She runs as hard as she can, scrambling over rocks, clawing at the dirt as she stumbles. Tears stream down her face with each footfall, “this cannot be happening” the sole thought that rattles in her skull. She makes it to the bridge, it's a cold and dark night, but the moon guides her path. She rushes over to the edge and peers down into the abyss. A scream tears at her throat and she sobs violently. Revealed by the moonlight is a body, ruined and bloody at the bottom of the river, a fall broken by black rocks and crags. “BROTHER” She wails. “LEON NO-” She cries and cries until her voice goes hoarse. On her knees she reaches out towards the body as if she can reach someone so far gone- She loses her balance, tipping over the edge and plummets haloed by the very moonlight that guided her. She tries to scream but finds her voice gone. She hits the ground with a sickening crunch, she burbles out in pain, her bones twist and bend unnaturally, blood fills her mouth and mixes with her tears. She's tired and all she can feel is the agony of broken bones and punctured lungs. She reaches out weakly for her brother's hand, its cold and still and she knows for sure that he's been dead for hours. It's been so tiring, she wants to go home with her brother. She can only hope mercy comes for them soon. - She wakes up in a hospital bed, a nurse fiddles with some equipment next to her. “My brother!” She gasps, startling the nurse. “Where's my brother?” The nurse looks at her strangely “I’m sorry? We checked your family history. You don't have a brother. You've had a concussion so your memories might be-” She rips the covers off of herself and throws herself out of the bed, she doesn't get very far and her legs collapse from underneath her. The nurse yells for her coworkers, and two more nurses fling open the curtain that surrounds her bed. She drowns everything out, because there's a full length mirror across the room, laying there on the ground surrounded by three nurses is her brother, staring back in the mirror. - “GET IN, GET IN-” Leon swears and with one last push shoves the bodybag into the trunk, slamming the hood down and sprinting for the car door. The doors slam shut, and the five of them speed off into the night. Finn, who’s sat in the passenger seat, rounds on the driver. “What the Fuck was that Adrian?” Leon is instantly reminded of two parents squabbling. “We had your word. Your FUCKING WORD. That there would be no unnecessary violence.” Adrian grunts. “I kept my word.” Leon can see his knuckles are white on the wheel. “And the body in the fucking trunk? You blew a hole in his chest” “Necessary” Rae groans from the other side of the car, next to him in the middle, there's only silence, shellshocked. Leon isn't surprised. His hands are still shaking. “Don’t. Fuck with me. This isn’t a joke Adrian. The plan was to go in, surround him and threaten him to back off, push his face in a bit. I didn’t even know you were carrying-” “And what would that accomplish Finn? Hm? What, he was just going to march his men right off our territory because five kids told him he couldn’t stay. THIS sends a message, THIS tells the lot there's something to be afraid of.” He turns to face Finn for the first time. Leon catches a glint in his eyes he hasn’t seen before from his best friend. “Well congratulations, we’ve certainly accomplished something. Putting a massive fuck-off target on our backs.” Finn bristles “I can’t believe you dragged us into this. I’d never have agreed to this if this is what you were planning to do. You’re lucky we planned properly for this or otherwise we’d never have made it out of there alive-” Renee pipes up “For the record Adrian, you really should have gone with a sawed-off” He ignores her. “And what, we just wait for them to take more territory away until we’re forced to surrender. You can’t be serious Finn. I’ve seen it. Fuck, You’ve all seen it better than i have. He was a threat to us, a giant threat that had to be dealt with one way or another. And you’re welcome, I just saved everyone the trouble of getting their hands dirty.” Everyone falls silent. “If we don’t do anything, we’re going to be taken over. WE can’t be safe unless we push back against them instead of just rolling over and waiting for them to stamp out our family.” Finn sags “We make deals Adrian, we worked for the fucker, We NEGOTIATE. Thats how we save our family.” “And when deals are unfair? When they aren’t upheld and we still find fuckers on our turf doing whatever they please? Selling substances we’ve spent our entire lives trying to be clean of?” “We’re petty criminals Adrian, we jack cars and break and enter at most. We’re not equipped to go all Rambo and clean up these streets with force.” He sighs “We never wanted our hands dirty tonight And some of us WANTED to keep it that way.” “You didn’t pull the trigger-” “Yeah but now we’re complicit, we have to deal with a body now.” He pauses. “Babe, you know how to hide a body right?” “Yeah easy baby dont worry” “Thank fuck” Finn groans. “What happened to Fin ‘Freedom’ Ward.” Adrian grunts “He die or something?” “No. He just grew the fuck up and realised its not that simple.” Leon looks over at Ira, she’s breathing shallow and looks white as a sheet. Leon reaches out his hand to grab hers, gently squeezing. She looks over with a fragile smile. “We had our lives together Adrian… You just came back and fucked all that up.” “Your girlfriend is literally whoring herself out” “-Rude, we don't say that anymore Adrian. Its called being a prostitute now-” He ignores Adrian “We have something good going on. Leon’s got an apprenticeship, Ira works for a corp, I opened a bar… We’re trying to move away from all this violent shit, that includes the rest of our family. And I really thought that meant you too. I’m tired of bailing you out of fights man, I can't do it forever. If you go down this path, how the fuck are we meant to follow you?” Finn laughs humourlessly. “I can’t believe you man. Five long years huh? I fucking hate you right now-” He says without any bite “-but its damn good to see you again.” – They pull up behind Finn’s bar, the neighbourhood is quiet. Leon starts to feel uneasy about all this. “Bring the body, we’ll run a bath and dissolve the fucker and hopefully it won’t smell too rank.” Rae instructs as Finn fumbles with his keys. Adrian kills the engine and nods to Leon, together they haul the body to the door and Finn ushers them all in. “From now on, we lay LOW. No more bullshit-” “Couldn’t agree more on that with you son.” Finn crumples to the floor, and in seconds they’re surrounded. Leon is forced to the ground by the same person who punched Finn. Adrian swears and reaches for his shotgun, but finds iron pressed against the back of his skull. He drops the gun in surrender. Ira yells “OFF” and Leon coughs, feeling the pressure on his neck released, Ira rushes to check on Finn while Renee springs into action, grabbing the gun threatening Adrian, it clatters to the ground in pieces and she headbutts the shooter. Adrian unravels the chains from his arms and whips them at the one previously on top of Leon, the chains wrap around their arms and Adrian yanks, dragging them to the floor. The wall behind them explodes in a deluge of glass and alcohol, giant fists made of alcohol lashed out, slamming the two attackers into the wall. Restraining them. Leon clambers up, only to be met with the barrel of Adrian's shotgun. The man fires it in the air once, racks it and then trains it back on Leon. “That's quite enough now” The five of them freeze, Finn swears and lets his ability drop slowly, the alcohol drops lifeless to the ground. They let themselves be kicked down into a kneeling position, their hands behind their heads. Adrian eyes Finn and raises a brow. Finn shakes his head slowly and Adrian frowns. “Colour me surprised, nice to see some folk with some fight in them for a change.” The man sits at the bar counter, pouring himself some top shelf liquor. Which miraculously was spared from joining the rest of the liquid. Leon can tell Finn is very unhappy with his choice. “Though, that probably means you have no idea who I am hm?”. He takes a sip. “Nice place you got here. Leviathan, right?”. Finn freezes, he hasn’t been called that in quite some time. His time moonlighting as Leviathan had stopped when Adrian went off to war. It was a nickname he’d been called as a kid that had stuck. “Finlay Ward, Adrian Siblis, Ira Erantis, Renee Colt and Leon Dahiti. We know who you all are, our intel works fast.” The broad man lights a cigar. A shorter woman sporting the same ginger hair joins him at the bar. “Anyone going to tell us what the fuck is going on? You’re not any of his men, so what business do you have with us?” “Well you see boy, we had a deal me and him, he worked for me and when i got the call that he’d been killed by some lowlife gutter rats. Well, you can see how that would be a problem for me, he was our man into the sector, ran the drug trade. New leaders gonna have to be picked, and i have no way of knowing if they’re gonna honour our previous deal.” He takes a big puff of his cigar “Someone needs to pay and that falls onto the dumb motherfuckers that bit the hand that fed them. You didn’t do it for power, or any of his assets, just to escape his rule. Scum tryna escape their place.” Renee bristles, Finn rolls his eyes, Ira scoffs and Adrian is uncharacteristically quiet. The woman pipes up, easily old enough to be in her 20’s with heavy makeup caking her face, yet she speaks uncharacteristically childish. “Daddy, I want these ones.” “You sure pumpkin? They deserve to be drowned in the bay for what they did. An example needs to be made of them.” “I can take care of that Daddy, please Daddy, I really really want them” She whines. Leon is not looking forward to being the plaything of a woman with the attitude of a child. “You got lucky kids. I woulda have you executed in the street for crossing us, but my beautiful daughter wants you all to herself. Say thank you now sugarplum.” She grins, sadistically, at the group “Thank you Daddy~.”