Lag 6.15a

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

May 13, 2011

11:01 PM

The streets of Old Saint's Row were silent in the dead of night.

Not that they weren't nearly always silent, really, as the blocks of the once-lively urban housing project had long since become a corpse of its former self. With the roads dimly lit with what few flickering street lights remained—those that weren't already on the verge of failure at least—the entire area felt more daunting than they ever did in the bright light of day.

The cold chill of night did little to help bring a sense of warmth and security, either.

Even if the area hadn't been one of those specifically chosen for its lack of occupants and general emptiness, these parts of Brockton Bay often seemed desolate and vacant enough to the eye of the average person who made their way through here for whatever reason. Honestly, without a dedicated search or some lucky happenstance, almost no one would have noticed the few people that used these decrepit houses and near-ruined buildings in Old Saints Row for shelter.

However, tonight was different for several rea-

"God fucking damnit!"

The door to one of the Row's derelict buildings slammed open with that hissed curse as accompaniment. The young man who had managed to keep his cursing under control while inside now stomped angrily down the steps of the once-new apartment, visibly fuming as he spat angry words at no one and nothing in particular.

Hair dyed a visibly unnatural shade of blonde and cropped close to his skull, he looked very much like the prototypical young Empire member, the gangster aesthetic only solidified by the fact that he was dressed in a simple, torn pair of jeans under a thin faded windbreaker. To top it all off, a scraggly beard covered his chin and face, the facial hair dyed a similar color to that of his head.

Moments passed and his cursing lessened in both intensity and speed, both trailing away as he seemingly let both fade away along with the anger that fueled him. As he finished his tirade, the Empire member eased forward and dropped an arm over the top of the rusted junkpile that was the abandoned car someone had left behind in front of the building. A few moments passed like that before he lifted his gaze to stare at the night sky, outburst completely over, a look of something imperceptible on his face as he did so.

"God fucking damnit."

He repeated the same line that had started his quiet, yet bitter tirade, shoulders slumping as he spoke the sentence with one long sigh, utter exhaustion audible in the extended breath.

A few moments passed like that before he turned around to begin making his way back into the building, the introspective look on his face shifting back into one of carefully-crafted yet thuggish anger.

His foot met the first step when -

"Wow."

The Empire thug whipped around, unrestrained shock and visible fear clear on his face even in the dark of night as his head darted around in search of the unexpected voice.

"Yo, Shay," the voice spoke again. "Up here."

Once again, the Empire member was barely more than a shell, unable to move or do anything but vainly search for the source of the voice that knew his fucking name.

"Shane!"

Shane frowned, appearing to momentarily worry that the voice he heard was just another illusion - or worse, another Empire member who had heard him spit some choice opinions that he'd rather keep under wraps. Someone had to have been watching the door, right? Shane was certain of that much.

"Yo, bro?" he called back questioningly, easing away from the steps as he swiveled his head back and forth, ears raised expectantly.

"Here."

Shane's eyes finally came to a stop at a spot just ahead of him, a few short meters away at the top of the steps, right next to the door he had stormed his way out of barely a minute before. The figure sitting on the edge of the steps stared back at him, the dot of light and trailing smoke that was a cigarette held just a few inches from his smirking lips.

Shane held his breath for a few moments, second-guessing each and every one of his words as he stared into the eyes of the smoking skinhead, the other man clearly finding everything in front of his eyes amusing. Oh, thank fuck, it's just Dean.

After a moment, the young man paused. Oh fuck, it's Dean.

Dean Becker was a lot of things to a great many people, and a very few terrible things to a few certain other people. To the Empire Eighty-Eight, he was a loyal and eager street soldier. To the citizens of his neighborhood, he was a vigilant night watchman. To Shane Koons, he was at the very least one of the best friends a man could ask for. Unfortunately, Shane wasn't entirely sure what order his friend held any of those priorities in.

"Hey there, dumbass," Dean's smirk grew into a full-blown grin as he placed the cigarette in his mouth. The cool night air seemed to get even colder to the nervous Shane as the other man tilted his head patronizingly, like a parent who had caught you red-handed. "You get it all out of your system?"

