Sam Skiles

Samael Gideon Skiles

29

Male

Champion of the Pit

Werewolf

The Ghost of the Pit

LUKE MITCHELL

5'8"

Athletic

Emerald green

Blonde

Spiky, short

Light stubble

Scottish

Good question!

White

Kept separate from the rest of the Reine and even the prisoners, Sam is kept in a plain white shirt and brown slacks.

Along his back is a faint diagonal scar left behind by a werebeasts' claws, and white dots in the shape of large jaws around his neck and shoulder - reminders of his turning.

Sam Skiles is a rugged fellow with a warm, crooked smile and mischievous green eyes. Standing at 5'8'' and sporting well groomed dirty blonde hair, Sam is a known face among the streets of Alaska and California as a gangster. He keeps facial hair to a minimum, unless by the request of one Faina Parker. He was known to sport a well known figure, but was abused and semi-malnourished until he was trained to be the Champion of the Pit. Sam is once again toned and muscular, but his body tells the tale of the life he's lived.

Around his neck is an emerald amulet that teems with magic.

May 13th

TRIGGER WARNINGS!!! This history contains the following: child abuse, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, suicide, child murder, anger at the one that committed suicide, gang activity, brief violence against a minor, mentions of mind control, mentions of bullying, murder, forced surgeries and implied body mutilation, mentions of torture. Please proceed with caution if any of the above can be triggering for you. And as a disclaimer, I do not condone Sam's actions nor the actions of other characters mentioned in this history.

Y’know that feeling you get when you’ve been handed around like a cheap whore at a sorority party? No? Yeah, you’re right, you probably don’t, but let me tell you: It fucking sucks. Not in the fun way, either. I mean one after another, dry, leaving you shaking, bitter, and sore as a motherfucker, feeling more than a little dirty. That was me about two weeks ago. Sounds pretty shitty, right? Wait til you hear the whole story. It gets worse.

My name is Samael Skiles, but don’t ever say the whole thing. Either you call me ‘Sam’ or you get a fist in your face. Dunno why, I just fucking hate being called ‘Samael’. Probably because of the way my thundercunt of an egg donor said it when I was a little pissant. Yes, pissant. All snot nose little brats are pissants to me. Anyway, yeah, my sperm donor (Donor 2) was a drunkard, egg donor (donor 1) was a cunt, and neither one of them knew how to raise pissants. Neither of them were particularly good to me or my little brother, Michael, who I called lil Mike. He was the best kid in the world, though. Always wanting to help people and shit. Even our shit parents.

Donor 2 was an angry drunk; used to beat us black and blue for no fuckin’ reason while his wife was passed the fuck out on the couch under a magazine. It would get so bad that sometimes we had to hide. Me, being a rebellious little fuck that was getting sick of his shit, sometimes thought it was a smart idea to fight back. Hah. Nah. I was a scrawny pissant and he was a big guy, so I don’t think I need to tell ya how that went. Clocked him one time real good, I think, but that was about it. Thing is I was okay with the asshole wailing on me so long as it took the heat off Mike. So… Whatever. That’s what big brothers do, right? Yeah. For a little while, I was good at that shit. Protecting him, I mean.

But it got worse. Teachers saw bruises but didn’t say shit. I don’t know what the fuck they were scared of. It was getting bad enough that I would black out and he would go after Mike. I felt like a failure, being too weak to withstand it. No one offered to help, so I reached out to someone instead. Word got back to donor 2, and after he got the heat off of him or some shit, he went into a rage when we got home. I blacked out trying to protect my little brother, and when I came to, I was being lifted up by police officers, forced to watch other people carry lil Mike away under a white sheet. The state took me away from those people. Put me in foster care. I’ve heard horror stories about being an orphan, but mine wasn’t that bad. I was adopted by a middle class family with no pissants of their own. Mom was different; she would have me forge herbs and shit with her. Then I’d help her mix stuff before her friends came over. Weird shit, man. That’s how I was introduced to witches.

For a while, things were good. It was aight. Then mom passed away and dad lost his job. My old man, dude, he didn’t know how to deal with that shit. I didn’t either. I still didn’t know how to deal with Mike being gone unless I picked up a bat and started breaking shit. Yeah, I could be a violent little pissant; I was aight until emotion got involved. Still am, if I’m being completely honest. I can’t fuckin’ deal with that shit without losing my god damn mind. But I’m not telling you anything that you don’t already know.

