Chapter 2
LEGION
I’d spent most of my life pretending that the past couldn’t touch me.
As if distance alone could cauterize a wound left open too long, but unfortunately memories don’t work that way.
Not those types of memories. They follow you wherever you go, quietly humming under every breath you take.
I’ve learned the hard way that the longer you try to outrun them, the sharper they get.
My memories began in a house that should have been condemned long before I was born.
A sagging two-bedroom with peeling paint and windows that rattled whenever my father raised his voice, which was often enough to make even the walls fill with dread.
He wasn’t a complicated man, just a cruel one.
You know the type. The men who believe their sense of authority comes from the swing of their fist, and respect was something you beat into people until they stopped fighting back.
My mother was softer, good in ways most people didn’t know how to be, but she learned early on how to fold herself into silence, how to make herself shrink in hopes that he wouldn’t notice her.
She used to tell me I had fire in me, the kind that could burn the world down if I wasn’t careful.
But she never understood that the fire wasn’t a gift, it was a mode of survival, and it was the only thing that kept me from disappearing into the same nothingness that swallowed her alive.
By ten years old, I had already figured out that love didn’t live in our house.
Not the kind I’d see in most of my friends’ families.
What lived with us was a demon, one that was tearing slowly at our souls.
Living with my father had become hell, every step felt like a gamble.
I learned how to sense the shift in the air before he returned home, how to breathe shallowly when he stumbled in, smelling like cheap whiskey.
I learned how to hide the bruises from teachers who didn’t want to be responsible for the truth.
I told myself that one day I’d leave, that one day I’d build something different, something mine, something that he couldn’t touch.
But dreams don’t save you. They just keep you warm until the cold comes back.
The night I finally left wasn’t a big deal.
There was no final blow, no desperate escape, no cinematic moment where I vowed never to return.
I simply woke up on the floor with a ringing in my ears and blood drying in my hair, and I finally realized I didn’t want to breathe the same air as that man for another second.
So I stood up, wiped my face, pocketed a knife I’d stolen months before, and walked out the front door without looking back.
I didn’t pack a bag. I didn’t leave a note.
There was nothing in that house worth taking, and nothing in me that wanted to stay.
I’d say I’d miss my mom but she’d filled herself with pills and died in her room years before.
I was seventeen, angry, hollow, and ready to set myself on that fire that lived in me, if it meant I could see the world through the flames.
I lived wild after that, drifting from town to town on a bike that barely held together.
I slept in abandoned lots, behind dumpsters, on rooftops when I was lucky.
I learned how to read people fast, how to fight, how to spot danger long before it sank its teeth into me.
I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t need one.
The road kept me alive, the adrenaline kept me sharp, and the bone-deep belief that I’d never let anyone control me kept me free.
Or so I thought. Freedom looks different when you’re young and wounded. Sometimes it feels a lot like running.
I was twenty-one the first time I saw a man wearing the crowned skull patch of the Royal Bastards MC.
He walked into a bar I was tending like he owned the place.
His eyes were sharp, and he held violence in that gaze.
It wasn’t just the kutte that caught my attention, it was the way everyone else reacted to him.
Men straightened up. Drunks quieted. Even those itching for a fight moved out of his path.
Power isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s a quiet presence.
And his was the first thing I’d seen that made my pulse settle, instead of spike.
I didn’t meet Jameson that night, but the seed was planted.
I decided I wanted whatever that man had.
He had this sense of belonging that didn’t look anything like chains.
I didn’t know then that wanting something is often the first step to losing yourself, but I had nothing left to lose, so I chased it anyway.
It took time. It took bruises. It took a few broken bones, mine and theirs.
It took jobs that made me realize morality was a luxury men like me couldn’t afford.
But eventually, I earned my way into the National Chapter.
Not by asking. Not by begging. By proving, again and again, that I didn’t fear death and I sure as hell didn’t fear the men who ordered it.
I won’t say that Jameson became a father figure.
I didn’t need one. But he did become something close.
A man whose word meant something. Whose shadow carried weight.
The first person I ever met whose approval didn’t feel like poison in my throat.
He told me I was a weapon without a sheath, and he wasn’t wrong.
Once he gave me the road name Legion, there was no turning back.
I was quiet, precise, and lethal when unleashed.
Jameson knew I couldn’t settle, so he accepted me as a Nomad, although I knew he’d keep me at home if he could.
And for years, that was enough. The road.
The missions. The violence that filled the space where my childhood used to be.
I didn’t want more. I didn’t even know what it looked like.
Then, two weeks ago, Jameson decided I needed a new mission.
One that was going to pull me off whatever path I thought I was currently on.
The French Quarter always felt different at night.
It had this hint of desperation that made people do things they wouldn’t normally do.
The atmosphere always felt heavy and humid here.
Mix that with the sharp bite of spilt liquor, the stench of weed and sex, and you get the picture.
This section of New Orleans always made me uneasy.
Maybe it was the murder count these streets had witnessed, or maybe it was something older that clung to the bricks and pavement from years of bad decisions and horror driven chaos.
But I wasn’t much for walking these dark alleys.
Music bled out of every doorway, just noise layered over noise, horns clashing with basslines, voices rising over each other until it all blended into one constant, grinding hum.
People moved through it in waves. Drunk tourists stumbling over uneven sidewalks, locals weaving through them with practiced ease, eyes sharp, aware of what could actually happen if you let your guard down.
Deals happened in dark corners without anyone needing to say a word.
Fights sparked fast and burned out just as quick.
Nobody stayed still long enough to get caught up in something they couldn’t walk away from.
Hoax’s building sat just off the main drag, tucked between two storefronts that had seen better days.
The kind of place you’d walk past without a second glance if you didn’t know what you were looking for.
Rusted metal stairs clung to the side, bolts worn, paint chipped down to bare steel.
The brick was tagged over so many times with graffiti that the original color didn’t exist anymore.
Nothing about it screamed money and I supposed that was the point.
Powertrain didn’t slow as we climbed, his boots hitting each step with the confidence of someone who’d done this more than a few times.
I followed close behind, my hand brushing the rail, feeling the grit under my fingers, my eyes scanning the alley below out of habit.
You don’t survive long in this world by assuming anything is safe.
He reached the top and pressed the palm of his hand over the lock. There was a sharp click and he pushed the door open without knocking. I stepped in behind him and stopped cold.
“Damn,” I muttered under my breath, the word dragging out slow as I took it all in.
Because everything outside that door was a full out lie. Inside was something else entirely.
Powertrain walked past me without breaking stride, tossing his keys onto a metal table near the entrance. “You get used to it,” he said, shrugging out of his jacket.
The space opened up wide, industrial bones left exposed on purpose, steel beams cutting across the ceiling, concrete floors polished to a dull shine that reflected the glow of neon lights running in strips along the walls.
It wasn’t bright, but then it didn’t need to be.
The light was low, casting everything in a mix of color that made the place feel alive in a different kind of way.
Screens covered an entire wall. Not one or two.
Dozens. Each one running something different.
Code scrolled in long, endless strings. Maps shifted, zoomed in and out, markers blinking in places I didn’t recognize.
Camera feeds flickered between angles, streets, interiors.
It wasn’t just a setup. It was a full command center.
The hum of machines filled the room, constant and steady, a vibration you could feel in your chest if you stood there long enough.
And then there were the shelves. Comic books lined up in perfect rows, sealed, labeled, some of them looking old enough to fall apart if you breathed on them wrong. Glass cases filled with figurines, everything from old school super heroes to rare editions that probably cost more than my bike.