J A K E

Almost a week had passed since the body had been placed in Hundsen's office and nothing had happened yet: no attacks, no sudden murders and no sign that the crime lord was even angry with me.

It was possible that he was trying to let me get too comfortable, too used to the quiet, before going after me. He wanted me to think that he wasn't coming. But I knew better than that; he was furious and he was going to unleash his wrath upon me for what I did.

It didn't come as a surprise; I knew that he'd come after me the second the plan had surfaced in my mind. I'd murdered his wife so he was going to do everything in his power to take all that I had from me to make us even. The flaw in his logic was that I didn't have anything that he could take. But he still had plenty more that I'd snatch away.

The attack was coming, I just didn't know when. So I'd be ready. I was ready.

I kept all those thoughts in the forefront of my brain as I got out of the car. Walking down the dark sidewalk, I was on my way to meet an informant. She was an ex-Club member in hiding that had barely escaped Hundsen's iron fist. Having been a part of the gang recently, she had information that she was willing to give me. I knew this wasn't a trap; Johnson hadn't been lying when he'd told me about her.

Even if anything did go wrong, I was prepared. A handgun was concealed at one hip and a dagger on the other. The rings on my fingers would do damage if I hit my fist into flesh. If those weapons weren't enough, a smaller blade was concealed up my sleeve. As usual, my mind was as sharp as a knife and just behind my fingers, the freezing power of ice was held.

A cold night breeze blew a few inky strands of hair into my eyes. My hands sunk into my pockets as I strode down the street. Only a few more blocks and I'd be there.

I didn't stop walking, even when I sensed someone else near me. No, not one person. Multiple.

Turning around, I was met with a large group of men. A gun was pointed at me, but not the normal kind. A tranquilizer gun. They were sent by Hundsen, there was no doubt in my mind about it.

"Can I help you?" My voice was as chilly as the ice about to burst forth from my fingertips.

"No, but you can help our leader," said the one holding the gun. Pulling the trigger, he shot a dart my way. I flicked it out of the way with a bolt of freezing water.

"You're going to have to try harder than that."

"Seven against one? We won't have to try at all."

"Bring five more men and it'll be an even fight."

Bringing my hands up past my ears, icicles grew longer in my grasp. I launched them both towards the man holding the gun, knowing that once I did, I'd surely be subjecting myself to a massive fight. That didn't matter; I could handle them.

They rushed at me all at once. I cut the first two down quickly, one with a shard of ice in the throat, the other with a sharp uppercut to the nose. Two, then three of them tried to grab me from the back, their thick arms around my neck. Grabbing my knife, I stabbed at whatever I could behind me. One pair of arms loosened around my neck.

Holding me down, they forced my arms back so that I faced the man with the tranquilizer gun. I dodged his first shot, summoning all my strength to pull myself to the side, taking the two men with me. The dart sunk into the left one's thigh.

I stomped my heel into one of the feet down below. When the man on the right bellowed in pain, I took the opportunity to deal a blow of my elbow into his eye socket. Another one of Hundsen's lackeys jumped on me to take his place but I spun around before any of them could get a grip on me.

I flipped one over my shoulder as he ran for me. Getting down on the ground next to him, I pounded my fists into his face, one punch after another. The sight of his bloodied face below me reminded me of fighting during my childhood.

I spit the blood out of my mouth.

My opponent's higher age resulted in both his superior height and strength. He towered over me, his face contorted in a sneer as he glared down at me.

My face ached from the punch he'd just thrown. Surprisingly, it hadn't even knocked a tooth loose. I had been stupid and it had caused me to get hurt. I would not make the same mistake again. As I stared up at his dirty face, my eyes narrowed. I'd make him regret ever touching me.

When he came at me again, this time I ran towards him. He was less than a foot away when I kicked him in the knee as hard as I could and he fell backwards, arms spinning at his sides as they grasped at the air. There was a solid thud as his back slapped onto the pavement.

I got on top of him and began mercilessly pummeling him with my fists. Every punch sent more blood spurting from his nose and mouth, but still I didn't stop.

Only when he was clutching at me, begging me to stop, did I stand up and get off of him. And there I left him, a bloody mess on the street. The other children didn't trifle with me again after that.

