The Knights, according to one Mateo García, were not a people but rather a state of mind. That was his view of it, at least. The others may have disagreed. He refused to even call them by the colloquial nickname so widely spread that it may as well have been their official titles. He refused to refer to his crew as a poorly delivered pun that only made sense when written out on paper, which in the middle of the woods, they obviously lacked.

Knightmares, they were called. How pathetic. It made them out to be villainous, dark, a nightmare come to life itself. To Mateo, his friends were none of those things. Dangerous, he'd give them that, but never wicked. There was a reason his old friend Jordy had dubbed them the title he had. But Jordy was long gone now, and Teo was the one left to carry on his legacy. To hear what had once been honorable—the name that had once filled him with pride—dragged through the forest dirt fueled him with an anger like none other.

In the beginning, they were built upon loyalty and justice. Mateo was new to the crowd at its initial formation, but by now he'd been there longer than anyone. At first there were perhaps only five or six, yet by the time of Jordy's passing only one year later, there were fifteen. With the peg gone, the uniting force who inspired the righteous gang stripped away, it all dissolved. Within a month, four of the original six had seceded from the others alongside two of the more recent additions, leaving Mateo for the first time in charge. Now there were seven boys in the group, his group, Jordy's group. And they were Knights. Jordy wanted them to be Knights, and Mateo refused to let his dream disappear.

"How's that tree working for you?" a voice asked, coming up from behind him. It was just around noon, which was the much needed warmest part of the day, and Mateo was basking in the small area beneath the bare trees where the sun could actually reach him. With their food supply currently manageable, the five Knights in the camp had no pressing concerns. At least, there were no concerns he was aware of.

He turned around to see Damien de Loughrey, a young man one year his senior and at least half a foot taller than him, yet still his second-in-command. Had they been living in the real world, Damien would now be old enough to drink legally, but Mateo was always acutely aware that this was a boy who could have passed for twenty-one at age sixteen. With his defined cheekbones and cold blue eyes that threatened anyone who dared to cross him, Mateo had once been surprised that they were so close in age.

"Am I missing anything over there?" Mateo asked, raising an eyebrow down at the three other boys in the clearing.

"Benji is going to make me rip his head off, I swear to God," Damien snickered, taking a seat beside the leader. He leaned his head against the bark, his untamed blonde hair falling over his face, and he gently blew at it in boredom.

"What's he doing?" Despite the question, he didn't need an answer. Benji Cabot was that kid in high school Mateo would have wanted to push out of a window at any given moment. Loud and unfiltered, he commanded attention towards himself in a way that undoubtedly irritated both the leader and his co.

"Gavin needs to get his ass back here soon," Damien muttered. "With Benji and Rocket, it's like babysitting some fucking kindergarteners." Of the crowd, Rocket Grigg was only fourteen, while the one closest to him in age—Gavin—was three years older. But Rocket's brother Wes was one of them, and Wes was an extremely valuable asset to the team. Level-headed, mature, and a damn-good fighter, Wes Grigg was a necessity. And Rocket was beginning to prove himself as well. It was good to have someone young. Someday it would be him in charge, him leading a new era of Knights.

Despite his potential, however, Rocket was still a kid, and Damien de Loughrey could not stand to put up with one more minute of him and Benji sparring in the clearing as the younger boy's brother attempted to sleep in a nearby tent. When Gavin was around, Benji was often distracted as the two shared an inseparable bond nobody really understood the basis of. It took all six Knights for there to be homeostasis in wherever they had set up camp. But Gavin was often a lone ranger of sorts, and his presence was far more sporadic than the others may have liked. At times there was a seventh member, who, like Gavin, was most often on his own.

"Speak of the devil," Mateo said as he saw a familiar figure running through the barren branches. As the boy neared closer, however, he felt a palpable stress radiating off of him, and his forehead was covered in a cold sweat. "Damn, what happened?"

"We have a problem," Gavin said as he attempted to catch his breath. His chest burned and his head was screaming and he kept blinking his eyes as though that might erase what we have seen. "It's Clevis."

Damien's face dropped as he rolled his eyes. "Shit, I told you that kid was a snake. Jo never should have trusted that dick. The hell he do this time?"

"He's dead, Damien."

"Oh shit."

Mateo took a step back, eyes widening. Although he had never been particularly a fan of Jack Clevis, the boy had been almost just as close with Jordy as he was, and that was not something to be taken lightly. But Clevis was a little too much like Damien—cold, cunning, and ruthless—but his loyalty to the team was never clear. That combination terrified their new leader, but the news of his death as well was terrifying. It had been a month since the central Knights crossed paths were their rogue member. "What the hell happened?"

"Some girl," Gavin shrugged. "I don't know who it was, I came over the hill to send him your message, and he was dead on the ground with some girl I've never seen before behind him. I heard people coming so I ran, but I didn't recognize any of them. There's never been a feud with this group before. I don't know their motive—"

"Breathe, Gavin," Mateo said, closing his eyes for a brief moment to try and formulate his next sentence, his next thought. "So we find the girl. You remember what she looked like?" Gavin nodded.

"And then we get revenge," added Damien, which resulted in a harsh glare from Mateo.

He shook his head. "Our code is to maintain justice. We find out her motive first. She could have been acting in self-defense, we don't know. It's Clevis, anything could have happened there."

"Our code is to protect each other first," the other boy argued. "If we're not loyal to each other, then what even are we? We avenge each other. We don't make exceptions."

"We'll cross that bridge when we get there," Mateo said, cutting off the discussion quickly. "Let's tell the others, formulate a plan. We leave this clearing at daylight."