Axon

Prologue

A smile creeps onto the lanky gang member's face as the teenage boy steps into a death trap.

The tall Hispanic boy, about seventeen years old, blasts music through his headphones while meandering towards an alleyway. The boy's hands are in navy blue jean pockets and he sports a bright orange high school varsity jacket. The lanky man shakes his head. The boy is either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid...this alleyway is on 17th Street, the heart of Crescent Moon territory. The boy could have only slipped this far onto gang turf out of dumb luck. Unfortunately for him that luck is about to run out.

The lanky man scratches his stubble, and leans against the alley wall, smiling sardonically. Despite it all, the boy keeps plodding forward, wandering towards wolves, like a sheep gone astray. The lanky man glances at his four blood brothers, each armed with an assortment of mismatched weaponry. With a slight flick of his head, the he sends his crew to circle around and catch the boy from behind. Then he moves from the wall and ambles forward, grinning the feral smile of a predator.

* * *

I bite back a smirk as my prey saunters onward.

A lanky man steps away from the alley wall and slides to block my progress down the alleyway, leering at me in a self-assured manner. A dusty wife beater hangs loosely from his wiry frame. I raise my head, pretending to meekly meet his hard eyes. Then I slowly lower my headphones, even though they weren't really playing any music.

"Hey kid," He smiles broadly, revealing teeth caked with plaque, "Where do you think you're headed?"

He has a roughened, unshaved face and a large nose. It was likely broken before. However, my eyes fall upon the bandana he sports upon his neck. It is completely black, except for the stark contrast of white half moon insignia at its center: the symbol of the Crescent Moon gang. Painful memories dance before my eyes, shimmering with the vivid surrealism of a nightmare. The car crash...the bullets...the blood. My emotions begin to rise.

"You listening kid?" The man chides gleefully. "You're making this way too easy. You stumbled right into Crescent Moon territory! Everyone knows this is our turf. Now look kid, you give me them headphones and them shoes and then turn around and run, maybe we'll let you go." He snickers. "...Maybe."

"You don't want to do this," I murmur.

"What did you say, boy?" The man leans a few inches from my face. His acrid breath reeks of tobacco. Behind me, I hear the crunch of boots on asphalt. A couple Crescent Moon members are approaching from my periphery.

I look him hard in the eyes. "I said you don't want to do this."

He cocks back and spits in my face. His saliva drains sluggishly from my forehead to my cheek. I blink as the lanky man grins. "We ain't a gang known for our mercy."

I gaze at him evenly. "If you don't give mercy, then you won't receive it."

As the lanky man scowls, my vision flickers to his light blue eyes. I catch the glint of a metallic object in his retina. I hear the faint whistle of a heavy object swinging through the air and the rustle of clothing on a gang member behind me.

Suddenly the world slows to molasses as I speed my neural perception far beyond normal human capacity.

I shudder with an incredible energy. The energy pulses through every nerve in my body, heightening my senses and granting me acute awareness of my surroundings. I feel every hair on my arms rise as my entire body tingles with readiness. I see every crevice in the lanky man's face as he blinks in slow motion. Every sound is amplified, from the tiny ants scuttling on the ground below me to the whistle of a metal rod zipping through the air behind me.