Nicholas

 

Two knocks, a pause, two more. The door grill slid open at eye level. Two hazy brown irises looked out from the dim interior. It slammed shut again, then the mechanisms of the locks began to click open and the door swung aside to let me in.

 

The prospect who was standing guard to the front door of the clubhouse stepped out of the way as I passed by him. I nodded in silent greeting, then walked down the dark entry hallway and emerged into the rosy light of the bar area.

 

A few men were scattered about, nursing beers or talking to each other in rumbling voices. I remembered how intimidating everything had seemed the first time I came here twelve years ago at Smalls’ side. That was back when Fists had first become president. So much shit had happened since then. This room, though, had hardly changed. Sometimes I wondered if the same men in here now were the ones who’d been in here when I walked in that day so many years back.

 

Another time, I might find a quiet corner and down a beer of my own. But right now, there was business to be taken care of.

 

I made my way between the tables and chairs towards the back hallway. An office door was set in the left-hand side of the wall. I knocked. A voice bellowed for me to enter.

 

Sliding inside, I made sure to close the door firmly behind me. Fists was seated behind his desk, smoking and brooding over a thin file in front of him.

 

“Ah, just the man I was waiting for. Take a seat, brother,” he said, pointing with his cigarette at the chair across from him.

 

I settled into the seat. “Here,” I said. I tossed the pimp’s ID card onto the desktop. Fists picked it up and studied it. His face was a maze of scars, tattoos, and skin tanned by years of hard riding. Metal studs jutted out from his eyebrow and nose. Everything about him screamed Do not touch.

 

He looked up at me. “How’d it go? Any trouble?”

 

I shrugged. “Went fine. Luca took his sweet time, so I had to ditch a few cops. Nothing major.”

 

Fists grimaced and dug the heel of his hand into his tired eyes. “I know you well enough to know that when you say ‘Nothing major,’ it means some serious shit went down. How close was it?”

 

“Like I said, just had to ditch a few cops. I took the alleyway down south that leads from the residential block over towards the junkyard. Lost ’em there.”

 

He whistled and leaned back in his chair, impressed. “You whipped your car through that little gap?”

 

I shrugged again. “That’s my job.”

 

“Where’s the car now?”

 

“Burned it.”

 

“Good, good,” he nodded, settling forward onto his elbows. “We made some nice coin from that gig. Shame Luca had to draw so much attention to the stiff, but whatever, life goes on.” His cigarette was down to the filter. He stubbed it out in his ashtray and reached into his breast pocket to withdraw his pack and strike up another. I noticed with a frown that the ashtray was brimming with finished butts. Fists only chain-smoked when he was thinking about something serious. Not a good sign.

 

I looked at him. “What’s going on?” I demanded.

 

Fists looked concerned for a moment, then saw me looking at the blooming ashtray and laughed as he connected the dots. “You don’t miss much, do you, Nico?” he asked. He waved a dismissive hand at me. “Don’t worry.”

 

“What’s the next job?” I pressed. Was it the Espositos? Finally? I leaned forward, excitement tingling over my skin.

 

“There aren’t going to be any more driving jobs for you, Nico.” Fists looked down at his desk, around the room. Anywhere but at me.

 

“What the fuck did you just say?”

 

“No more hits. No more heists. No more driving.”

 

“Fists, are you out of your fucking mind? Why? What the fuck gives?” I was enraged. This had been our plan for years—subtle warfare, chip away at the Esposito power base. We’d been careful to avoid anything that would ignite a full-out war, but the hope was that by carving away the edges of their empire, we’d eventually come to a point where winning such a war was not only possible, but likely. I’d hoped for so long that we were finally at that point. And now, Fists was telling me we were pulling out instead?

 

“Do you remember when you first came to us?” Fists diverted. His lighter choked, then caught as he held the tip of his cigarette into the flame, hand cupped over it to block the air flowing from the A/C vent overhead.

 

“Don’t change the fucking subject,” I hissed. “Tell me why.”

 

“Do you remember?”

 

I sighed, furious, and leaned back again. Once Fists got going on a tangent like this, there was no getting back to the original topic until he decided it was time. He was one stubborn motherfucker. “Yeah, of course,” I answered. “Can’t ever forget some shit like that.”

 

That was true. I couldn’t. The memory was seared onto my brain.

 

# # #

 

Smalls’ blood was still on my hands when I walked up to The Punishers’ clubhouse. The first light of dawn was peeking down into the city. The air was cold. I didn’t have a jacket. I shivered without noticing.

 

It was ten miles from the apartment to the clubhouse, and I walked the whole damn thing. I didn’t notice the time passing, either. It was either the longest walk of my life or the shortest. I couldn’t tell which. I didn’t care.

 

The door to the garage was pulled up when I approached. I saw men inside, working on the exposed guts of a car. Big men. Scary men. I was here to join them.

 

No one noticed me as I walked up. I stood there for a moment, not saying a word, just calm and silent like a statue. My feet were numb. The blood on my bare chest where Smalls’ head had rested had now dried into a maroon crust.