Shane found it hard to meet Dean's eyes as he worked his jaw silently, his capacity for words seemingly as dry as his mouth suddenly felt. It took several long seconds before he actually spoke with any level of eloquence.

"What?" Shane spoke flatly, keeping his tone cool and even as he could manage, despite being clearly uncomfortable. His eyes flicked around the building's stoop in a manner similar to the way he had done so just a few seconds prior, before finally, hesitantly, settling back on Dean's own. "I mean… what?"

"Really?" The word came with a single raised brow from the other man, the hair above his eyes rising high to the point they nearly kissed his clean-shaven skull. "What? That's all you gotta say, man?"

Shane Koons stared silently on again, exhaustion filling him as he found himself out of his depth and entirely unable to talk himself out of the mess he had just gotten himself into. Finally…

Fuck it.

"Fuck it," he repeated, throwing his hands up into the air. "Fuck it, fuck me, fuck everything, alright?" Irritated eyes circled back to his friend again, the man seemingly unbothered as Shane began to work himself up into proper ranting form.

"Nah, go on," the skinhead waved the hand that held his cigarette in Shane's direction. "Talk all your shit. Tell ol' Deany boy what's wrong." The man paused a half-second later, tilting his head slightly to the right. "You know, I can honestly kinda piece what your whole deal is. You said a lot already. A hell of a lot."

A burst of nervous laughter spilled out of Shane's mouth, the young man raking a hand through his mane of platinum blond hair as he tried to compose himself. "Y-yeah, I guess."

"Honestly, Sh-shane, you gotta be s-straight with me," Dean continued with a tight smile, the man audibly and visibly holding back the urge to laugh himself. "What's got you so worked up about the Triple E, man?

"I-i-i… I dunno."

"Don't know what," the skinhead demanded, the humor in his voice fading slightly to expose a not-so-hidden edge. "Use your words, man."

"I'm just having second thoughts, you know?" Shane finally replied. He stepped backward, halting his motion right before his back met the edge of a rusted out junk-bucket of an abandoned car, the only things still intact on the vehicle being the glass itself. "I got one semester of college left and I'm just… I'm just not sure if I want all this to be part of my life anymore."

"Oh, oh, I see," Dean laughed this time. "You get ya degree and all of a sudden, you're too good for the Empire, huh?" He raised an eyebrow again as he leaned one shoulder up against the stoop. "That how it is?"

"No, it's…" Shane fidgeted in place, fingers sliding over both thumbs as he tried to occupy his hands. "It's just an Associates, okay, not a big fancy degree and it's just about doing more for myself and I'm about to be twenty-five and I just don't think…" His rambling words trailed away as he shook his head, standing silently on the barely-lit sidewalk.

"I dunno if I can do this anymore, Dean," Shane finally continued with a loud exhale, hands thrown up by his head again. "This was supposed to be about protecting my neighborhood, okay? My family, right? Not these kids. Not this."

Shane gestured a lanky limb to the building his friend sat in front of. "Not any of this."

Dean shook his head, chuckling at his friend's antics. "Bro, these kids? Yeah, I'm not a-hundred percent for it but they're all baby thugs, Shaney."

The skinhead sniffed loudly, thumbing his nose as he narrowed his eyes at his taller, lankier friend. "Give 'em a year or two and they'll be holdin' each and every one of your baby sisters down…"

Shane shut his eyes, clenching them tight as he tried to pretend the shiver he felt down his back was from the cold breeze fighting against his cheap, ineffective windbreaker. "Dean…"

"Nah, Shay, you know it. Trust me, those kids are gonna be takin' turns dick deep in all three of those lil girls while you're bleedin' out on the floor next to your mom… while she's cryin' an' waitin' her turn."

As that dark scenario left his lips, Dean sniffed again and tossed the cigarette over his shoulder without a care. "'Sides, now's kinda a real shit time to be welching, y'know. You signed up for this same as me. Yeah, I pushed you a lil bit but you were down."

"Bu-"

"Nah, Shaney." He shook his head slowly, another smile creeping across his face as he leaned forward on the steps to give Shane a knowing look. "It was your choice."

