Page 48 of Beautiful Soldier

I throw his hands away and scream out in frustration. “But this isn’t what was supposed to happen, Brawler. You had an out.”

He pulls me back to him with a growl. “I don’t want an out without you. If you think I’m going to just one day skip off into the sunset and leave you here, you know nothing about me.”

His words press into all the sensitive parts of me. “If you were smart, you’d do that now.”

His blue eyes spark like turquoise fire burning through dry brush. “Not happening.”

“As heart wrenching as this all is,” Oscar says, interjecting his lazy humor into our moment, “Now you have to fight each other, so I’m with Princess on this one. Dumb move.”

“You would’ve done the same thing,” Brawler scoffs back. “In fact, I’m pretty sure it was you who told me to man up and join the Crew a few weeks ago. I need to know what’s happening with Kyla.”

“I told you what I knew,” Oscar seethes. “She’s alive. She’s at the safe house.”

“But you wouldn’t tell me where it was!”

“Because I don’t fucking know where it is!” Oscar lifts his hat off and then pulls it back down over his head with a hard tug. “I told you everything I knew.”

“Careful,” Brawler teases with a humorless smirk. “People might think you actually care.”

“Fuck off. You don’t think I was worried?” He points to me. “This girl is my life. My mother might as well be dead. No one cares about me but her.”

“You don’t think it’s the same for me?” Brawler yells. His shoulders heave up and down.

“Alright,” Mag says with finality, walking into the center of our spat and eyeing each of us. “That’s enough. What’s done is done. Brawler can’t take back what’s already out there, which means he needs to complete the initiation tasks K sets forth.”

“Yeah, one of which is taking Kyla out.”

“I didn’t know he was going to set that,” Brawler answers through clenched teeth.

“He’s evil,” Oscar says. “He takes what you love most and exploits it against you, watches to see how you handle it because if you do, he knows he has you in the bag. He knows he can mold you into doing whatever he wants. If you don’t, he just discards you. The last guy who didn’t make it through initiation disappeared. Did you know that?”

I bite my lip and peek at Magnum. My first thought is maybe the guy just escaped. Maybe he wised up and walked out of the Heights, but at the same time, that’s a naïve person’s wish. Nothing happens like that without the Crew having their filthy hands in it.

Magnum runs his hands through his copper hair and doesn’t make eye contact with any of us, and especially not me.

Fuck. “What happened to him? The guy.” I force out.

Mag shrugs. “It depends on how badly you fail the tests. Some are sent away. Some are coaxed into leaving, and others are just taken out,” he says slowly, putting emphasis on each word like it’s a stab to my gut. “They end that way because the recruit realizes in the middle of initiation that they really didn’t want it. If they try to leave, they’re killed. If they try to defect with help of a rival gang in exchange for secrets, they’re tortured and then killed.”

“Your cousin defected...”

Mag scratches his unruly scruff. He hasn’t shaved in a couple of days and it’s obvious. Then again, who has time to groom when bombs are going off and you’re getting shot at? “They couldn’t find him. That’s the only reason he’s still alive. But I assure you, the only people who try to initiate and don’t make it, stick around because they busted their fucking asses and just came up short. If you’re weak, they discard you anyway. If you try to get out, you’re dead. Brawler can’t go back now.” Magnum looks over at the tattooed giant. The fighter’s body is bigger than his own by mass, but Magnum is the one who’s been around the block a few times. “I wish you’d said something. Manning wouldn’t have wanted this for you.”

Brawler narrows his gaze at Mag. “What would you know about it?”

Mag shrugs. “I initiated in with him.”

For a few moments, silence descends over the room like putrid smoke. Brawler’s nostrils flare. If any of us try to break the tension, I’m afraid he’ll just end up losing it.

“Like you said,” Brawler starts. “What’s done is done. I will not fucking apologize. I’ve got two Crew guys standing in front of me right now, I’m sure both of you can give me some tips, and together, we can figure out how the fight between Kyla and me has to go down.”

Magnum reaches out to squeeze Brawler’s shoulder. “I’m here for you.”

Oscar and I exchange glances. Red blotches reach up his neck. “We’ll figure this shit out because we have to. None of us missed the fact that Kyla is on K’s radar. He put her up against Brawler and made it into one of his initiation tasks. Hewantsto see her get hurt.”

“It’s Johnny’s reaction to her,” Mag says. “Johnny suddenly has more loyalty to her than him, and he’s furious about it.”

“We need to smooth things over with him before he decides to just take Kyla out. Fuck what Johnny wants. K will just kill her. In his mind, Johnny will find someone else. You know he doesn’t give a fuck about women. He never has.”

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