Saving The Gangsta

e i g h t e e n

a s t r i d 

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Friends ask you questions; enemies question you

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I don't recognize the girl staring back at me.

Anxiety surges through my veins as all the confidence from the night before disappears. My short hair suddenly seemed too short for my liking, too different to be the real me.

If I even knew who that was.

I look like a stranger, and I feel like one.

I could no longer see my mother staring back at me. My eyes looked haunted, as though all my past demons had came back for me in one instant. The girl looks tired, and afraid, and shattered.

Vulnerable and weak.

My Dad used to tell me that guilt is a dead man's trait, and I've never felt more dead and empty inside as I do at this exact moment.

It's not fair, I thought while pulling my hair into a ponytail, all these people kill all the time, why don't they feel like this? Why don't they break?

Because they don't kill innocent children that do what they need to survive.

I asked River who the kid was. His name was Dean, he was 13, and working for Cole in order to pay off his sister's drug dept.

He also told me that Rogue was dead, slaughtered by another mystery gang.

I don't know how to feel about that.

But it still doesn't feel true. Rogue was strong, stronger than most. He evaded death for a very long time.

This felt too easy.

I wanted to be the one who did it.

"Astrid?"

"Yeah?" I respond instantly, "Sorry, what did you say?"

"Initiation into the gang has three trials: Honesty, Loyalty and Eternity." She explains, "Normally, either Becca or I go through the entire process with the person joining. I'll be doing yours."

"That's fine."

"Okay, so each trial has different things you need to do. I'll explain each briefly and we'll start the first one." She checks the time on her phone, before looking back up to me and grinning. "Honesty begins with you telling me your 3 darkest secrets. They don't have to be in detail, but it needs to be so I can understand it. The second part is your 3 biggest regrets, once again it's brief. Loyalty comes in 3 parts. 1: Fighting for us, which you've already done. 2: Killing someone who attempted to harm another Viper, already completed. 3: Learning and reciting our rules. Eternity: The tattoo."

Secrets.

As if sensing my worry, she continues, "The Honesty section is never repeated to anyone, not even Becca. We both know things about everyone here, things that no one else can know because of safety reasons."

Erin.

I nod my head. She smiles and I follow her into her office.

"Go ahead." She gestures for me to sit, and then for me to talk.

I don't know how, but I do.

"What went down with my Mom and Dad, it wasn't like how Rogue made out. I didn't kill them in cold blood. They were both really hurt, so I ended their misery." It was the first time I've ever admitted it out loud, and I amaze myself by not crying. "I did know Rogue quite a bit before, as I've told you. He was my friend, I trusted him. He betrayed my Mom and Dad, he was one of the main reasons why they were hurt. Lastly, my birth name isn't Astrid Cleveland. It was a name I gave myself a while ago, and it stuck."