I stand in the center, suddenly feelin’ like I'm trespassing in someone else's sanctuary. The thought twists something in my chest.
That's the thing no one tells you about gettin' out. Life goes on without you. The world doesn't pause while you're payin' yourdebt. For three years I sat inside Whitefall, fightin' through each day, taking my beatings, earning my place in the hierarchy. Six days in the Pit taught me more about silence than the twenty-nine years that came before it.
And all that time, what did I think about? Myself. Like the fucking universe orbited around Legion Kane and his pain. Like my absence left a hole nobody could fill.
But the truth is, everyone's just tryin’ to survive. Even the wolves. Even the men who think they're kings. We're all just animals scratchin’ for territory, for food, for somewhere safe to lick our wounds.
Very little inside Badlands counts as private property. The office belongs to Brick. Sacred ground. Everything else is communal—claimed by whoever needs it most in the moment.
Right now, that's me.
I pick up one of the blankets and drop it down next to the wall. Then I lower myself to the floor, back against the particle board wall where I can see both the compound and the distant hills, and pull out the little spiral notebook and the pen.
For a moment, I'm back in Whitefall. Back in my cell with nothing but concrete walls and these little spiral notebooks I'd buy from commissary. Writing was something I did on the inside, and I did it on the regular. So regular, I had dozens of these little fucking spiral notebooks by the time it was all said and done. I filled every single one of them up—tiny, cramped writing covering every inch of paper.
The guards would take them during contraband checks sometimes. But they never gave them back. Probably sold them to the feds thinking I was stupid enough to write down club business or confessions.
But there was never anything about Badlands in there. Nothing about deals, or names, or territory.
Just... thoughts. Questions. The kind of shit that keeps you awake when you're alone with nothing but your heartbeat for company.
I didn't write about me. Didn't write about my time. Didn't write about the other guys, or crime.
I wrote about life, and the lessons learned. Just tryin’ to make sense of why this place even exists.
Why.
Why.
Why?
I click the pen. Unclick it. Click it again.
Then I open the spiral notebook to the first blank page and start to write…
Life don’t hand out answers, it just keeps throwing shit at the wall to see what breaks first. Maybe it’s your body, maybe it’s your will, maybe it’s your damn sense of what’s fair. People talk like there’s meaning tucked somewhere deep in the grind, like if you suffer long enough you earn some kind of prize. But all I ever saw was pain stacking up on pain, like bricks in a wall you end up building around yourself just to breathe. Maybe the point isn’t to break out. Maybe it’s to learn the shape of the cell. Figure out who you are when no one’s watching, when there’s no applause, no woman in your bed, no gun in your hand, just you and the dark, and the quiet, and the question you keep asking even though you already know the answer: what the hell am I doing this for?
CHAPTER 4
I wander the clubhouse, looking for Legion. But apparently, he’s a ghost. Because he’s definitely not here. Inside the bar it’s just Brandy, and Lord help me, if I have to talk about those pictures right now I might actually scream.
“Have you seen Legion?”
That’s all I say. That’s all I care about.
But of course she turns around with her whole face braced for war. “It wasn’t me.”
I blink. “What?”
“The videos. Everyone’s saying I leaked ‘em.” She sets down a bottle. “I didn’t. I’d never do that to the club.”
I let out a breath and wave a hand because no. Just… no. “I don’t care, Brandy.” I mean it. “Have you seen Legion or not?”
“Nope.” Then she turns back around like we never spoke.
And that’s it. That’s the end of that conversation.
I continue my aimless searching and find myself in a hallway I’ve never seen before, which, honestly, could describe this whole damn place.
