Chapter 6
Mike left after hearing what Elijah said, without another word, a smile still on his face. When he was gone, Elijah looked at Kai with dead eyes.
"Bro, what the fuck was that? You sent me into a meeting with some crazy gang member, made me make a deal with that person. The nigger came up to me and I couldn't even say a thing at first. It felt like the air around me was getting heavier and heavier. What the fuck is wrong with you? Don't hide details like this from me. And what about this gang business he was talking about? And why the heck am I here?"
After shouting with all his might, Elijah stared at Kai, who only smiled and said, "It all started yesterday. We were drinking, and like I said, you were a different person. You told me you wanted to create a gang. I laughed, but you just stared at me with a serious face. I know you don't remember this, but you said you wanted me to join that gang, which I accepted. We created a plan to start our operations in the 9th District, which has no very powerful gang ruling over it.
"I also told you that I was given an offer from Mike. He wanted me to join their gang in the 8th District. But you made me call him and tell him that I didn't want to join. I told him I found someone I could trust and deeply respect enough to call a leader. That's why Mike tested you—to see what made me choose you. And you also pissed him off because of the amount of profit he was supposed to get from this place. So that happened, and you gave me all the money you had, and I covered some with my own.
"So I told him to give us this place under one condition: that I would bring the person I placed my loyalty in. You didn't disappoint, because he was impressed. Even so, he was looking down on you because he didn't think you deserved to be with me." Kai explained as he opened the windows, letting the smell of smoke escape.
"But who gives a fuck about what he thinks? Now that you know what happened yesterday, are you going to step down or keep moving forward?" Kai asked with a wide smile.
Trust in yourself and you will realize what great things you can do, Alter Elijah's voice echoed in his head. Elijah looked at Kai, and time seemed to stop.
'Why would you do this? You know the reason I always avoided fights, and why I avoided entering the world Kai was involved in. I just want to protect my family—Kai himself and myself—from this world. But by protecting them, I'm involving them in it. Why would you make such a deal with Kai when you know I might lose everything because of it?' Elijah shouted internally as the world around him turned dark, and another version of himself appeared.
The difference was his eyes. He had the same black hair and chocolate skin, but his eyes were silver, unlike Elijah's red eyes. Alter Elijah looked at Elijah, who was trembling with worry.
"You're giving me no choice in the matter. You only think about yourself and what you want. Don't you understand the situation our sister and mother would be in if we take that first step? You stupid idiot."
Alter Elijah turned his head, and Elijah followed his gaze. He saw the night when their mother still didn't have her job. Gangsters entered the hotel they were staying in. Elijah and his little sister were being held down, and their mother was about to be raped in front of them.
In that moment, Elijah escaped the man holding him and ran at the attacker, biting his neck so hard it was impossible for a three-year-old. He tore the man's throat slightly—enough that he couldn't breathe—before being thrown aside. The other man, after seeing what Elijah did, kicked him repeatedly until their mother shielded both children while being beaten herself.
They only stopped when they realized the man Elijah bit was dying. They carried him out, running to some doctor, leaving little Amy crying over the bloody bodies of her mother and Elijah, who was barely conscious.
The air in the psychic space grew thick and cold, charged with the ghost of a memory too terrible to forget. Alter Elijah's voice was a low, venomous whisper, each word a scalpel peeling back the scar tissue of their shared past.
"If you were given another chance," he began, his gaze a physical weight on Elijah, "would you stand aside and let her be raped? Imagine it. The muffled cries, the tearing of fabric, the smell of sweat and fear choking the air. Then, maybe, there would only be the soul-deep trauma left, a festering wound, but you would be physically okay. Your sister wouldn't have been dragged from her hiding place, her small frame shaking as she was forced to empty the loose floorboard, to hand over every last money our mother had scraped together for her treatment—the medicine that was her only hope."
He took a step closer, the memory playing out in his burning eyes. "But you and I know the truth, don't we? Even if Mom, with trembling hands, gave them every last cent, they wouldn't have just left. The money was a pretext. Those men didn't stumble into your room by accident; they went there with a singular, brutal purpose. They went there for our mother. So, either way, our mother…"
Alter Elijah stopped. A sharp, ragged intake of breath filled the silence. When he looked up, the killing intent that rolled off him was a palpable force, a suffocating miasma that made the earlier threats of Mike or Kai feel like child's play. It was ancient, personal, and absolute.
"Our mother would have been defiled by their filthy hands," he snarled, the words cracking like a whip. "And when they were done, for a moment of sport, they might have slit her throat just to see the light leave her eyes. And you… you have the gall to ask me why I made this choice?!"
His voice rose to a roar that seemed to shake the very foundations of their mindscape. "I did it because I want to protect them! Not with hope, not with prayers, but with blood and iron. If you fuck up now, with this chance we've been given, we will lose them all over again. So don't you dare fuck up, do you hear me?!"
The aura around him pulsed violently. "You will gain so much power that any man, any organization, any being would think a million times before even looking at what is yours. You will build a fortress around them, not of stone, but of fear and respect. You will let no one you do not trust implicitly near them. And you will test that trust endlessly, because people lie. Their smiles are masks and their promises are traps."
He leaned in, his final pronouncement a chilling, definitive decree. "Don't hesitate. Not even for a heartbeat. Even if it means painting your soul black with murder. Even if it means committing acts that would make a demon flinch. Even if it means cutting loose someone you love for the greater good. If you truly want to shield them from the darkness of this world, we must become a greater darkness. We need authority that commands the strong and crushes the weak. We need to become utterly, completely untouchable. That is the only path. The moment you hesitate, the moment you show a shred of mercy to our enemies, you will lose everything. All of it."
The storm within him began to subside, the terrifying aura receding like a tide. He sighed, the sound full of a bottomless, weary resignation.
"In the end, it's your choice. Don't blame fate. Don't blame Kai. You could have said no when he first asked you to come here, but you didn't. You could have turned and run when you saw Mike and understood the bloody business you were entering, but you didn't." He met Elijah's gaze, his own filled with a profound, self-loathing pity. "I despise the weak, sniveling boy you are, Elijah. But I am you. So this is the crossroads. Are you going to keep moving forward into the fire, or do you say no right now? If you refuse, I will recede into the shadows, and Kai will walk his path alone. A simple answer."
Elijah's eyes were lowered, staring at the formless ground beneath them, but they were not filled with shame or fear. They were filled with a hard, crystalline understanding. The lesson was seared into his soul: The weak, no matter how innocent, how careful, how they try to hide, will always be ground underfoot simply for being weak. Their suffering is the tax the world extracts for their helplessness.
He lifted his head, his voice quiet but unshakable. "Yes. I will keep going."
A slow, approving smile spread across Kai's face as Elijah returned to the real world, the phantom chill of the memory still clinging to him. Kai clapped a firm hand on his shoulder, his voice a low, conspiratorial promise. "Good. We're gonna do amazing things, Elijah."