The lights in Trevor's apartment flickered as he stepped inside, the door clicking shut behind him with an exhausted thud. Every muscle in his body felt like it had been set on fire and left to smolder. He dropped his duffel by the door, peeled off his sweat-soaked training shirt, and winced as fabric tugged against torn skin.
"Ugh…" he groaned, staggering into the living room like a man twice his age. He collapsed onto the couch, sinking into the cushions, then immediately regretted it as his spine lit up with pain. "Blair's a psychopath."
He grabbed the small jar of balm from the coffee table—something he picked up after the first training session had left his joints screaming. Unscrewing the lid with sore fingers, he scooped some of the cooling gel onto his palms and began massaging it into his forearms, gritting his teeth as the stinging relief met fresh bruises.
Every press of his thumbs into tender flesh felt like a small war.
Knuckles? Swollen and red.
Elbows? Scraped.
Shoulders? A battlefield of strain and shock.
As he rubbed balm into the tight coil between his shoulder blades, he let his head fall back against the couch, eyes drifting to the ceiling fan above.
"I punched a wall until it bled today," he muttered aloud. "And I went back for more."
He wasn't sure if that made him brave… or just broken in a new way.
The apartment was quiet, save for the creak of the fan and the occasional hum of traffic outside. For the first time in what felt like weeks, he let himself breathe. Not because the fear was gone—but because, somehow, facing it head-on had drained it of its sharpest edge.
He stared at the ceiling a while longer, then grabbed the roll of bandages from the side table, slowly wrapping up his knuckles.
The balm was cool against his overheated skin, but even that minor relief came with a hiss through clenched teeth. Trevor sat hunched over on the edge of his bed now, shirtless, with every inch of his body protesting. His fingers—still raw and stiff—struggled to knead into the knots that Blair's training had buried deep into his shoulders, back, and arms like shrapnel.
He started with his forearms, moving in slow, uneven circles. The muscles twitched beneath his touch, flaring with a dull ache that ran from wrist to elbow. Every rub was a reminder of the wall—how it hadn't moved, hadn't given. Only he had.
His biceps were next. He gripped the upper part of his left arm and squeezed until the soreness bloomed sharp, then faded. Repeated the motion.
Trevor leaned forward, gritting his teeth as he worked the balm into his bruised trapezius, fingers pressing against the ridge of stress under his neck. His spine gave a small, audible crack. He groaned, not from discomfort alone, but from the strange satisfaction of chasing pain and meeting it without fear.
Then came his legs. Hamstrings tight. Calves burning. His thighs bore the imprint of weighted squats Blair had insisted on "to build staying power." The soreness had settled like cement in his muscles, but he worked through it with both hands—groaning under his breath, jaw clenched with every movement.
He tilted his head back, eyes fluttering shut as he reached around to dig his knuckles just beneath his shoulder blades. The motion made him shudder.
He began to relax let the pain to subside as he tried breathing gently.
The room was still, dimly lit by the soft amber glow of his bedside lamp. Trevor had just finished massaging a stiff knot out of his left shoulder, his eyes half-lidded, his breath slowing from the aching ritual of recovery. The balm was doing its job—numbing the sting, cooling the fire in his muscles.
Then he heard it.
A scuff—barely audible, featherlight. But his senses, sharpened from Blair's training, registered it like a gunshot.
Footsteps.
Outside his sliding window.
He froze. Not from fear—his instincts were already moving. He stood, soundlessly, eyes locked on the glass pane. Curtains half drawn. Just enough to see…
Nothing.
But the night was still, too still.
He took two careful steps forward.
And then—
CRASH.
The window exploded inward with a shuddering crack as a boot slammed into his face. The impact snapped his head sideways, glass raining across the floor. Before he could even hit the ground, a body came through—fast, deliberate, and ruthless.
Trevor's back met the wall with a force that knocked the air from his lungs. His vision blurred. A sharp pain bloomed in his ribs where the wall met bone.
The figure straightened from where he'd slammed Trevor against the wall, laughter spilling from his lips—not amused, but delighted, cruel in a way that felt rehearsed. It was the kind of laugh that didn't need context, just dominance.
"Heh… this is him?" the intruder rasped, voice unhinged at the edges. "This is the wimp I'm supposed to fold like laundry?"
Trevor, breath still knocked from his chest, tried to focus past the blur.
The man stepped fully into the light.
He was tall, with a wiry, spring-loaded frame that oozed tension—like his body was one wrong word away from snapping into violence. He wore a tattered red windbreaker, sleeves rolled to the elbows, revealing arms crisscrossed with pale scars and ink. His left shoulder bore a crude, hand-tattooed insignia: a skull with two slashes through the eye sockets. Not Black Skulls.
Something else.
His eyes were manic—wide, glassy, pupils dilated like he'd swallowed madness whole and smiled through the taste. His face was angular, the skin pulled tight, a jagged scar bisecting his chin like a cracked porcelain mask. Hair dyed a sickly shade of green was shaved close on the sides and spiked up top, stiff and chaotic.
He had no weapons.
Didn't need them.
His hands flexed—bruiser knuckles, gnarled from overuse, bones probably calcified from too many fights won the wrong way.
"I thought I was coming to silence a threat," the man snarled, pacing a slow circle around Trevor like a hyena. "But you? You're barely breathing. This is going to be fun."
Trevor coughed, struggling to get to his feet, blood sliding down from a split lip. The taste of copper filled his mouth.
"Who—" he rasped.
Trevor barely had time to brace before the intruder lunged.
The first blow was a blur—an elbow to the jaw that snapped his head sideways and sent him crashing into the coffee table. Glass shattered beneath him. He rolled instinctively, but the man was already on him, boot slamming into his ribs with a sickening crack that stole the air from his lungs.
"C'mon, kid," he sneered, voice dripping with mockery. "Aren't you supposed to be the next big thing?"
Trevor tried to rise, but a knee drove into his spine, pinning him down. The intruder grabbed him by the collar and slammed him face-first into the floor. Once. Twice. The third time, Trevor's vision went white at the edges.
He swung blindly, a desperate hook that barely grazed the man's side.
The intruder laughed—high, manic, unhinged. "That all you got? I've seen toddlers throw tantrums with more bite."
He yanked Trevor up by the hair and drove a fist into his stomach. Trevor folded, coughing blood onto the floor. His knees buckled, but the man didn't let him fall. He wanted him conscious. Wanted him to feel it.
Another punch—this time to the temple. Trevor hit the wall hard, shoulder dislocating with a pop that made him scream. He collapsed, body twitching, breath ragged.
The man crouched beside him, tilting his head like he was admiring a painting.
"You're not ready," he whispered. "But they're watching you anyway. That's why I came."
Trevor blinked through the haze, blood in his eyes. "Who… sent you?"
The man grinned, teeth bared like a wolf. Then he leaned in close, breath hot against Trevor's ear.
"Tell Blair," he said, "that the Crimson Vultures say hello."
And just like that, he was gone—slipping out the shattered window as silently as he'd arrived, leaving behind only broken glass, blood, and the echo of a name Trevor would never forget.
Crimson Vultures.
The message was clear: they knew about him. They knew he had been recruited and now he was forefront in the war.