My blood ran cold at the sound of my father’s name…an old and familiar fear crawling up my back as I shot to my feet, stumbling back a little. The lights in the club flickered and strobed faster as everything began to bleed into one another, smearing like paint along the surface of water. Kief’s face twisted as his laughter altered, his face now dripping with blood as he stared at me, his eyes locked onto mine and burning through the deep red color. Screams filled the club behind us as chaos broke out, gun shots and fear piercing through the muddied scene.
“Felix!” The sound of a woman’s voice calling my name began to grow in depth and volume. “Felix!” My heart stopped and I nearly fell over, realizing who it belonged to.
No…No!
“Felix! Run!Run!” A loud gunshot broke out as the smell of smoke filled my nostrils. Flashes of that night, long ago, flickered like an old black and white film, playing across Kief’s blood-stained face while he laughed. My hands gripped and pressed against my skull as I tried to block out the intense memory…but it was no use.
No…this can’t be. It can’t be!
I fell to my knees, feeling a warmth in my palms. My arms fell as I looked down, staring in disbelief at the blood on my hands. “No.” My voice wavered with absolute horror. “This can’t be real….it can’t be real!” I swung my palm, slapping myself harshly across my cheek. “Wake up!” I slapped myself again, my ears ringing from the harsh impact as blood stained my flesh. “Wake up! Wake the fuck up!” But no matter how hard, or how often I hit myself, nothing changed.
No. No, no, no, no, no!
A warm hand gripped my chin, forcing my focus upwards. “You can’t wake up from this, Felix.” I peered through tear-filled eyes, my blurred vision settling as I stared back up at Kief. He maneuvered my face around until my eyes fell back to her lifeless body, lying on the ground before me. I struggled and tried to look away, but Kief wouldn’t let me. “Feast your eyes upon your past and know your fate, cousin.” The woman’s eyes were wide, forever frozen in those final moments of her life and painted in absolute fear. Blood seeped from the gunshot wound on her forehead and pooled around my knees, soaking into the threads of my clothes. I frantically tried to escape the memory, but Kief forced me even closer, grinning ear to ear at my obvious trauma. “Look at it!” he shouted. “See what happens when the peace is broken? When you and your family think selfishly of no one but yourselves!” He dug his nails into my skin and I felt all my strength leave me. I had no drive to resist him—too broken from seeing her dead before me. My body went limp as I stared at the woman, her dark, pitch-black hair sprawled across her face. “Her death is both your faults. Yours and Ignacio’s. And now that you’ve broken our treaty, you and your siblings will meet the same fate.” He released my face and my body slumped forward, falling into her blood, inches from her dead gaze.
No…
Tears streamed down my face as I reached out to her, shaking. “Mom—” A gunshot rang out as pain pierced through my back and landed in my chest, leaving me gasping for air.
“No!” My eyes immediately shot open and I inhaled sharply, sucking in a loud breath, wheezing as my hands clutched my chest.
“Jesus, fuck!” My brother, Haze’s, voice startled me. “Felix?” I swung my head, my eyes scrambling to piece together where I was as our gazes locked. It took a good minute or so for my bodyto ease and realize what had happened. “Felix?” My brother looked at me with worry. “Are you okay?”
Fuck…not again.
I ran my fingers through my hair and rubbed my face, letting out a relieved sigh while wiping away the beads of sweat that had formed as I slept.
You’re okay. It was just a nightmare. Another fucking nightmare.
Haze sighed, shaking his dark hair. “Still having those bad dreams?” I looked over as he walked to my side and placed a hand on my shoulder. “I thought you said they went away?” With his other hand, he pulled a vape pen from his pocket and raised it to his mouth, inhaling deeply before breathing out the smoke. “Damn.” The smell of weed instantly filled the room. I glanced at my younger brother, both annoyed and amazed at how much he’d grown over the years. Between being in the military and active with Charlotte’s Web, it meant I missed out on so much of his and his twin, Indigo’s, lives. Something I always regretted. But now, they were both adults. And while Haze’s physique and strength were similar to my own, there was something deep-seated within him that left me uneasy. As if he had this untapped beast that was just itching to crawl out and devour this shitty world.
He looked at me with those emerald-green eyes, identical to mine, and offered me the vape. I slapped it away. “You know I don’t like that shit.”
