Aiden hangs from a thick, rusted hook embedded in the ceiling, his wrists chained tightly above his head. His body is marked—bruises bloom like dark flowers across his arms, ribs, and face. Sweat and dried blood streak his skin. The cold metal bites into his wrists.
In front of him stands a young man, early-20s, covered in gang tattoos — symbols from Aiden's old crew. His eyes are sharp, filled with a dangerous mix of contempt and curiosity.
Look at you. Shade, huh? Thought you could just leave without saying goodbye?
Aiden's head hangs, but his eyes burn like blue flames.
Suddenly, the world tilts. As he remember what happened:
A beat-up black car speeds recklessly down a gravel road, dust kicking up in its wake. Inside, Aiden grips the wheel, face tense and focused.
In the back seat, Connie sits, restless, wild-eyed, clutching a pistol. The other two goons—DEE's men—watch nervously, fingers twitching near their weapons.
Aiden's phone vibrates — a text from someone unknown, a warning.
YOUNG MAN'S VOICE (V.O.)
You should've stayed dead, Shade.
Suddenly, headlights flare behind them — a car swerves onto the road, intent clear.
Aiden's grip tightens.
The black car is forced off the road — tires screeching — as the other car rams them hard. The world shudders with impact.
Guns blaze.
One of the goons draws his pistol, but before he can fire.
BANG! BANG!
A bullet shatters the window beside Aiden.
Connie shoots back — a fierce, chaotic burst — taking down the attacker before the others can react.
Aiden leaps from the car as chaos erupts, fists and steel flying.
Aiden's eyes snap open, pain and fury mingling.
The young man steps closer, smirking.
The silence in the warehouse was not empty—it was loaded. It pulsed through the air like a heartbeat, slow and suffocating, wrapping around Aiden like chains more binding than the iron cuffed to his wrists.
He hung from a rusted hook bolted into the ceiling, shoulders torn raw from the tension. Every breath was labor. Every blink stung with sweat and blood. The bruises across his ribs pulsed like echoes from another life. One he thought he'd left behind.
And yet, here he was again.
The gang tattoos on the kid in front of him weren't unfamiliar. The sneer wasn't either. Same ink. Same posturing. Just a younger model of the monsters he once stood beside.
But it wasn't the boy that made Aiden's blood go cold.
It was the voice.
It returned like smoke under a door—uninvited, hungry, inescapable.
If you were still him… this wouldn't have happened.
He clenched his jaw, staring through the kid, through the walls, into the flicker of memory pressing at the edges of his mind. The voice continued, low and intimate, like a whisper inside his skull.
You'd be drinking their blood through broken teeth... not bleeding from yours.
His shoulders ached. His fingers had gone numb. And still, he said nothing. Not out loud. Not yet.
But the voice was only getting started.
"Shade wouldn't have been caught."
"Shade wouldn't have hesitated."
"Shade. Would. Have. Killed."
His eyes squeezed shut, teeth grinding. And then—flashes. Sharp, like broken glass reflecting his past:
A body bleeding out on the cracked concrete behind the Boys' Home.
Connie, laughing as they torched a rival's stash house.
His own reflection in a shattered mirror, bloodied, wild-eyed, invincible.
His breath hitched.
He wasn't afraid.
He was remembering.
The chains clinked as he shifted slightly, testing the give. There wasn't much. But there was always something. A fraction of slack. A corner. A weakness.
"You went soft," the voice sneered. "Thought you could bury me. Thought they—those pale monsters and that golden-haired doll—could save you. But they can't."
Aiden swallowed hard.
"You want out? Let me in."
That was the hook. That was always the hook.
But he didn't answer. Not out loud.
Not yet.
You'll come back. You always do, the voice said, quieter now. Almost gentle. Because I'm not the devil on your shoulder. I'm you, stripped of the lies.
Aiden's eyes opened.
And everything... stilled.
The ache in his limbs faded into background noise. The pain was there, but it was manageable. Familiar. Fuel.
Three men guarded the door. Two more waited in the car outside. Their breath patterns, their footing, their fidgeting—it was all cataloged in Aiden's mind in seconds.
He knew the layout now.
He knew who would step close first.
He knew when.
He closed his eyes again—not out of fear or fatigue—but focus.
Let them think I'm broken, he thought. Let them celebrate. Let them come close. Because when I move—
He took in a slow, deep breath, I won't stop.
And deep beneath the silence, deep beneath the bruises, Shade smiled.