 

One of the men turned around from where he had been bent over the hood of the car. He was frowning and wiping his hands with a dirty, oil-stained rag as he turned around. When he noticed me, he jumped and cursed. “Goddamn, kid, what the fuck are you doing just standing there like that? Shit, is that blood? Who the fuck are you?”

 

I looked back at him. “I want to join.”

 

His eyes narrowed. “What?”

 

I simply repeated myself. “I want to join.”

 

“Kid, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he answered.

 

I stood still, patiently waiting.

 

Another man walked from the back of the garage, drawn by the noise. I recognized this one. He was the one who bought the car from Smalls and me. He would be the one to help me now.

 

“Prez, this kid must be cracked out or something. I don’t know what the hell is happening,” said the first man. He raised his hands and turned away to tinker with some loose parts on the work bench.

 

I shifted my attention to the man who’d walked up. His name was Fists, I remembered. He looked back at me. His eyes were dark and laser-focused. “What are you doing here, kid?” he asked softly.

 

“I want to join,” I told him.

 

He looked up and down, noticing the blood smeared across my skin. He didn’t ask me to elaborate. “What was your name again?”

 

“Nico.”

 

“Nico, that’s right. What happened, Nico?”

 

“The Espositos killed Smalls,” I said, as if that explained everything. For some reason, this man understood. That was enough for him to get it. He nodded knowingly.

 

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he offered.

 

I blinked. The idea of being sorry about what had happened was outside of my ability to comprehend. I barely remembered what the word meant. I was an empty shell. There was only one thought on my mind: revenge.

 

“I want to join.”

 

“I can’t let you do that,” he said. “You’re too young.”

 

I didn’t move. Neither did he. “I just want to join.”

 

“The Punishers aren’t for everyone, Nico. You’re too young for this.”

 

“No, I’m not.” There was no mistaking the certainty in my voice. “I know what I want.” By now, a few other men had circled around, curious about what this bloodstained child was doing in their chop shop. To them, I may have looked young, but they didn’t know, on the inside, I was already a man. Fists saw it, though. He knew.

 

“You would have to be initiated,” he cautioned. “It’s not easy. It hurts.”

 

I shrugged. Just like the concept of being sorry, the thought of pain didn’t even register. It might as well have been a piece of a dream, too alien to make any difference at all. I knew pain. I’d seen it. It wasn’t real to me anymore. “I don’t care,” I said. “Whatever it takes.”

 

Fists stared at me for a long time. The birds on the telephone wires had started to chirp. Car murmurs were picking up. But for me, the only in the world was Fists’ eyes, looking at me and considering. Weighing. Wondering.

 

He reached a decision. I knew it right away.

 

“Come with me,” he said. He turned and moved towards the back of the garage. I followed without looking at any of the other men. I heard them muttering to each other as I left, wondering what was going on.

 

I kept my eyes trained on Fists’ back as he wound through the garage and into the clubhouse. We walked through the bar, drawing confused stares as I passed, and down a long hallway. At the far end was a staircase. We descended.

 

The basement below was dark, except for one buzzing light suspended from the rafters overhead by a wire. It illuminated a tattooist’s chair, set into a cracked concrete floor. An array of ugly metal tools gleamed along the wall.

 

Fists spun to face me. “You’re sure you want to do this?” he asked.

 

In my entire body, there was not an ounce of hesitation. I nodded.

 

“Okay. Let’s go.” He pointed towards the leather chair. I sat down. He walked to the bank of tools and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. The electric whine of the lights hummed. Otherwise, the room was silent.

 

I couldn’t see what he was doing until he turned around and held up a syringe to the light. He eyed it to check the levels and flicked the needle twice. A single drop of clear liquid beaded up at its tip.

 

“Give me your left arm.”

 

I extended it and laid it across the armrest. He wrapped his plastic-encased fingers around my wrist and twisted so my palm faced the ceiling, exposing the veins in the crook of my elbow. He slapped at them sharply to encourage the blood flow. I watched the green-hued tunnel rise up a bit.

 

Fists lowered the needle down and slid it under the surface of my skin. I felt a tiny pinch as he depressed the plunger, emptying the syringe into my body. His eyes were trained on my face the entire time. I didn’t look away.

 

Satisfied, he withdrew the needle and set it aside. I looked at my elbow. One tiny bead of blood shimmered, fresh and hot.

 

“There are two phases to the initiation,” Fists said, leaning back in his seat to look at me. The inside of my skin had started to heat up all over my body. A crackling tingle, like internal static electricity, began to flow around me as he spoke. “The needle was the first. The drug I’ve injected you with will make you feel pain more intensely than anything you’ve experienced in your life. It can make you think a summer breeze is like daggers in your flesh. Mark my words, Nico,” he said, eyeing me fiercely, “this will hurt very, very badly.”

 

I kept my gaze locked on his. I could feel sweat starting to collect on my forehead and under my armpits. The heat within me had begun to ratchet up. The leather of the chair suddenly felt rough, like sandpaper on my skin.