The silence hung in the air between both men, Dean seemingly unbothered by the night chill as he sat on the stairs and stared back at his friend, waiting patiently for him to say something back.

"Same as me," he repeated again after several seconds of quiet.

"I don't know, man," Shane shook his head as well, finally finding the words to express himself after a long pause. He knew himself well enough to know that this wasn't the life he wanted, not for himself and not for his family. "I mean, I mean… I chose to be here right now, but do I actually have the ability to choose?"

The skinhead blinked. "Huh?"

Shane frowned, forcing his thoughts into something coherent. None of this… None of this was what he had really signed up for. His initiation had involved him shooting a Merchant that tried to push drugs in his part of the city. He could justify that, easily.

This, though?

Shane shook his head quickly. "I mean, look at it this way, if I'm making decisions, decisions based on personal experiences and the environment I was raised in," he paused to catch his breath, licking his lips in a show of restlessness. He'd had a lot of time to think about things like this, those Philosophy and Ethics courses really helping him as he thought about his life and future at the same time he did his homework.

A lot of the kids he grew up with had basically been press-ganged into the Triple E, pushed by friends and other people they knew, coerced into thinking that they had to fight back against the ABB and a bunch of the other smaller gangs that the Empire had done a great job at stomping out. It didn't help when the Asians were taking over half the city and the ABB was killing, robbing, kidnapping or raping like a bunch of invaders. What else were you gonna do to stop them? Become a cop? The cops might as well all work for the Empire anyway and the ones that didn't…

Well, the ones that didn't learned pretty quick to follow the orders of the ones up top, especially when it came to the Eighty-Eight. "...if I'm doing that, then I'm just seeking the optimal choice based on previous trial and error results for my life." Shane glanced down at his own hands, clenching them into tightly held fists for a moment. "I mean, my choices might just have been the product of how I've been previously conditioned to think and choose."

The lanky young adult raised his gaze to meet his friend's slightly widened eyes. "What do you think?"

Dean blinked, visible confusion in his gaze. After a pregnant pause, the man leaned back and took a deep breath. "I thin-"

The skinhead went silent, glancing up into the night sky as he cut himself off. He dropped his gaze back over in Shane's direction, appearing somehow even more confused as he opened his mouth again. "Did you hear that?"

Shane shook his head, just as confused. "Hear wh-"

Roaring wind and the sound of shattering bones eclipsed Shane's hearing, drowning out whatever his friend was about to ask in its wake.

The Empire member blinked and his world was overtaken by a flash of red. "-GKK-"

A second later, Shane felt his nose shatter inwards, fragments of bone and cartilage sent down his throat as something latched onto his face with force unnatural. The back of his skull exploded through the side window of the car behind him, thick teeth of safety glass jabbing everywhere as they caught onto his head, back and unprotected neck.

Barely a moment later, an instant to gag down what little air he could, the gang member screamed through a mangled throat as an uncaring hand ripped him from the car with frightening ease.

He stared up into glowing red eyes, liquid draining down his legs that he knew wasn't blood.

"WhERE Is HE!?"

"-Mpff-"

"...fUcK."

A bloody glove drew back, Shane having just enough time to catch sight of it before it palmed his face again, this time the bottom half as he found himself silenced completely.

His jaw was next to break, cracking in three places, splintering in one corner and pulverized completely towards the front of his mouth. It creaked in a final act of resistance before it finally crumbled under the powerful grip as Shane barely coughed out a moan through it all. "...plfff…"

Please.

Then the pressure eased, stopping almost completely.

He had a brief moment of relief, a slight hope that it was over as those red eyes flickered blue.

Then a single finger from the figure's ungloved hand drove itself into his left eye.

"MURdEREr!"

Tears of blood and water poured from his face, the only thing the young man could do as he stared up at a face nearly as young as the smallest of his sisters'.

Glaring. A burning red gaze.

The teeth, bared. Inhuman.

A monster's fangs.

His remaining eye spasmed in it's socket

An arm pulled itself back, a tight fist at the end of it.

The last thing Shane would ever see was his friend's skull shattered against the wall of the building with a spray of blood, bone and gore surrounding it.

Just like his own.