Times got hard. Dad looked for work but it was either no one would take him or no one would keep him. He was falling apart. And me? I was a fifteen year old brat, what was I supposed to do? I saw mom’s friends less and less, cept at school - while I was still able to go. I was pals with some of their pissants, see. My buddy Leo was probably the only thing that kept my ass from going awol, because he was a cocky little shit that liked to keep things fun. He was a little rebel though and through and man, his parents hated his ass, haha. I was the more reasonable of the two. His mom, Lilly, worked a lot. Found out later on in life that his mom was a fucking badass, but that's a story for another time... What was I talking about? Oh yeah. Right.

So when I was over at his house, we liked to roam the streets. And me, I needed to do something. I was thinking about stealing; I was keeping an eye out for things of value. His dad was a hard working man. Made a lot of dough. I used to practice sneaking into his room and taking his wallet while he wasn’t looking.

Sometimes he caught me, like, “Boy, you’re not supposed to go in there.” Nigga, I go wherever the fuck I want. Straight up. But I didn’t say shit. Back then I tried to be respectable. It helped to take the heat off. Did I listen? No. I did what had to be done. I stole money from him. It wasn’t much, and I spread it out so that he wouldn’t suspect me. Like, I’d take $40, wait two weeks, take a $5 - shit like that. If he suspected me, he never said anything. Leo knew. He didn’t care so long as I’d get a pack of reeses for him later on. That was our bargaining chip, see. Anyway, the point is that I did what I had to do to try and help my old man. He was fading fast though. It was during that time that I met a street rat named Isaac and Leo's buddy, Jake.

Jake was at it a lot longer than I was and he knew a thing or two about where to go for this and that, and where it could be sold. Isaac? He was smart, and he was the muscle. He was struggling to get by. I pulled him into the group; if he could be our brawn, we would do the rest. He struggled with it at first, I thought, because he'd never done it before. As time went on, he seemed alright. Jake was an older man, so he just gave us direction. Leo and I were in on him using us to get easier money, but Leo didn’t care about the money like I did. He just wanted to do it for the rush. Because he could. As soon as I got the information I needed from Jake, I cut him out as the middle man. I was the mastermind, weaving everything together. We started with petty crime; theft and scams - that sort of thing. Before long, we had a routine going and thanks to the rich neighborhoods, we were making a killing. The problem with that is that I wasn’t going to school, and that got my old man in trouble. I tried to do right by the guy, I really did, but man, I fucking hated school. All those stupid middle school bitches and all of their fuckin’ gossip, and righteous teachers - they could all shove it. I explained that to my dad. I wasn’t going to let them take him to jail, but we couldn’t really afford for me to be at school and not bringing at least basic food into the house.

It didn’t matter though. That old man… I don’t know what he was thinking that Sunday night. Maybe he’d just had enough. Maybe he’d finally lost that mental struggle in the mirror. It had to have been Sunday night, after I’d gone to sleep. All I know is, when I got up Monday morning, there was nothing more that I could’ve done to help him. At first I didn’t know where he was. I probably wouldn’t have found it were it not for the slight ‘thump’ against a door. He was just hanging there, in his closet. He didn’t even leave much of a note. It just said ‘I love you, Sam. Goodbye.’ Part of me still doesn’t believe that. What kind of parent that loves their child would leave them all alone in the world like that? I might’ve felt differently if he asked me to put one between his eyes or something, but nah, he just pussed out on life and left me - a fuckin’ fifteen year old pissant, on his own.

I knew that I couldn’t stay there. If I did, child services would take me away and I’d have to start all over again. Fuck that shit. So I closed the closet and I called my buddies Isaac and Leo, and we took everything of value from that place into a hideout that Isaac had been using for a little while. We sold the watches, all the jewelry, the clothes we couldn’t wear, etc. Then van my dad used? I ripped off the license plate, exchanged it for the next door neighbors (I don’t think they ever caught on), and used my dad’s keys. He’d left it to me, anyway. Legally, the van was mine.

And that? That was the start of something truly beautiful. Leo was out in the world, and he shared his connections with me. We were the ones with black market connections. Eventually, I was able to get us a few jobs as gun runners for other gangs and climbed our way up. Me, Leo, and Isaac started our own little gang a little after that. Older guys and gals in the trade. Mitch was the first one; we met him when the van broke down. MItch used to be a mechanic; he was nice enough to fix us up and get us back on the road. When he met him later on down the line, he ended up joining us. Well. Him and his old lady, Sandra. From there, there was Eddie, another thief, Lilly - who we thought was something of a cut throat. We don’t know for sure, she never said. She was a woman after my own heart; she didn’t talk about shit that no longer mattered to her. It would’ve never worked between us though. Bitch was too much like my mom. For a little while there, she had a thing for Eddie anyway, and I don’t do that whole ‘go after another man’s girl’ business.

