The first few days under Redd's rule were a lesson in quiet brutality.
Rules weren't posted. They were learned through bruises and whispers.
One wrong glance at the wrong person and you might wake up missing a tooth.
One word out of line, and you might not wake up at all.
Damon learned fast.
They all did.
It wasn't survival anymore.
It was a performance.
And every mistake was paid for in blood.
---
The old laundromat creaked and moaned under their combined weight, but it became home in the way that only desperate places could.
Marcus reinforced the broken windows with scrap metal and old mattresses.
Savannah bartered for canned food with bruised knuckles and sharper words.
Jasmine found a half-scorched mattress and pronounced it 'luxury'.
Adrian duct-taped the leaking pipes like it was an act of worship.
Callie wove her threads through the rafters — tiny, invisible tripwires only she could control.
Every thread a whisper of safety.
Every patch of mended roof a silent prayer.
Damon watched them rebuild their lives from splinters.
It was almost enough to believe they could last.
Almost.
---
Trouble, of course, didn't knock.
It kicked the door in.
Three men showed up at the laundromat one night, leather jackets gleaming, teeth yellow from cheap cigarettes.
Redd's men.
"You owe us," the tallest one said, shoving Damon hard enough he stumbled into the cracked wall. "Taxes."
"Taxes," Savannah echoed, unimpressed. She spun a butterknife between her fingers lazily.
"Protection taxes," another sneered. "You want walls, you pay."
Damon didn't flinch when the man's breath hit him — sour with rot and whiskey.
He simply asked, "And if we don't?"
The third man, a bruiser with a broken nose, grinned slow and wide.
"Then the walls fall. And maybe some heads too."
Behind Damon, he heard Jasmine's sharp intake of breath, the rustle of Callie's jacket as she shifted nervously.
They couldn't afford a fight.
Not yet.
Not now.
With a jaw so tight it ached, Damon reached into the stash under the counter — a handful of scavenged jewelry, a tattered wallet, a knife so old it was more rust than blade.
Pathetic.
The man snatched it all up greedily anyway.
"Pleasure doing business," he said with a mocking salute, before swaggering back into the night.
The door slammed.
The silence after was a wound.
---
"You should have let me cut them," Savannah said eventually, voice low and trembling with leashed rage.
"And what?" Damon snapped. "Have the whole station descend on us? We're not strong enough."
"Not yet," Marcus rumbled from where he sat repairing a broken chair, voice steady as bedrock.
Adrian still hadn't looked up from his spot by the window, where he stared out into the dark with empty eyes.
Callie hugged her knees, pressing herself into the corner like she could disappear.
Jasmine crossed her arms tightly across her chest.
"We're not strong enough yet," she agreed. "But we will be."
It sounded like a promise.
It tasted like hope.
Damon wasn't sure if he could afford either.
---
Two nights later, Redd called an assembly.
The old station flooded with bodies — scavengers, survivors, thugs, and scavenged children with hollow eyes.
The air buzzed with tension.
Redd stood above them all, perched on a makeshift dais of overturned crates.
A king of bones.
A monarch of rot.
His red jacket flared around him like spilled blood.
"Listen up," he drawled, silver coin flickering between his fingers. "We've got new neighbors."
A ripple went through the crowd — a hiss of unease.
"Topside suits," Redd continued, teeth flashing. "Big money. New towers. New fences. They're expanding."
He paused, letting the words sink in.
"They're clearing out 'undesirables.'"
The crowd's growl was low and furious.
"And guess what, my lovely degenerates?" Redd said, smiling wider. "That's us."
Damon's stomach turned to ice.
Redd tossed the coin high into the air, letting it spin like a star.
"We've got two choices," he said, catching it effortlessly. "Fight back."
Another ripple — this one darker, heavier.
"Or run."
A snarl twisted his mouth.
"And I don't run."
The crowd roared.
It wasn't cheers.
It was the sound of teeth baring.
Of war drums beating under the skin.
Of desperation finally boiling over.
Damon found Savannah's eyes across the sea of bodies.
She grinned.
Finally.
---
The next few days were a storm.
Weapons were fashioned from scrap metal and spite.
Maps were drawn in blood and chalk.
Alliances whispered and broken and reforged in the dark.
Damon taught Adrian how to hold a knife without trembling.
Savannah showed Jasmine where to stab to make someone drop instantly.
Marcus taught Callie how to move without making a sound.
They were building an army.
No.
They were building a family.
Because that's what survival demanded.
And families were dangerous.
Because families fought.
And they bled.
And when one fell, the others burned the world down to avenge them.
---
The first strike was savage.
A patrol of topside guards — polished boots, polished rifles — came too close to the wrong alley.
They didn't leave.
The city swallowed them whole.
Damon didn't ask what Savannah did to them.
He didn't want to know.
The message was clear:
We are not yours to erase.
---
But victories have a price.
The retaliation came swift.
Lights blazed through the tunnels one night, blinding and hot.
Gasoline flooded the lower levels.
Someone — someone who knew the paths — had betrayed them.
The fire roared to life, greedy and laughing.
Screams ripped the air apart.
The station became a furnace.
Redd vanished into the smoke.
The crowd scattered like panicked animals.
Callie screamed for Damon — and he found her, hauled her through the choking dark.
Marcus carried Adrian bodily over his shoulder.
Savannah carved a path with her blade, smoke streaking her face like war paint.
Jasmine coughed blood but kept running.
They didn't stop for the others.
They couldn't.
There was no room for guilt.
Not anymore.
---
They burst into the night air gasping, clothes smoldering, lungs torn raw.
Behind them, the old station burned.
A pyre for the forgotten.
Damon stood doubled over, coughing until he tasted iron.
The others slumped around him, wide-eyed, trembling.
The city stretched out before them.
Cold.
Unforgiving.
Waiting.
"We can't stay here," Jasmine rasped.
"We have nowhere else," Adrian said, voice hollow.
Damon straightened slowly.
Felt the weight of their eyes on him.
He wasn't the strongest.
Not the fastest.
Not the smartest.
But he was theirs.
And that meant he had to lead.
Even into hell.
Especially into hell.
He turned north, where the city grew sharper and richer and meaner.
"We find somewhere new," he said.
"And if they try to erase us again..." Savannah said, smile bloody.
"We erase them first," Damon finished.
Together, they limped into the teeth of the city.
Together, they vanished into the night.
---
Above them, in a tower of shining glass and steel, men in suits clinked glasses.
Spoke of progress.
Of cleaning the streets.
Of building empires.
Unaware that far below, something was stirring in the ruins.
Something sharp.
Something furious.
Something that would not be buried quietly.
Because glass castles shattered loudest.
And Damon's family had nothing left to lose.
---