I closed my eyes tight. Maybe, if I didn’t see it, it wasn’t really happening.

But it was. Because although I couldn’t see it, I could feel it.

He entered me, fully violating the body I’d finally taken possession over as my own. It wasn’t just a violation of my body. It was an invasion of my soul.

Pop Pop Pop Pop.

The sound cracked through the air from the other room.

“What the fuck?” Isaac roared, lifting off of me just in time to turn his head toward whoever had just opened the door.

Pop.

Isaac’s head exploded above me like a sledge hammer to a watermelon. My face became coated in thick, warm, red. The full weight of his limp body fell onto me, knocking the wind from my chest. Shrapnel of flesh and bone that used to be Isaac’s head, landed in my open mouth, and I immediately turned my head and heaved into the floor.

King suddenly appeared beside me, gun in hand. He rolled Isaac off of me pushing his lifeless body to the floor, finally freeing me from his penetration.

King had lost his shirt and was only wearing a black wife-beater. Every inch of available skin on his arms and neck was covered with blood as if he just slaughtered a cow.

Or people.

King’s eyes went wide when he looked down to my state of undress. Then even wider when he noticed the blood pumping from my leg.

“Fuck!” King aimed his gun at Isaac and fired twice, his lifeless body jumping when each bullet made contact. “Motherfucker,” King muttered. “I am so sorry, baby. I am so fucking sorry.”

“What the fuck is going on?” I asked. I was losing blood fast and getting more lightheaded by the second. King lifted me up into his arms. “Where’s Preppy? Where’s Bear?”

“Cover your eyes, Pup,” King ordered.

“Why?”

“Because you may think differently of me if you keep them open,” he whispered, carrying me into the other room. “It’s not a pretty sight out here.”

I knew I should have listened to him, but a part of me, a very stupid part of me, needed to see. But no matter how much I warned myself what was on the other side of the door, it wasn’t nearly enough to fully prepare for the reality of what was in front of me.

Bodies.

Bodies. Everywhere.

Slumped over one another on couches, chairs, the floor. The white linoleum was covered in sludgy, dark red footprints.

Preppy sat in the doorway looking pale, clutching his side with one hand, blood saturating the area of his shirt his hand was trying to cover. Bear stood over him with his hands on his knees trying to catch his breath. Preppy looked up as we approached and scratched his head with the barrel of his gun. He flashed us a pained smile. That was so Preppy. Smiling while seriously injured in a room full of dead bodies.

“So…you guys ready to party now?” he asked, his usual loud and chipper voice was raspy, his breathing shallow.

He turned ghost white in a matter of seconds. The blood draining from his face at al alarming rate. His smiled faded as his eyes rolled back in his head until his pupils were replaced with only the whites of his eyes. Bear lunged to catch him as he fell face forward onto the cement.

Preppy exhaled on a strangled moan.

I would have given anything in the world for that smile and that breath, to have not been his very last.

Chapter Twenty-Six

King

Fifteen years old

“Fuck no! I ain’t gonna be nobody’s bitch,” Preppy slurred at Bear. He took another giant swig from the bottle of cheap tequila we were passing around. The three of us sat on overturned milk crates on the floor of the living room of the shitty apartment Preppy and I had just moved into. The crates were the only furniture we had. “That cut is cool as fucking shit, but you ain’t gonna see me announcing to the world that I’m a criminal. I keep my shit on the DL.”

The place was a complete shit hole. Two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a kitchen that consisted of a hot plate and a sink that sat on top of two cabinets in the corner of the square living room. One strip of black and white linoleum squares marked off the ‘kitchen’ area.

It was dirty. There was an ant mound growing under one of the baseboards, flies stuck to traps hanging from the ceiling. A fan with two broken blades that didn’t turn on hung uselessly from the living room ceiling. The only window in the main living area was nailed shut so it couldn’t be opened.

It was the greatest fucking place ever.

“Nah man, it’s totally cool. Cops don’t fuck with us cause they’re scared of us. Besides, the MC parties all the fucking time. Pussy and blow everywhere, as far as the eye can fucking see, man.” Bear swayed to one side and kept himself from falling off his milk crate by straightening one of his legs and anchoring the heel of his boot to the floor. “It’s totally tits, man. You gotta join up. Prospect it out like me. Once I’m in, I’ll vouch for you guys. Then after a year, it’s fucking smooth sailing on the SS Tits and Ass. Besides, you’ll love the clubhouse. It has a pool table and a fucking bar.”