Preface

DECEMBER 22; EARLY MORNING

 

I never thought I’d die a Dragon.

The thought rang through my head with a sudden clarity. I was going to die out here. Chained to this old wooden shack and dressed in an offensive red sweater stained more burgundy-brown than its original bright red.

Though I wasn’t actually a Dragons member, Brayden had done his best to make me one. He’d stripped me of all my gang wear symbolizing Saints membership, and traded it for that of Red Dragons. My knife, cross, jacket; they were all gone. Right along with my pride, dignity, and will.

The gang he led was the largest in the city, and overall the most cutthroat and cruel. Of everyone we competed with, they’d always been our fiercest and most dangerous competition. So finally falling into their hands, I wasn’t surprised by the level of abuse in their interrogations. Then again, it was hard to surprise me with any kind of abuse.

You’re about to die, and all you can think of is the s**t and abuse in your life? Pathetic.

True as it was, it was hard to think at all. The drugs I’d been given had long worn off, but the cold was a pain killer all its own. The numbness had spread over most of my body, even dulling the ache of broken bones. The more my body numbed though, the more my mind did as well. Bittersweet, I suppose, that as the pain lessened, my life did as well.

I couldn’t remember how long I’d been out there, but I figured that a day was a safe estimate. The sky had been dark when they’d first shackled me in the snow, and if I hadn’t been imagining things, day had come and gone to settle back into night since then.

I wasn’t much sure of anything as far as hallucinations went. Periodically someone in Red Dragons gang wear would come into the decrepit space and give me a slap upside the head - making sure I was still alive, I assumed. Other than that, reality was questionable. I thought I’d heard voices a couple of times �" voices that I knew well �" but it wasn’t possible. If I’d truly heard those voices, I wouldn’t have still been chained in the miserable place of death that I was. My family was looking for me, I knew that the same way I knew the Sun would rise, but I was starting to think that it wouldn’t be enough this time.

AJ and Julius �" my brother by blood and my blood brother �" had pulled me through countless hairy situations, but they were only men. They couldn’t magically pick out my location or teleport me home, and I had no way of telling them where I was. Hell, I didn’t even know where I was.

As hard as I’d fought, it was futile. I was done. My consciousness slipped and gained like the tide, and I couldn’t help but feel he’d won. Sure, I hadn’t turned the way Brayden wanted, but in the end, he was still the one on top. Exactly where he wanted to be. Smug b*****d.

If I only hadn’t been so careless… Der’mo. Vy tupitsa… You’re an idiot, Ty.

That thought in my mind, the tide of consciousness waned with an overwhelming pull. I drifted there for a while, letting thoughts of the people I’d be leaving behind drift with me.

POP! POP! POP-POP!

I jerked. Were those gunshots? Or was I hallucinating? My eyes slid closed. When they opened again, the first thing I saw was the gun. Considering where I was, a gun was not a good thing to see.

 

Author's Note

Did I grab your attention? Or not so much...