 

He paused to see if I would say anything. When I didn’t, he stood up and started to walk around me. I hadn’t noticed the straps dangling from the chair, but now Fists reached and fixed each one down, locking me in place. He bound my legs, my thighs, my waist, my arms.

 

When the last of the straps was secured, he came around to stand in front of me. I hadn’t moved my arm. It still laid palm up on the armrest of the chair. The injection site had started to turn into an ugly green, something foul and unnatural.

 

“These next part will take place very quickly,” he said. “I’m only telling you so you’ll know what’s coming.”

 

I was having trouble focusing on his words. My breath was beginning to shorten and a dull pain crept on like an unexpected headache. The muscles of my legs and back had taken to writhing uncomfortably, twisting and spasming like angry snakes. The drug was taking hold.

 

“Look at me, Nico,” he said. He lowered his eyes to look straight at me. His expression was unreadable. “I’ll ask you one more time. Are you sure you want this?”

 

The pace of the escalating pain had quickened even further. Now, everything was hot and searing, like a bad sunburn over every inch of my skin. I shifted in my chair, trying to find somewhere comfortable, but nothing felt good.

 

Then I looked up into Fists’ face. For a brief flash, it turned into Smalls’. I could swear for a moment they had traded places and instead of this mysterious biker, it was Smalls, standing over me with his fingers resting lightly on my forearm. “C’mon, shorty,” I imagined him saying. “Pain is just another thing. You’ll be all right, won’tcha?” He vanished before I could answer, and reality came screeching back into place.

 

“I’m sure.”

 

Fists nodded. “Okay. Now, I’m going to break your wrist. It will be the worst pain you’ve ever felt or will ever feel.” He breathed in for a moment and let that sink in. Then he reached into his pocket and withdrew a small bottle. Inside the bottle was a thick, viscous brown substance that sloshed from side to side. He put it in the palm of my left hand. “This bottle will stop the pain the second you drink it. If you choose to use it, you’re out. But if you make it through on your own, you’ll be one of us. Do you understand?”

 

“I understand.”

 

After that, I didn’t have time to blurt out or react. Fists picked up my wrist and my forearm and with a quick jerk of his hands, snapped it.

 

The surge of pain was indescribable. A white-hot lava ran tidal through my veins, ripping and cauterizing every nerve ending, only to ebb for the tiniest of seconds before returning. Endless waves coursed. It was rampant, uncontrollable. I vomited until there was nothing left in my stomach and then I vomited some more.

 

Breaking my ankle on the fall from the fourth story of the group home was like a kiss compared to this. The beatdown I’d suffered at the hands of the drug dealer was a gentle shower. It didn’t even feel fair to call those experiences painful. They weren’t in the same class as this, not anywhere near the same realm.

 

This was pain. This was agony.

 

Fists had walked to the edge of the circle of light. He turned to look back at me, bucking in the chair and gibbering with my eyes rolled back in my head. “See you on the other side, kid.”

 

Then he disappeared. I heard him climbing up the stairs, then the door creaking open and shut.

 

I stayed in the basement, and I suffered.

 

But I didn’t drink the bottle.

 

# # #

 

In his office, Fists released a cloud of smoke over his shoulder. I realized I’d been touching my wrist as I remembered the ordeal in the basement. All that remained on my skin was a tiny, dimpled scar, just a half-inch stretch of white tissue to commemorate the day and night I’d spent writhing and moaning in that chair, thinking the pain would never end, that I would feel this way forever.

 

Eventually, it did end. Fists had come back down and found me still conscious in the chair. The straps had ground down on my arms and legs enough to scrape the skin completely raw. I’d broken three teeth and bit off the tip of my tongue from clenching my jaw so hard.

 

But I made it. I survived, and I became a Punisher.

 

“Why did you decide to come to us that day?” Fists asked.

 

“You know why,” I answered.

 

“I want to hear you say it.”

 

I took a deep breath. “Because I wanted to kill them.”

 

“You wanted to kill who?”

 

“C’mon, Fists, stop fucking with me.”

 

“Say it.”

 

“I wanted to kill the Espositos,” I said finally. “I wanted to murder every last fucking one of them.”

 

Fists nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “That’s why you’re here.”

 

“What’s your point?”

 

“My point is that driving isn’t going to do that for you. It ain’t gonna get you there.”

 

“Then what’s the plan?”

 

“You’re not going to like it.”

 

“I’m done playing games. Tell me what your plan is.”

 

Fists shrugged, finished his cigarette, and stubbed it out alongside the others. He tented his fingers in front of him and looked at me coolly. “Peace.”

 

My mouth opened, then shut again. “Peace? Peace? You want to make peace with them?”

 

He nodded. “I’m calling off every contract and operation that might infringe on Esposito territory. We’re going to offer to squash everything, forgive all blood debts, and give peace a chance. We’ve been fighting them for a long time, Nico. It’s time to try something new.”

 

“There’s no fucking way Marco Esposito is going to just forgive everything that’s happened over the last decade,” I growled.

 

“It doesn’t matter what Marco thinks,” Fists answered.

 

“Why the hell not?” I demanded, gripping the edge of the desk between my hands.

 

“Because Marco’s dead.”