INITIATION
LOYALTY
Freshman year at Barrington University
I was born into a secret society. They say we’re the lucky ones. That the world will bow to us and we’ll never go without anything. As long as we pass our initiations, we’ll know riches beyond our wildest dreams.
I’m a Spade brother. To anyone on the street who hears that, they would think I have siblings, and in a sense, I do. Our last names aren’t Spade, and we don’t share the same parents. But we might as well be blood brothers. We grew up together. And one day, we’ll graduate from Barrington and run Carnage together.
Just like our fathers.
And their fathers.
And their fathers.
We’re a long line of Spade brothers. It was some bullshit title that the Lords gave our families centuries ago. Someone has to run their hell, and we were the unlucky ones.
Is it what we want? Doesn’t fucking matter what we want. We serve the Lords, and as a servant, you do as you’re told.
I’ve known that we’re different since as far back as I can remember, and my father won’t let me forget it. He told me I’d have my chance to make him proud. That time has come.
It’s my freshman year at Barrington University. My first year of initiation. Even though we were born into this world, we’re forced to earn our spot. Kill or be killed would be the Lord’s motto if they had one.
I kneel with a black hood over my head, keeping me from seeing where I’m at or who else is in the room with me. My wrists are shackled in front of me as they rest on my jean-clad thighs. I’m shirtless. My right eye is starting to swell shut, and I’m pretty sure my nose is broken. I can’t breathe through it, but I can taste the blood covering my lips that runs down my face. The lack of light takes everything I have not to pass out. At this point, I’m not sure how many days I’ve been awake fighting. I’ve been fed bread and water. That’s it. They want us to be weak and vulnerable.
All Lords go through initiations, but as a Spade brother, ours are different. More intense. There are countless Lords throughout the world. But a Spade brother? We’re limited. See, I only qualify because my father is one. And one day, if I have a son, he’ll be one.
We must all prove that we can do what is needed for the society.
It’s our purpose.
The Lords test you so they can toss the weak out early on. You’re born into this world, but they can deem you inadequate at any time. So you show up and kill whoever your target is.
If I had to explain a Spade brother to some Joe on the street who doesn’t know that the Lords exist, I’d say we’re the hit men of the society. But instead of killing, we capture and torture. If we’re sent to retrieve you, you will not escape us.
We are the hunters in a world full of prey. It’s not like we hurt the good guys. If you ask me, everyone in our society is bad. But we’re all willing to do what must be done in order to survive. It’s a man-eat-man world.
“Saint Beckham Carter.” I hear my name over my pounding headache. “You have been called to serve, son. Do you wish to proceed?”
“I do, sir,” I answer without hesitation, but I don’t even recognize my voice because my tongue is swollen. I bit the fuck out of it when I got a fist to the mouth.
Fight. Win. Fight. Win.
That’s what we train for. Over and over until one of us kills the other. Honestly, I think most of them give up too soon. They realize this life isn’t worth your soul. But I’ve never been known to need one. What does it get you?
Into heaven?
I don’t believe in that shit. When you’re raised in hell, heaven is a fairy tale that doesn’t exist.
“Let’s see what you’ve got, son,” the man states. “String him up.”
Hands grab at me from behind, yanking me to my feet. I don’t even try to fight. Have to save my strength for what’s to come. My cuffed wrists are brought above my head, pulling on my shoulders. I grind my teeth so I don’t make a sound at the pain that shoots up my back in this position.
The hood is pulled from my head, and I take a deep breath, blinking several times, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the bright light.
I’m not sure where I’m at exactly, but I know it’s Carnage. It’s an open arena. Two stories. A quick look lets me know Lords pack the place on the upper level in stadium-type seating. A look over my shoulder tells me it’s all the way around. I’ve been thrown into a shark tank, and I’m the bait.
All the Lords wear black masks and matching cloaks. I’m center stage, lower level, on a platform. Like a witch being burned at the stake, I’m strung up to a metal structure with a pole on either side of me and a third across the top. I’m six foot five, and my steel-toed boots barely touch the floor. My body is pulled so tight that the new position makes breathing even harder.
I look up and feel my hands already going numb from the position. My skin splits from being so tight in the metal.
“We will begin.” The man’s voice from before calls out, walking in front of the platform. Then he turns to face me and lowers his voice. “If you survive this, son, you will live to see another year.” With that, he walks out of my view.
If I could, I’d panic at his choice of words, but I just don’t have the energy to do so. I have to save it for what’s to come.
The squeaking wheels make me cringe. It’s as bad as nails on a chalkboard. A man enters the arena from the opposite side. He pushes a cart, but I can’t see what he has on it because my vision is blurry.
But it doesn’t matter because he’s heading right toward me. I get a better view once he reaches the platform. He picks up a syringe and a vial that sits on top of the cart.
I start to fight the restraints. I hate drugs of any kind. I don’t like feeling out of control of my body or my thoughts. Drugs slow you down and make it harder to focus on what’s in front of you. Especially since I haven’t eaten a real meal in days. It’ll probably make me sick.
Once the plunger sucks back all the liquid, emptying the vial, he walks up the three stairs in front of me and stands to my left.
I try to adjust my arms once more, my shoulders fucking screaming at the stretch. They fucking burn like I’ve been lit on fire. And the sweat that runs down my skin stings where I’ve been cut from the previous fights.
