Bite the Bullet - Saints Row

Prologue: Divine Intervention

"Ya' ever see the future in someone else's eyes?"

Church bells boomed.

It was a hollow, resonant sound, and it never failed to startle me.

I puffed on my last smoke, inhaling until my throat burned, staring at the dirty stained glass and the scuffed murals left to rot in lakeside antiquity. The bells tolled, but that righteous racket never brought me any sense of sanctuary, not in lieu of the broken bottles and syringes crunching under my sneakers.

Nevermind my pocket of .44s, or my sidearm with the filed-off serial, either.

Once upon a time, circa 1950, these holy halls were packed to the gills with upper-middle class observers, or so I heard, until a new Federal law or two opened the doors to a few-too-many undesirables in the following years. Doing the neighborly, Christian thing, they packed up for greener pastures, and left economic fallout in their wake. Now, it was equal parts eyesore as it was sad, all of the Row's rejects inevitably taking refuge under its gabled, storm-battered roof. The only reason it didn't come at a price was because there was nothing left to sell anymore.

I guess I never did reach far enough into my heart, or my wallet, for any of it to really sit right with me.

I flicked my eyes habitually at my watch, the second hand ticking away. Midnight. There was something fitting about that; it lined up perfectly with the self-appointed boss of the 3rd Street Saints' specialty brand of melodramatic bullshit. With knitted brows, I unholstered my model 629 revolver, feeling far more reassured by its weight in my hand than those chunks of brass upstairs giving me a migraine. Loading six smudged cartridges into the chamber, one after the other, I emptied my lungs of dry smoke.

"...We don't have time to be fuckin' around, here, man." I reminded the empty chapel, the strain in my voice crackling in the pews like tired radio static. The candlelight played in the corners, warm shadows dancing eerily over the headless angel resigned to a veil of cobwebs, finding company beside my jagged silhouette.

"Got somewhere to be?" A husky voice badgered, peppered with just enough reproach to press a nerve. These were his halls, an inherited legacy of a different time, and all he had left to his name and faded glory. Julius Little came around the corner, smoothing out his collar, golden crucifix and chains dangling at his neck. He always carried himself simply, if not modest for an OG—tall, dark, and with a certain glint in his cold eyes. There was a lifetime of knowledge locked behind that gaze, things I knew he was eager to pass on and make exist outside the realm of his memories, despite all the brusque words and dispositions that might suggest otherwise. Now, his age was starting to show in the flecks of silver at his temples, and for all his years and rep, I'd have pictured the Devil himself to be a bisel more original.

"Well, Troy." He dismissed, "Don't let me keep ya'."

I had enough dirt on him to send him back to the pen nfor the rest of his life. Part of the deal, though—one of the many stipulations on an ever-growing list of demands—was that at the end of that piss-filled tunnel, I'd have done my job, and Julius Little would walk away a free man. I knew none of it was happening without my hands getting dirty, and my only problem bigger than staring down 20-to-life was that Julius knew it, too.

It was a classic case of mutually-assured destruction, and he went all-in on those odds.

"Let's just get this over with." I got the sense the trembling in my hands betrayed my best attempt at sounding like a hardass, because Julius' lips upturned into a fucked-up smirk. Clicking the barrel into place, I returned it to my belt, reaching for my phone and flipping it open to my stoner-turned-informant's text.