The night air of Memphis hung heavy with humidity, a sticky reminder of the late September heat. The streets smelled faintly of fried food, damp asphalt, and the smoke drifting from half-forgotten trash fires. James Faerie stumbled along the cracked sidewalks, a cheap bottle of bourbon clutched in his hand. The day at the warehouse had been merciless: supervisors barking orders, coworkers careless with machinery, deadlines bleeding into deadlines. The stress had built like pressure behind his ribs, and tonight, alcohol was his only relief.
His movements were unsteady but purposeful, each step a negotiation with gravity. He passed flickering neon signs and the occasional group of teenagers leaning against storefronts, laughing too loud for the hour. James barely noticed them. His mind was occupied with the dull, gnawing ache of exhaustion, frustration, and self-recrimination.
Then he saw her.
She was pressed against the brick wall of a narrow alley, her dress torn and her hair falling over her face. Four men surrounded her, their gestures aggressive, their laughter low and threatening. Something inside James snapped, a surge of protective rage that had nothing to do with sobriety or reason.
He ran.
The first man barely had time to register the movement before James collided with him, a staggering, violent force of limbs and drunken fury. Fists and elbows flew in chaotic arcs. James did not think; he reacted. Each swing was powered by frustration, fear, and alcohol-induced recklessness. The alley became a blur of grunts, shouts, and the sound of bodies hitting brick and concrete.
Three men fell. One managed to scramble away, clutching his phone, dialing emergency services with shaking hands. James barely noticed. His breathing was ragged, his vision doubled at the edges, yet there was a terrifying clarity in the center of it: a singular focus on survival, on protecting what could not protect itself.
By the time the police arrived, James was sitting against a dumpster, shirt torn, knuckles bruised and bloody. The woman was trembling but alive. James barely looked at her, his chest heaving, sweat mingling with the sticky residue of bourbon.
Charges were pressed. The coroner's reports detailed the brutality, and the courts saw the deaths of three men as murder, regardless of intent or provocation. Twenty years. That was his sentence, a future he had not considered beyond the haze of his anger and alcohol.
Desperado Prison was worse than anything he had imagined. The walls were tall and unyielding, the guards indifferent or overtly hostile. The air smelled of mildew, sweat, and unwashed bodies. The hum of fluorescent lights was constant, punctuated by the occasional shout or slam of metal doors.
Here, James discovered the underground. A network of prisoners organized fights in the shadows of the prison yard, sanctioned unofficially by corrupt guards who saw it as a method to control the population. Fights were brutal, often leaving permanent injuries. The winners were rewarded modestly: cigarettes, a slight improvement in food portions, temporary respect. James watched the first fight with a mixture of fascination and dread.
Something inside him stirred. He felt the same clarity he had felt in the alley, the same intoxicating mixture of rage, skill, and instinct. The fights offered a way to survive, to reclaim control in a place designed to strip it away.
But James knew the cost. Every punch thrown, every blow received, carried consequences. The club was a mirror of the streets outside, only darker, sharper, and unrelenting. And he had just stepped into its shadows.