“Open wide,” he orders, and before I can even comply, he shoves something into my mouth, pushing my head back in the process. It’s hard to fucking breathe since my nose is broken, but I make do. “You’ll feel a pinch,” he states as he places a hand on my bare chest. I scream into the cloth as the most excruciating pain shoots through my body, taking what little breath I had away.
It’s over in a flash, and I feel a rush. Like a dead car getting jump-started. He yanks the cloth from my mouth. “I’d say you have about twenty minutes.” He smiles at me, and I have no fucking clue what he’s talking about.
He leaves the platform and pushes his cart across the arena. Once I no longer see him, my wrists are freed, and I fall to my knees. I don’t even feel the blow. I take a deep breath through my nose, and it feels healed. My sinus cavity is wide open.
I stand to my feet, jumping down off the platform. The lights are all of a sudden brighter. My heart pounds in my chest like a drum, and my pulse races. I could run for days. I no longer feel any pain. Just pure fucking power. I’m energized.
He injected me with adrenaline.
The question is why? What am I supposed to do with it?
My muscles tense and flex on their own. I fist my hands and can feel the blood rushing in my veins. Fuck, I feel invincible.
I hear a sound behind me and spin around just in time to see a man rushing me. He knocks us both down, and I roll a few times before I jump to my feet. But then I’m hit from behind, knocking me to my knees.
Fuck, there are two of them.
I get up and turn in time to see his fist flying to my face, and I manage to block it as I shove mine into his. He doesn’t even budge.
They’re on adrenaline too. Not surprising. The guy said I should have about twenty minutes. Before what? I crash? Get killed?
I’m hit from behind, knocking me into the guy I just punched in the face. He grabs me, spins me around, and shoves me into the other one.
I grind my teeth, getting angry. My patience is on a shorter fuse than usual. I take a step to the side, putting some distance between us, needing a second to think. I reach down and undo my belt. They let me keep it on. I grasp it with each fist and jump on the guy closest to me, wrapping it around his neck from behind and pulling on it.
He loses his footing from me choking him and dropping my body backward. We stumble back, and he falls on top of me. I wrap my legs around his stomach and squeeze as hard as I can, locking my ankles together while I hold the belt tightly around his neck.
I hold on with everything I have as he tries to fight me, rolling side to side and grabbing at my hands. His nails dig into me, breaking the skin, but I ignore it.
The second guy leans down and tries to pry the man in my grasp away, but it doesn’t work. The man on top of me grows heavier and softer. His body loses the battle with strangulation as he begins to asphyxiate. He taps my arm instead of digging his nails in, and I snort. This isn’t a tap-out scenario. This is a kill-or-be-killed situation, and today isn’t the day that I die.
The guy who stands over us grabs my boots and yanks me and the dying man across the floor. But I refuse to let go. I’m too close now.
When the man on top of me finally goes limp, I wait another second before I release him. Then I push his corpse off me.
I get to my feet and sway a little. I’m losing the adrenaline. The rush is falling away.
The man across from me notices and smirks. He didn’t use all of his while fighting us. I’m going to have to run on backup. To further my point, the guy runs away from me, making me frown. But he rushes up the stairs to the platform, jumps up onto the bar that my arms were tied to and swings his large body up and over it, doing a flip around it.
What the fuck? Is he some kind of gymnast? Acrobat? Where did they find him, the goddamn circus?
He lands on the platform and turns to face me, smirking. He lifts his hands and motions for me to come to him. Any other time, I’d make him come to me, but I don’t have an extra second to spare. All he has to do is keep me running in circles until I crash, then hit me a few times to win.
I won’t make it that easy for him.
Instead, I take a deep breath and run for him. I jump the three stairs onto the platform. He stands to his full height in surprise. And I take the opportunity to jump as well, gripping the metal bar he just spun around. I lift my knees, kicking him right in the chest, knocking him clear off the back end of the platform.
Letting go, I fall to my feet and pick up the chain and cuffs that lie where I was released. I then jump off as well as he rolls to get up on his hands and knees. I position myself over him, one leg on either side of his back, then wrap the chain around his neck from behind and yank him to his feet. I drag him back onto the stage and thread the end of the chain through both cuffs, pulling tight and securing it around his neck.
He goes frantic, trying to get it off. I jump up, toss the end of the chain over the bar, reach up and grab it, and let my legs go limp and yank on it, hanging him by it.
My vision goes in and out like before. My body is starting to give up on me. That headache returns tenfold. I feel a sharp pain in my side, and I’m not sure if I’ve broken a rib or if my nose is the reason I can’t breathe.
The man continues to dangle from the bar. He thrashes around, fighting the chain around his neck, and I tell myself I can’t let go. Not yet.
“Just…a little more,” I grind out. I’m pretty sure I have lockjaw because I can’t open my mouth, and it’s getting harder to breathe. Or maybe I’m grinding my teeth. I can’t tell the difference.
I watch his arms drop to his sides, and his body sways back and forth. My sweaty hands slip from the chain, unable to hold myself up anymore, and I drop to the stage. My legs are like Jell-O, so I lie there as the man slumps next to me as well. His open and vacant eyes on mine.
I can’t move as mine grow heavy. Hands grab me, pulling me from the man and off the stage. If there’s more of them, I just won’t survive because I have nothing left.
I’m placed on a soft cushion and wheeled out of the arena. The last thing I see is my father running up next to me. He’s smiling, and I blink, vision blurry. “Good job, Son.” He slaps my chest, making me flinch.
My head falls to the side, and I get a glance at Lords pulling the dead guys from the arena before everything fades away and I’m covered in darkness.
