LOYALTY
FRESHMAN YEAR AT BARRINGTON UNIVERSITY
I SIT STRAIGHT up as I hear my bedroom door bang against the wall. The lights are flipped on, making me squint at the harsh brightness. Men’s voices are screaming at the top of their lungs, but the words they’re saying don’t register in my foggy mind.
Hands grab at my body, and my adrenaline immediately kicks in. I punch aimlessly, my body now wide awake and aware that men are in my room. I hit a face, making one of them grunt. I hit another body part, making another curse.
But there are too many of them. I’m yanked off my bed and fall face-first onto the floor. A knee is shoved into my back, and my arms are yanked behind me. “Get the fuck off me,” I shout before something is shoved over my head, effectively taking away my sight.
My heavy breathing fills the hot and heavy hood.
I roll over onto my back. Kicking my feet aimlessly, I try to make contact with anything I can. But something heavy presses down on my chest, and I feel a prick in my neck. My body instantly betrays me as it goes limp on my floor. The last thing I feel is something being wrapped around my ankles when my eyes roll into the back of my head.
_______________
I OPEN MY heavy eyes, having to blink several times before they focus. My head is foggy, my body sluggish. They drugged me. It takes me a few seconds to see I’m in a room with other men—fellow Lords who are being initiated.
I only count three. The rest must have been taken somewhere else for a different type of initiation. Rumors are, they like to break us up. That way we’re not all aware of what goes on. What we’re expected to do. Some are challenged more than others. It’s to weed out the weak from the strong.
This is a part of our journey to rule the world. If you want to be a man, then you take one’s life. My father once told me that when he came home covered in blood, pistol in hand.
Growing up, I always thought we were different. But that night solidified my suspicions. I was twelve when I found out he was a Lord, and I’d one day get the chance to be one as well.
You’d be surprised what a man will do to survive, Easton, he added when I questioned how he could take a man’s life and then go about his day like it didn’t happen.
“Welcome, brothers,” Lincoln calls out from behind me. “This is the beginning of your journey. Your first assignment, gentlemen. If you do not complete it, you will not receive another.”
Translation—if we don’t kill our target, we’re out. And you don’t want to be stripped of your Lord title. They won’t kill you, but you’ll always be looking over your shoulder with the possibility.
The point of being a Lord is to do their dirty work for them. There are millions of us throughout the world. You become a Lord after three years of initiation, and if you go against your oath, you’re killed.
A man is shoved into the room with his hands tied behind his back and a hood over his head. His dirty clothes are covered in blood and filth.
“Gentlemen.” Lincoln comes up behind him. “Who would like to show us how it’s done?” he asks.
“I’ll do it,” I say without thought. This is not the time to be afraid. It’s the chance to show what you’re made of. You can’t rule the world and be afraid to sacrifice others.
Linc walks over to me and nods. “Go ahead, Sin.” He calls me by my nickname. “Pick your poison.”
I stand on shaky legs, my mind still sluggish, but I can do this. I walk over to a table where there’s a rope, gun, and pocketknife.
Pick your poison.
I grab the knife and turn back to the man kneeling in the center of the room. He’s shaking his head, but the hood prevents us from seeing his true identity. Doesn’t matter. If I don’t kill him, someone else here will. I can tell by his muffled screams that he’s gagged.
Before I can reach him, he falls facedown and tries to wiggle his way across the floor. If I were levelheaded, I’d laugh. I kick him in the side, knocking him to his back. Straddling his bare chest, I see the Lords’ crest on it—a circle with three horizontal lines running through it. It’s not old by any means but also not new. Probably a couple of years.
I feel all eyes on me. I take in a deep breath and crouch down, opening the pocketknife and shoving the blade into his neck. Yanking it out, I watch the blood squirt all over both of us. His body now convulsing before movement ceases completely.
Standing to my feet, I hold out the knife to Lincoln and he smiles at me. “You keep it.”