Haze smiled, and I could see our father in his features. “Your loss.” He grinned, looking more like my younger sister, Indigo, with that cocky smile. The twins really did look almost identical, but even still, you could tell he and I were brothers. Especially since the three of us all favored our father. But the twins had this touch of softness they inherited from their mother, something I wish my own mother would’ve bestowed onto me. I just wasn’tlucky. But regardless, there was no doubting who our father was. We all looked like different versions of that man, and we all fucking hated it.
I shoved Haze’s hand from my shoulder, grumbling to myself. “I’m fine.” I turned my focus back to the wall of monitors before me, remembering what I was doing before I apparently passed out.
My younger brother smirked, taking another hit from his stupid vape pen. “Sure you are,” he teased, leaning against my desk as he pulled out his phone and messed with it. “You know, you’re going to work yourself to death if you keep this up.” His green eyes flicked to mine before motioning towards the numerous monitors. “I get there’s shit that needs to be done, but?—”
“I said I’m fine,” I snapped. “Besides…youknowwhy.” I shot him a side glance, hoping those three words were enough to both prove my point and shut him up.
Haze took another hit, blowing the smoke in my direction. I glared back at him. “Oh, come on,” he whined. “It was one guy, Felix. I still don’t see how one fucker’s death was enough to cause an all-out war with Northern Lights.” His expression darkened. “They should’ve thought twice before tailing Indi.” His voice was low and possessive. A tone I only ever witnessed when it came to his twin. The two of them had always been close, sharing everything as kids, but there was something deeper between them. Some might call it sick and taboo, others referring to it as the ultimate form of narcissism—being obsessed with an identical copy of yourself—but honestly, I didn’t give a fuck. At least they weren’t alone. They had each other, and I knew Haze would do anything for his twin sister. And deep down, I envied what they had.
“Fuck Kief,” Haze growled. “The only family I have in this world is you and Indi. The rest are as dead to me as our father.”He took a long drag of the vape, holding it in before finally exhaling it into the air.
I shot to my feet, stopping a mere inch from my brother, and scowled at him. Haze was unfazed by my temper, just standing there looking arrogant as ever. Sure, he didn’t know everything, but he knew enough to get his shit together. Or at least let me handle it. “Unless you want to end up exactly like him, I suggest you shut the fuck up and let me do my job.” Haze rolled his eyes and lifted his vape pen, but I slapped it away. “And stop smoking so much fucking weed! I need to focus and I can’t do that when my place fucking reeks.”
Haze scoffed, then smirked as I returned to my computer chair. “Oh yeah, ‘cause your fucking cigarettes are so much better,” he taunted while bending over to pick up his vape. “Nowthatshit really stinks.” He wiped the pen off before stopping to address me again. “You know, you really got some anger issues,hermano.”
My jaw tightened. “If anyone has anger issues, it’s you. You and Indigo.”
I tried to focus on my work, but he just kept talking. Haze grinned at the sound of his twin’s name. “Indi,” he said, “can be a little hothead. It’s true. But oh, she’snothingcompared to us.” I remained still, knowing what he said was true.
The phone in Haze’s hand lit up, just like his own demeanor. “Speak of the devil.” He smiled, then walked across the room and grabbed a duffel bag, tossing it over his shoulder with no effort. “Indi’s done with her training and I am off the clock.” He shot me a look, as if hesitating to leave me. “You sure this is how you want to spend your Friday night?” He motioned to my wall of monitors before me.
I nodded. “Unfortunately, I’m the only one capable of even hacking this system. And we need to access it to—” I stopped, noticing my brother’s eyes glaze over from boredom. “Just forgetit.” I spun back toward the screens and rubbed my eyes, annoyed by how long this had been taking me. “I’m so close to disabling it…I just need to—” I typed in some more coding, slamming my finger onto the enter key, hoping this time it’d work. The green numbers and letters filled my screen as we both waited, holding our breath. “Come on…come on. Come on!” We both watched as the coding continued to fill the monitors. “Yes. Yes! Finally—” A loud beep rang out as a pop-up filled the main screen, telling me I’d once again failed. “Fuck!” I slammed my fists into the keyboard, furious. “I almost had it!” My temper began to take control as I rose to my feet and kicked the computer chair away, sending it into the wall. “God fucking dammit!” I ran my fingers through my hair, huffing and puffing, my heart racing in my chest. “Fuck!”
Haze watched me spiral, waiting until I finally hunched over and took a breath to speak up. “You should really look into channeling that temper of yours into a hobby.” I shot him a pissed look, watching while he purposely blew another mouthful of smoke into the air. “It’s not good to leave it all pent up.”
