated metal and anticipation, thick enough to choke on.
For the first time since walking out of prison, something like belonging settles in my bones.
Tastes like home. Not the home I dreamed of inside.
Not the home with Savannah's laugh echoing through clean rooms.
But a home nonetheless.
A place where my demons are welcome, where my silence is understood, where my loyalty is rewarded.
I nod once. Sharp and decisive.
Ready for the mark.
Ready to become what I've already been for years.
Ready to make official what prison and pain have already carved into my soul.
Chains presses the iron against my chest.
White-hot agony tears through me. The smell of my own burning flesh fills my nostrils, choking me worse than any prison smoke. I don't make a sound. I've learned to swallow pain. Learned to let it sink into bone rather than spill from my mouth.
The club roars around me—thunder in human form. Their voices blur into a single, primal sound. Not cheering. Something older. Something sacred.
The iron lifts away. The pain doesn't. It pulses with each heartbeat, angry and alive.
Diesel steps forward, slaps a bandage over raw, branded skin. "Wear it proud," he says, voice low enough that only I hear. "You earned it twice."
Brick holds out the cut again. Black leather, worn soft at the edges. Badlands MC patch sewn into the back—skull wrapped in barbed wire, rising from cracked earth.
The symbol of what we are. What I am now.
I slide my arms through. The weight settles on my shoulders like judgment. Like belonging.
"To Legion," Brick calls, raising his glass. "Blood in."
"Blood in," the room echoes.
The celebration becomes a blur after that. Whiskey flows. Music pounds. Stories spill—prison tales, run stories, near-misses with death.
I drink until the burn in my chest becomes background noise.
Until Savannah's ghost stops haunting the corners of my vision.
Two hours later, I drag myself up the metal stairs to the bunkhouse. Each step echoes, bouncing off concrete walls. My new brand throbs beneath the bandage, a heartbeat of fire just left of center. The cut hangs heavy on my shoulders, still stiff with newness.
My head swims with whiskey. Too much. Not enough. The kind of drunk where the room tilts but memories still cut clear. Where you remember everything you're trying to forget.
The upstairs hallway stretches longer than it should. Doors line both sides—some open to empty rooms, some closed tight. I count them as I pass. Habit from inside. Always know your exits. Always count your steps.
Room 3. Mine now. Has been since I got out, technically, but tonight makes it real. Tonight makes everything real.
