DeVile’s breath caught in his throat. He looked at the bartender in the side of his eyes, her silvery hair tickling his face as the wind blew. Her hand traced around his abdomen, tucking her finger underneath the flap of his holster and removed his gun. He didn’t protest, he’d be a dead man if he grabbed that gun.

“Sweetheart, I don’t know what the hell you’re going on about.”

“Sweetheart…” she tsked, moving back so she wasn’t near his ear. “Don’t you, though? Really don’t remember this mug of mine? It probably looks different, to be fair.”

Taking a breath, he eyed her carefully. She had a soft jawline, those striking crimson and silver eyes which told him he was in the right place to begin with, and a petite nose. Her rosy lips curled into a smile, a laugh escaping from them that was as thick as honey.

Curtsying in the most melodramatic way possible, she waved her hand in the air as a greeting. “Names Quinzel. Quinzel Lauring. Ring a bell?”

Quinzel pouted as DeVile blinked at her. He couldn’t even try to hold a poker face—he hadn’t the slightest idea who the Lauring family was. By the glower that twitched across her face, he could tell he wouldn’t be clueless much longer. Either that, or he’d end up dead and confused.

“Give me his hand for a moment, Justin.”

The man grabbed DeVile’s wrists, pressing a red hot metalic key to his wrist. The handcuffs that held him still were low gone, but the goon made sure to keep his hands behind his back. DeVile managed to rip one of his arms free, glaring over his shoulder at the guy who held the gun pointed directly at him. Quinzel took his free hand in hers, stroking her fingers along the metallic plating that stretched to his elbow.

“Let me give you a little reminder…”

She flipped his arm so his wrist was exposed, the henchman kicking his knee in so he would fall onto the floor. Grunting, DeVile glared up at Quinzel and gritted his teeth. She teasingly wiggled the same augmented finger that gave him a light show downstairs, sliding her finger underneath a groove in the plating of his augment. It tickled at first, but then it burned.

DeVile was no wimp. An idle sting would feel no different than any of the tattoos he has gotten in the past. This was no idle sting, though. It felt like she was tearing into his skin, picking at each vein like it was a tear-apart-twizzler. His body was on fire, yelps echoing into the sky only to be drowned out by a flying car that passed overhead.

“Yeah, fire hurts don’t it?” She teased, pressing harder into the plate. It was strange, considering she touched no skin. He could only imagine what would happen if she tore into the arm made of flesh.

“What the fuck do you want?” He asked while panting, rolling onto his side. Lifting himself up, he coughed as the burn began to die down. His entire body felt hot, beads of sweat trickling down his temple and onto the pavement.

“I want you to fucking remember.”

Twisting his arm, she cackled as he yelled out again. He was contorted in odd ways, trying to remain still so she didn’t hurt him further by his own wiggling. Realistically, he could probably blow both of these people off the roof, but it was whether or not he could do it faster than that bullet left the henchman's gun.

Opening an access panel on his arm, she jabbed her finger into one of the ports and his world flickered. Suddenly, he wasn’t on a roof with a gun pointed at him. He was outside a home.

Moving towards it, he saw a wild flame that danced through one of the cracked windows. The wooden foundation hissed like it was ready to collapse at any moment, the entire home an orange glowing masterpiece ready to explode.

DeVile was disoriented, his vision blurring with each careful step. With trembling hands and a dizzy stance, he only wondered why he was moving towards the burning home instead of away from it. This felt similar to when Lystra would show him her memories in real time, but they had augments to help insert themselves into that virtual reality. He didn’t have a clue how this psycho was able to put him in one of her memories without the proper augment.

Without much self control, he opened the door to that home and peered inside. It was eerily familiar, but he ignored the sense of deja vu for now.

When DeVile was just getting into the game, he got in with a very rough group of kids. They were late teens to early twenties, encouraging him to come on their rides through the city and to spend the weekend with them. He was practically homeless in the roughest parts of Chinatown at this point in his life, so he would have been an idiot to pass up some decent shelter—even if it was with criminals that wanted to see him get caught. DeVile was their scapegoat.

Rule number one: don’t ever trust a street punk.

That was a rule he learned pretty young. This house was a consequence of his naivety.

Making his way into the kitchen, he saw a group of thugs drinking vodka as the fire grew in the adjoining dining room. They didn’t care, though, they were either too drunk, high, or both. They wanted to rob the place clean and leave whoever was left for dead.

The one on the left was called Fiasco, he knew that like the back of his hand. With more scars than you could count, and a missing eye, nobody could forget such an ugly face. DeVile still had nightmares about the guy every now and then. On the right was Paulo, a brazilian asshole who beat DeVile into oblivion every night once he had been initiated. This was before that, though, way before DeVile knew what he was getting into.

Moving away from the kitchen, he walked back into the living room. A large man was standing over a tied up family, their cries filling the air. Kristian.

DeVile would never forget the feeling he had when he finally escaped that asshole. It was freeing, but it made his stomach churn even to this day. Standing next to Kristian was DeVile, only younger and far more terrified.

This man was the person who took him under his wing at the age of twelve. On and off the streets, with a crackhead mother who couldn’t get a job because of her augmented legs, DeVile had no choice but to trust this guy. It was the biggest mistake he had ever made.

Kristian was laughing while dousing the family in vodka. It was an older man with graying hair, a woman, and their child. The child had to be no older than six, her cries hurting his ears as the alcohol dripped into her eyes.

“D-don’t you think we should let them—” the younger DeVile began, his entire body trembling and his eyes tearing. This was the first time he’d ever seen anything this cruel. Unfortunately, as an adult, he had now seen a lot worse.

“Shut up!” Kristian hollered and flicked some alcohol at his face. “This family ain’t shit, boy. Think they give a fuck about you?”

