Before I Bury You | Book I of The Burial Series

The Rainbow Ban.

Adrian

She was faced down to the ground.

There were seven of them, accumulating on top of her like a pile of maggots feeding on a decomposed corpse. Fighting with the stamina of one thousand bulls, she clawed, bit and spat on any man that came within her sphere.

Her body was bare, concealed to no one as their filthy hands groped and violated her barbarically.

She was crying, her atrocious screaming thumping boisterously against my eardrums. They hushed her, cooing at her mockingly as they ashened on her bruised and battered skin. They drug their rough, callous hands down her body, petting her as if she were a zoo animal.

"Please help me-he-heee!" she blared at the top of her lungs. No one could hear her. Following with horrific screams as she violently shoved one as he began hovering her from behind. Angel took a large, heaping grasp of her hair, tugging her toward his chest. He was closest to her, sitting on her back as the others surrounded him. He took hold of her chin, squeezing both sides of her cheeks as she continued to sob.

"Aye, chico, this one is fiesty! She's fun, you sure you don't want a turn!?" he boasted at me, wrapping his hand around her neck as he placed a rough kiss on her cheek.

I said nothing, did...nothing.

I'll never forget that grin on his face. He basked in the enjoyment of the others encouraging him to do his worst on her. He was a fiend for the attention, and would do anything to get it, anything to prove he was worthy. This was my best friend some time ago. My boy, someone I could tell anything to.

Goosebumps swarmed upon me like the holy ghost as I kept a solemn face.

I sat composed and annealed in a chair across from them, my hands planted firmly on the thighs of my long legs.

The girl was a snitch. She got one of our brothers locked up for roughin' her up a couple times when they argued. Unfortunately and coincidentally, the group decided to interweave my initiation process with their own personal mission.

They were testing me, trying to see if I was strong enough to follow the rules of The Rainbow Ban.

The Rainbow Ban is the first law that one must abide by if willing to be a member of BHB9. It's about being a man. The law bans showcasing any weakness and looks down upon emotional inconsistency. You are not allow to show any emotion that isn't blind fury...even during your most darkest days. If done so, then you would be considered everything less of a man, and unable to be associated with BHB9. There also would be hell to pay. Serious hell to pay.

The rainbow itself is a universal symbol for the LGBTQ community. Showing any type of sympathy, desire or concern for us males was somehow connected us to that community in the eyes of many. All of our masculinity is stripped once a tear is shed. That's why it's called the Rainbow Ban, however. "Men who aren't men..or don't know how to be men just simply...aren't...allowed." are the words of Alejandro.

I ain't homophobic. I rock with anyone who rock with me, but I needed protection, money and resources to fend for my own. BHB9 had what  I needed to take care of my queen, the light of my life, my heart--my mother. That's why I was there. If I stuck it through, we would be protected, and stable. That's what I wanted for us--for her.

I attempted to block them out, faking as if I were staring in their direction when I was really having a staring contest with the ground.

She kept screaming, howling, begging in pain. I could hear them slapping parts of her body, chanting repulsive nothing's in her ear. Blood had suddenly appeared on the lower ends of their white tank tops, causing a blistering churn to my heart.