Chapter 13
Silence.
For the first damn time in ages, my head’s not screaming. No noise. Just a strange kind of quiet I’d forgotten existed.
I’m flat on my back in my room. My eyes are shut, enjoying this absolute stillness, and of course that’s when the memories crawl in like hungry roaches.
Memories from ten, eleven years ago. I was nineteen, maybe twenty. Barely knew who I was back then.
Memories of the fraternity and how I got dragged into all of it. I was fucking worthless.
I ended up broke, on the street because I’d told my landlord to shove it when he hiked the rent for no damn reason. Wasn’t even in the contract, just him being a greedy prick.
Next thing I know, I’m out. Then the bar fired me. They called it anger issues. Whatever. Maybe I smashed one glass too many. Maybe I told a few assholes exactly what I thought of them. I was different back then.
That’s how, a few days later, I wound up half-dead in some piss-soaked alley with blood in my mouth, ribs fucked beyond counting. Cold concrete, colder night. I figured that was it. Curtains. Game over. No one gives a shit when you go out like that.
Then Alaric showed up.
He dragged me out of the gutter, patched me up, gave me food, a place to crash. He said I owed him—and yeah, I did.
It wasn’t long before I started wearing their colors, running with their pack. Like that was ever gonna end well.
He said he was handing me redemption, and fuck it, maybe he was.
Most people would’ve pissed themselves the second they found out what it really takes to be one of them.
What you gotta go through just to get in.
What you gotta do once you’re in.
But not me.
I didn’t run. I didn’t whine.
I’d been crawling through life like something was missing, like there was this hole in me I couldn’t fill.
And then I found it. That spark, that ugly little fire. A reason to stop pretending and finally break loose.
He gave me that.
Strength. Balls. The kind of fearlessness that makes you dangerous to yourself and everyone around you.
His training … Oh, this training isn’t some bootcamp bullshit. It’s hell, plain and simple.
Military drills and assassin schools? That crap’s just a warm-up. The real game starts when you’re knee-deep in blood and still smiling. This is survive-or-die, break-or-bend-everything-inside-you kind of shit.
You either make it through, or you don’t.
And if you don’t, no one’s digging a hole for you.
I still remember my first kill with the fraternity. The moment they started really pushing, trying to break me.
I was sent to kill some powerful prick’s right-hand guy. Mafia royalty, fixer, whatever label made people scared. I didn’t give a fuck. He was just a name that needed erasing, and I was dead set on doing it.
I didn’t hesitate. I pulled the trigger like I’d been waiting my whole life for it. And the second I did, that holy rush hit me. That pure euphoria I didn’t even know I missed.
It filled every crack in me like it belonged there.
And then … oh, then I craved it.
The feeling.
The power.
The fucking freedom.
I walked into the filthy, half-rotten factory we trained in, blood still dripping off me, soaked through to the bone. I was proud. Sure of what I’d done.
Every head turned as I passed, eyes tracking me like prey that got loose. I made my way straight toward Alaric, letting the weight of what I’d done sit on my shoulders like a fucking crown.
I toyed with the knife in my hand. It was still wet and warm from the blood. It was the same blade I used to gut the bastard they sent to kill me.
My so-called partner.
Yeah. My partner. The one they’d assigned to kill me after I was done with the dude.
It was a test, obviously. One of us walks out, and that fucker thought he had the upper hand.
He thought I’d freeze. Thought I’d beg or piss myself, maybe, or that I’d hesitate. He wanted to taste my fear.
But when he saw I didn’t have any, when he realized I looked at him and saw nothing worth sparing, he panicked and lunged.
Smug little insect.
I split him open and left the fear in him instead.
“Where’s Ben?” Alaric had asked, voice calm and cold as ever.
Besides, he was the one who’d sent that roach after me, so I could only imagine what was running through his head when he saw me walk in instead.
“Dead,” I said, bored.
No shock or anger.
I heard some asshole storming up behind me. “You fucking bastard—”
I didn’t even think. I turned around and hurled the knife straight into his skull, burying it between the eyes.
He blinked like he was confused, then hit the ground like dead weight. Good fucking riddance.
I turned back, and Alaric was frozen, trying not to look shocked—or scared.
Casually, I dusted off my shoulder and grinned a little. “Now he’s dead, too.”
He just smiled. Ah, that slow, twisted smile of his, like he’d been waiting to see if I had it in me.
Looks like I passed his little sickness test. Proved I wasn’t just some scared little shit like the rest.
“Ben was your test,” he’d said, clapping once. “Congratulations. You passed.”
Seriously?
I gave him a slow, blood-slick salute, eyes locked on his.
“Name,” he says flatly.
Yeah, he never asked before. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing he thought was necessary. Or just not worth the effort.
I looked him dead in the eye, and a smirk cut across my face like a scar.
“Bane.”
“Bane,” he repeated, tasting the word. “Fitting.” Then he’d nodded, satisfied. “Welcome, Bane. Let the name speak for you.”
And that’s exactly what I did. I let the bane in me spread through every sane cell I had left, like a voracious parasite feeding on what remained.
And thus, Bane was born.
By sunrise, everyone in the order knew my name.
They knew what I’d done.
How easily I’d turned on my own with no hesitation, guilt, or second thoughts. I’d had nothing left to lose, and fear hadn’t lived in me anymore.
The name had spread like fire.
People kept repeating it, over and over, until it wasn’t just a name anymore.
It had a voice. It carried weight. Started sounding different every time I heard it.
It crawled into my skull like a melody I couldn’t stop humming.
And the more I heard it, the more it felt right.
It wasn’t something I was called.
It was something I was.