Nick Burkhardt is a man with a lot of enemies. Every relationship he forms puts those he cares about in jeopardy. When an entire gang comes together to get revenge on Nick, Trubel finds herself in the grips of peril when she is used to teach him a l...
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I was left for dead, bleeding out in the street.
I found myself thinking about my life before it slowly drained out of me in thick, crimson pools that gathered around my body on the pavement.
I had grown up in Seattle. I bounced around in the foster care system for a while after my poor excuse for a father was arrested for murder and sentenced to life in prison. I had never known my mother; she was murdered by a Grimm a few weeks after I was born. She, like my father and I, was a Mauvais Dentes (Sabretoothed Tiger Wesen). There was not a lot of us around, probably because we keep getting killed by people we don't know... and by people who don't really know us, either. Now, it was my time to die...
I thought about my foster parents so long ago. They never knew what to do with me, but in their defense, I never knew what to do with me either. I was failing school, or should I say schools because I kept getting expelled for fighting. I put this one kid in the hospital...
I was losing so much blood, I couldn't think straight.
Where was I? Failing school? More like failing at everything I tried. Eventually, I dropped out of high school and ended up on the streets before finding myself in a gang.
The 7th Street Savages. That's what we're called.
They became my home, my friends, my family, my job. Everything. They also became my demise. They were the reason that I was in Portland, and they were the reason that I was a dead man.
We weren't what anyone would consider good people. We stole, we fought, we killed; it's all part of this brotherhood and this obligation that we share. But, none of it mattered. I was dying, and I gave up on being good a long time ago.
It was strange that everything was happening like this. Here I was with just 24 years of life under my belt, dying alone. Like everything I had done and been and seen and failed... Like it all meant nothing. I was right back where I started. Alone.
I wasn't alone earlier. I was with four buddies of mine from 7th street. We came to Portland on a revenge mission, set on killing a few members of our rival gang, the North End Crew. They wandered a little too far into our territory, so it was supposed to be our chance to tear up theirs.
We weren't doing well. I got separated from my brothers when we were wandering the streets, looking for any Crew members. They were easy to spot because they were all Yaguaraté (Jaguar Wesen) and they had this specific smell that wasn't like any other Wesen or human. Everything had a distinct smell and theirs was sort of bitter and dusty and... it's hard to explain smells that only, usually, I can smell, so I'll stop trying.
The point is, I was cornered by some Crew members in some back alley in the northern part of Downtown Portland. It was late, like 2:00 in the morning, and I guess I let my guard down.
And I was alone.
Despite being a Mauvais Dentes, who have a reputation for murdering entire villages of people in a single night, I wasn't able to hold my own against eight Yaguaraté. We were all armed with similar dagger-like teeth and sharp claws, but there was only one of me. It didn't take long for them to overpower me and take as many punches or kicks or slashes as they liked.
