Page 1 of Fury

1

25 years ago

“Should we keep him orkill him?”

Someone kicked my calves, shoved at my back, and I sprawled on the cold floor. The hood was torn off my head, and I blinked in the bright light. A tall heavy set man stood before me, bulky tattooed arms crossed over his chest. Med, the famed President of the Kansas Smoking Guns, a man I’d heard about almost all my life.

The devil himself.

In the flesh.

“You know where you are?” his deep voice practically growled.

I shook my head, unsure of how to answer. The truth often got me in trouble in the past. Why should now be any different?

Med only sneered, or maybe that was just his way of smiling like Jack Nicholson’s Joker. “What do they call you?”

I pushed up on my arms, but my limbs were still numb from being held down in the van on the endless ride here. “I’m-I’m Kid.”

Laughter fizzed around me like a can of shaken beer going off. “Aww, ain’t that cute?” a voice behind me said.

“Prospect, eh?” Med asked, his eyes wandering over my cut.

“Yeah.”

“Perfect.” That Joker grin deepened, and the blood backed up in my veins.

“They probably won’t give too much of a shit about you.” He raised his chin at someone to my side and my cut was ripped off me. “More fun for us.”

“Hey!” I choked out.

They kicked me and ripped off my boots, socks, jeans. I was naked. Thick metal cuffs were attached to my wrists, my ankles, my neck and linked to heavy chains. My head swam, a cold sweat tracked over my skin, my heart plodded through mud.

“You know why we took you?” Med asked.

“‘Cause it’s the kinda shit you do?” A slap cracked across my face. A silvery haze shadowed my vision.

“It’s because the Flames of Hell think they can do whatever the fuck they want. Time to show your club how pissed off I am at catching them on my territory doing what I’d warned them not to ever do.”

My stomach dropped. Reich, our VP, had found a dealer in southern Kansas who used to be supplied by the Smoking Guns, but the Guns had recently iced him, not paying him what he felt they owed. Reich had stepped in and provided Flames of Hell made-product to find new buyers, new addicts along that guy’s route, a route we’d never had access to before. Money was money, and we wanted more of it, just like everybody else.

My dad, a club old-timer and former officer, had told him it was a bad idea. For decades now, our club constantly fought with the Guns over territory, over trade routes, over women, over you name it. All I heard growing up was“this shit’s gotta stop already!”but it never did. It had become part of our day to day, part of our fun. I didn’t think either club knew how not to shit on the other.

In front of everybody, my dad had told Reich his plan was fucking stupid and careless as all hell. Reich’s response? He chose me to make the delivery with another club member, and it got approved real quick.

I’d gotten the surprise of my life when I opened the door to the dealer’s house and saw him hanging from a hook in his ceiling. Me and Siggy ran straight out, got shot at, chased into the woods. Siggy got shot in the face as he climbed a tree. They’d pinned me down at gunpoint and dragged me here to their clubhouse. I was alive, but not so fucking lucky.

My pulse pounded in my ears, my heart muscle vaulting over never-ending hurdles in my chest.

Med made a hand gesture in the air, and kicks and punches rained down on me. I collapsed and went sailing up in someone’s tight hold. Blows and bashes cracked and smashed over my body, pain exploding through me. My head swung to the side, and I gasped for air, choking on my own saliva and blood.

His pinned eyes on me, Med admired my bloodied pulp. “Ah, welcome to the Smoking Guns, Kid.”

They let go, and I crumpled to the floor. Chained to hooks in a concrete post in the middle of a big room, I strained to keep my sore eyes open as they partied and argued around me. Men and women stared at me, laughing, talking, and I stared back. I was the new attraction at the zoo. The freak at the circus, their chained cyclops shuddering in a mangled heap, settling in a pool of his own piss, sweat, and blood.

I pressed back against the post, keeping still. I knew how to do that pretty good. All my life I’d been somebody’s afterthought, a gray part of the landscape, but that had just changed.

Now I was front and center.

---