Luke
"Are you ready?" Gabriel asked. Luke could hear the concern in his slick, low country-boy voice. They were in the club's garage, specifically the back room which was originally going to be used for storage. The concrete walls were bare and chipped here and there, painted a dark green. One lonely bulb hung in the middle of the room, with a beaded, silvery string beside it to turn it on and off. It cast a dim illumination over the room, if anything making the room more sinister than it would appear in the dark. Allen, Robert and Alex where taking part in watching, standing a good distance away.
"Yeah," Luke replied quietly, "as much as I'll ever be," the anticipation was killing him. His heart would not be still; he wasn't one to fear, but the kiss of The Mark was something that all Knights feared. He'd already heard what it sounded like to brand his brother's killer.
Once for falling off the path, twice summons the devil's laugh. Nobody had ever gotten a second mark. Getting it once was enough; two would mean expulsion by death.
Luke swallowed hard, his bones wanted to leap from his skin. He pressed his teeth down onto the wooden bit, which was wrapped in a white cloth.
Gabriel brought the glowing, red hot branding iron high into the air and deathly silence befell the room.
Motes of dust drifted throughout the air aimlessly.
Closing his eyes, Luke felt a twisted sense of satisfaction, picturing the dead eyes of his brother's killer. Someone had offered the man fifty grand, and even though he might never find out whom it was, Luke took a dark pride in knowing that vengeance – if even just a fraction of it – was his.
Luke could feel how nervous Gabriel was. Warmth radiated just behind his neck
He found it strange, so terribly and horribly strange; the sound of the brand being quenched on his skin. What was that sound, exactly? That piercing howl like an animal had been lacerated beneath a fat, bloody moon.
His jaw hurt. Between the agony, a thought skirted across his mind – will I ever be able to open my mouth again? Luke's nose flared at the foul, sickly sweet aroma of burnt flesh.
Please, he thought. Please just make it stop, take away my pain and make it stop.
Why was Gabriel pressing it for so long? Did he want to make him suffer?
How exactly, did he get on to the floor? Luke didn't want to move an inch; he wanted only to lie on the hard, cool concrete and let everything slip, as the Knights drew near to help, into a comforting black.
YOU ARE READING
Revved Up Soul
Lãng mạnI just can't stop thinking about him. His ripped body, black leather and dark hair. You swore off those bad boys when you were a girl. But this one's different. Luke Reynolds: He's hard and mysterious - there's something genuine in those haunting e...
