Page 26 of In the Light of Sin

There’s no way this small brick building could hold a crowd this size. There had to be at least a hundred people here. While the majority of them had gone up the steps inside, some still lingered around the door, smoking cigarettes and chatting. My eyes widened, and my body went stiff when I recognized two figures leaning against the side of the building.

Tyrant and Knight–without their cuts–both with cigarettes in hand, scanned what was left of the crowd. If they were here, the Souls were involved in whatever Sarge was doing.

When they were involved, nothing ever turned out good.

“You! Get over here!”

Strike three.

A burly man with more gut than height approached me, and I quickly debated running into the woods. My chances of getting out of this situation were higher with him than with the coyotes and whatever else that lurked around.

Shakily, I complied, facing a burly man whose eyes scanned me from head to toe, making me shiver. He pulled the cigarette from his lips, a wisp of smoke leaving it. “You a ring girl?”

My eyebrows furrowed, but I shook my head. I didn’t know what a ring girl was, but I wasn’t dumb enough to ask this man what he meant by it. I wasn’t even supposed to be here. “Sorry, I think I took a wrong turn, I’ll—”

“Nice try.” He grabbed my wrist as I tried to turn back to the car, holding it high as I used my other one to try to claw his hand off my wrist. “You can’t leave once you get here. If you were a regular, you would know that. Who are you?”

Where’s here? All I did was follow Sarge. If he was here, it couldn’t be that bad… right? “I-I’m just lost. Honest.”

His lips turned predatory as I felt my body shiver under the weight of his stare. “I could let it slide this one time—”

A scream left my throat as the man suddenly fell to the ground, a pool of blood forming on the concrete beneath him. My eyes shot up, seeing Tyrant still in position, his eyes darker than I’d ever seen. Usually, his eyes were full of light… but they were filled with death right now.

“The fuck you doing here, Joslyn?” he asked, light returning as he chastised me. He looked to the path to our right, spotting Sarge’s red Cadillac, his eyes widening. “How did you even get Sarge’s car? He keeps that cabin of his locked up like Fort Knox.”

“Oh.” I wracked my mind for an excuse but couldn’t think of one. “I, uh, I hot-wired it.”

I heard another set of footsteps approaching. I blew out a relieved breath when I saw tattoo’s that rivaled Tyrant’s. Knight’s eyes widened in surprise, letting out a low whistle. “You can hot-wire a car?”

I bit my lip, not proud of how I knew how to do it. Instead, my eyes returned back to the dead man on the ground. “Are you guys going to get in trouble?”

“For what?” Tyrant asked so casually like he didn’t just kill someone. His eyes drifted to the man lying dead at his feet. “Oh, for this? Nah, people will probably just take his body and sell what they can off of it.”

My mouth went dry like I ate cotton. “What?”

“Dude.” Knight shook his head. “She shouldn’t know that.”

Why would I ever assume that Sarge would take off to a place that doesn’t have death implications?

“I’ll just go—“

“Can’t do that.” Tyrant tucked the gun back in his pocket. “People are watchin’. If they see you leave before the matches are over, they’ll follow you. These people aren’t the ones you want to fuck with, Jos.”

I tried to swallow even though I felt like I was suffocating. Sometimes, I hated that I didn’t think and just acted. It never turned out well for me. “So… what happens now?”

“What happens,” he walks over to me, putting his hand on my back as he guides me around the corpse and towards the small brick building, “is you’re gonna stay by our sides and keep your pretty little head down.”

“The things you’re gonna see aren’t meant for girls like you.” Knight followed behind Tyrant and me. “But you don’t have a choice now.”

I’ve never had a damn choice. Why would life start giving me one now?

Tyrant knocked on the metal side door when we approached it, knocking in a way that was obviously a code. Two taps of his knuckle and a large bang with the side of his fist. The door opened slightly, and a man around our age with a scowl on his face looked at us. It was the man who called everyone in earlier. “You were supposed to be inside already.”

“Cry me a fuckin’ river,” Tyrant grumbled, lifting his leg and kicking the door open. The man’s curse echoed on the walls as his body smacked against the ground. I cringed as I heard the back of his head hit the stone floor. “Gonna treat some of Andre’s best customers like that?”

Who’s Andre?

The man leaned up on his forearms, skin noticeably paling at the mention of Andre’s name. “S-Sorry. Please come in.”

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