“They didn’t—”

Kristian smacked DeVile so hard it sent him over the sofa armrest. Even as a kid he was no wimp, but that slap still made him cringe. The ferocity of it could have probably sent him flying as an adult, too.

He watched as his younger self looked up at the man with tears in his eyes, his lip trembling; he was trying to keep himself from crying. “Listen here, Destin,” Kristian said. DeVile narrowed his eyes, he hadn’t heard his birth name in years. “These good-for-nothing rich folk just don’t give a damn about you. Understood? Good. Want to know what I want you to do?”

“What?” his voice wavered when he spoke.

“I want you to take this gun here...” Kristian nodded and removed the weapon from its holster, handing it to him with a sly smile. “..and I want you to put a bullet through the politicians brain. Know how to do that?”

“N-no!” DeVile’s former self screamed. He shoved the gun away and backed onto the sofa. He was trying to get as far away as possible. He had never been given a gun, nor had he been told to kill somebody. His initation, while terrifying and horrific, never involved murder.

Kristian sniffled, turning the safety off and shrugged. “You sure?”

“You’re a psycho!”

“Have it your way, then.”

Standing up, he waved his gun in front of DeVile tauntingly and snickered. It was traumatising, watching himself tremble on the sofa, only able to stare as that gun was lifted. His heart sunk to his stomach, turning his face away to avoid what was to come. Even after all these years, he was disgusted. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to look at the scene.

“Just know, kid, this is your fault.” Kristian taunted with the proudest smirk crossing his features, finger hovering over the trigger. The father’s lip began to tremble, the mother’s cries piercing and begging for mercy. That little girl, though, was what pained DeVile the most. Moving closer to the reverie, he kneeled down and looked at her. It could have made any man fall to pieces, the way she was crying and asking for help. So young, but so aware of the gravity of this situation.

That’s when DeVile made his first mistake. His first, true mistake in life. He turned just as his former self was running out of the door and through the punks who tried to grab hold of his arms.

“I’ll get help,” he had yelled. He never did. Following himself out the door, he watched as that little boy ran further down the street, his tiny legs moving at great strides to try and make it away from the house. DeVile wanted to call out to himself, to tell him to grab that gun and shoot the sick fuck in the head. Unfortunately, that was impossible, this was merely the augmented reality of a memory.

Something happened, something he didn’t know about until this very reverie. Just as he was moving down the street, hopelessly following himself as a kid, the home exploded. Turning over his shoulder, he watched as the flames crawled up into the sky with plumes of dark gray smoke. After a few minutes of him staring, the ash began to fall. Before he had a chance to see more of the situation, reality came back to view.

He wasn’t in front of a burning house anymore. He was on the rooftop, Quinzel holding his head back by a chunk of his hair. Blinking, he looked at the girl with sad eyes.

“What’s your point?”

“You left me to burn, you asshole. Remember me now?”

He never had forgotten, but thing is, DeVile didn’t know that family. He had no say in what was happening, he was only going for a ride with that good for nothing gang. After he ran away, he hadn’t seen Kristian or his goons since, but he assumed they were either locked up or dead. He just didn’t know they died at the hands of an explosion.

“I was fucking twelve, do you think I knew what I was doing?”

Quinzel’s eyelids grew heavy, shoving him so he fell on his back. “They didn’t die.”

“Who didn’t?”

“Those goons, you idiot. They left as soon as the upstairs water heater exploded, leaving my family to die in the fire. They never got caught because, well, it looked like an accident. I got out, too.”

Blinking, DeVile sat up and shoved the gun away when it was pressed to his temple. “Watch it!” he said to her bodyguard, clenching his fists. DeVile was comfortable they weren’t going to put a bullet in his brain, otherwise they probably would have done that when he was in that memory. What they were planning was what scared him.

DeVile eyed Quinzel, noting that she didn’t look burned. After seeing the magnitude of that explosion, anybody inside that house had to have been burned. The fact that they didn’t all die baffled him. Watching her hair blow in the wind, her eyes drifted across the concrete roof. She was contemplating, and he wanted to know about what.

“So, what are you going to do, then? Kill me like you did them?”

She chuckled. “Haven’t killed those sick fucks yet.”

DeVile hummed. “First on your list, am I? Psycho little twelve year old needed to be put in his place?”

Quinzel looked at him with narrow eyes. “Why’d you get in this game, DeVile? You ran off like the pussy you are, leaving me to rot, but here you are in the same line of business they were.”

“Had no choice.”

“Coward.” she spat and kneeled in front of him, pointing her finger. “That’s a lie, and you know it.”

“Alright, then why are you in this game?” DeVile shot back, his eyes narrowing at her glare.

“To get revenge.”

“That’s a lie, and you know it.”

She scoffed, standing upright and snatched the gun from her goon. DeVile stood, too, wiping the dust from his pant leg. Now that the gun was in front of him, and not getting pressed against his temple every few moments, he was able to take a better look at it. It was a decently new glock, one that shimmered neon blue along the side. That glistening line told him it didn’t fire bullets, but instead energy cells. It was growing more common to have this type of firearm because it took a power source as opposed to bullets. Cheaper, faster, and more effective.

“You want to talk like that to me now?” Quinzel asked, pointing the gun in his direction lazily. She lacked confidence.

“I do. You’ve trapped me in your precious little web, now what?”

She took a few steps closer, pressing the gun against the underside of his chin. He tilted his head up to alleviate the pressure, but smiled down at her with all the cocksure in the world. He doubted her.

The safety of her gun clicked, her eyes glued on him like he was a treat. He had to admit, those irises, while unnerving, served to be hypnotic. Even with a gun pressed against his throat, ready to end him then and there, he couldn’t bring himself to close his eyes.

“Go on, then,” he whispered, “shoot me.”