The man underneath me was beaten unconscious by the time I was done with him. I felt a small pain in my side and knew that I'd been shot with the tranquilizer gun at least once. Someone yanked me off of the body and shoved me against the wall. One of the hands my new assailant used to hold me fast also happened to be grasping a knife.

"Hundsen's been waiting to see you. He'll be even happier when he sees what we're going to do."

With that, he brought the knife up too close to my face. Knowing what he was about to attempt, I wrenched a hand out of his grip and tried to stab him. But it was too late. My drugged body was too slow.

Hot, searing pain exploded over my face as the blade sliced over my right brow bone. Unbearably slow, he dragged it down over my eye and flicked downward. I tried to open my eye, move it, do anything to gauge the damage he'd done, but the onslaught of flowing blood and raging pain made it impossible.

"An eye for an eye." He smiled, pleased with himself.

"Too bad you didn't take the other." I stabbed him through the stomach when he wasn't paying attention. As he fell to the floor, I stepped over his body. Only two more men still stood, the rest laid splayed out on the ground in gruesome contortions, either dying or dead.

Looking into their faces with my remaining eye, I realized that I recognized them both. The stout one was named Scotty and the other was lovingly called Dusty, nicknamed for his often disheveled and dirty appearance. I knew them both from the Club; they'd once been under my rule.

"We don't have to do this," I warned them, opening my arms up wide. My body was feeling weaker by the second due to the dart they'd shot me with. I only had to hold out until I was the only one still standing.

"Yes," Scotty said solemnly. "We do."

"Hundsen will punish us if we don't bring you to him."

They both lunged for me at the same time. In my less-powerful state, I wasn't able to get out of the way in time. Each of them gripping an arm, they dragged me back towards the darkness. I kicked and fought, but they were now much stronger than I was.

Focusing all my power, I made my body freezing cold, the ice from my veins spreading onto their burly arms and upward. Scared by the growing icy coat over their arms, they both dropped me at the same time.

At my command, a volley of blunt ice pieces appeared above their heads and dropped downward, cracking them both on the tops of the skulls. They fell, unconscious, to the ground. I left them, not bothering to finish them off.

With the blood from my ruined face dripping down onto my clothes, I stepped over the rest of the bodies and went on my way back down the road from which I'd come.

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There were audible gasps when I passed through the sitting area of the compound, which happened to be occupied by most of the crew members. I couldn't see most of them, as they were on the side of my sliced-open eye, but I kept walking. We had a small infirmary on the other side of the building where I would inspect and bandage my wound.

"Good God, you look awful," Jaxon remarked. I didn't even dignify him with a response this time.

Gigi stood up, her hands coming up towards me. "Jake, do you need me to heal you?"

I stepped away, snarling, "Don't touch me."

Quickly, before I lost any more blood, I entered the infirmary, a small room with a single chair in it for its patients to sit in. I raided the closet, searching for the medical supplies that I'd need to clean and stitch the gaping wound. When I gathered enough materials, I threw them on the counter and looked up at myself in the mirror.

The left side of my face was fine and was devoid of sounds or blood. The right side, however, was gushing blood from a jagged cut that spanned from an inch above my eyebrow to my cheekbone. Because of the thick coat of blood over the area, I couldn't tell if my actual eyeball had been injured.

When I dabbed off most of the dried blood off my face, I could see my injury more clearly. It seemed that my brow bone had caught the knife, meaning that my eye had hardly been touched. There was definitely a thin line across my eyelid, but when I forced it open, ignoring the pain, I confirmed that my eye was fine.

After cleaning the laceration, I picked up the needle and thread. Holding the skin together with two fingers, I sewed it closed, first over my eyebrow and then down under my eye. My stitches were even, made that way through years of practice.

As I threw the bloody rags I'd used to blot away the leakage, I heard Tesla by the doorway. When I turned to look at her, she caught the first glance of my wound.

"Did Hundsen do that to you?"

"Not himself. He sent some of his men to rough me up and carve out my eye as I did to him. They were tasked with bringing me to him after I'd been beaten."

"How did you escape? Knowing Hundsen, it couldn't have been easy."

I shrugged. "The same way as always. I fought my way out." I closed the first aid kit. "This is only the beginning."

"What do you think he's going to do next? After what you just did, he's certainly going to make you suffer even worse."

"I'm not quite sure," I admitted. "But whatever it is, it's going to be much worse than simply taking my eye."