We picked up Lucas next. Now that guy was a cool dude. He had connections out the ass, man, and that motherfucker hooked us up. Lucas had all kinds of gigs from Cali to Alaska. Trips to Alaska were pricey as fuck sometimes, but they were well worth the pay out. I started calling our group the Ravagers. Dunno why, it just seemed to fit. Leo, however, wanted to move onto bigger things. he wanted to traffic drugs. Isaac and the others were a little uncomfortable with that; none of us had done that before. As a result, Leo left us for another gang. Some time later, I heard he found his way into the local Mafia. Everything for us, in the meantime, was going well. Business was booming, and since I was sixteen, I could find almost any girl I wanted. Most girls were boring to me, though. I could never find one to challenge me.

Until, of course, a few days after my 21st birthday. Isaac and I were out on a gunning gig in Alaska. It wasn’t the kind that we could pass up; we were going to a meeting place to sell them to the Russian Mafia. However, the Alaskan police had been trying to track us down for weeks. This time, they were on our tail. We were coming back from our meeting point when we saw the cop cars. Unfortunately for us, there was no where else to go - except to hope they didn’t see us until we got in the van. By some random stroke of luck, a teenage girl started a huge, obnoxious distraction. I don’t what she did, exactly, but it got their attention long enough for us to slip away. We hide our shit and stayed there for a little while, waiting for things to blow over.

As we were about to leave, here comes this petite little brunette, sticking her foot in the door. The same chick that made the distraction. She wasn’t going to let us leave without her. She was already a hot little thing, but that whole not taking ‘no’ for an answer shit? I looked at Isaac like, “Dude, do you see this cocky little shit? Thinking she can push her way into my van and order us to take her along. Who the fuck does she think she is?” A feisty bitch, that’s what. Any woman with the gall to talk back to me and tell me what’s what was a woman to be respected in my book. It just made her more attractive. Pretty sure Isaac felt the same way. Finally, I shrugged and let her in. That’s how we met Faina. Small, cute, silver tongue, quick as a whip… Yeah, she was my kinda girl.

Wasn’t until the trip back that we found out the chick was sixteen. Sometimes I look back on that and laugh, asking myself what the hell I was thinkin’. As soon as we got back, I handed her one of my pistols. “If you’re going to be one of us, you need to know how to use one of these to protect yourself.” I said. “When on the job, we won’t always be around to cover you - so ya need to learn to cover your back.” Then I set to working on my motorcycle. Sometimes she’d get curious and me, being a big bike fanatic, was more than willing to share my passion. I taught her how to fix them, because I promised her that later on, when I found another decent one, that it would be hers and she needed to know how to take care of it. I wanted her to find her niche. And not going to lie, I was a little hard on her. For the longest time, I was pretty sure that she didn’t like me for a while. But I felt like if I didn’t push her, if I didn’t challenge her, how were we going to know what she was really capable of?

Soon enough, she started making a name for herself. Not long after that, our clients started to request that it was Faina and I making their runs instead of me and Isaac. When not doing that, I was teaching her to shoot. Our first practice was when I found out that she had this… Phobia of being touched. So I tried to respect that. Tried real hard. Sometimes, while out on a job, that respect was second to her safety. She hit me for it, sure, but she was breathing. During our little missions, I started to connect to her more. I started to understand her, and vice versa. But let me tell you… I’ll never forget that 3rd gig.

We were headed back from a job well done and I complimented her. Said something flirtatious, but I can’t for the life of me remember what I’d said. As soon as I said it, something in her just seemed to… Break. She whirled on me, like she normally does when she’s mad, but this time was different. I’d never seen her that livid before. This girl wanted to bloody kill me, I thought. Certainly came at me like she did, shouting at me to “stop fucking with her”. That I’d “never liked her” and “just wanted her gone” ever since she put her foot in the door. Like I didn’t like who she was. The words processed as she came at me with a knife. “The fuck are you talking about?” I shouted at her. “I’ve always liked you. You’re a little fire cracker, Faina. If I didn’t like you, you wouldn’t still be i-”
“Liar!” She screamed the word. At that point, I was just trying to avoid her arm. But she’s fast, much faster than I am admittedly, and she was closing in on me. “Woman, don’t you cut me. I will fuck you up.” She managed to score a blow across my right ear, and the anger that had been building in me erupted. That’s when we really got into it.

The thing about us is that neither of us can do emotion very well.

Faina was scared. She has a tendency to turn her fear into rage and lets it loose on people. And me? I don’t take kindly to being yelled at. Or attacked. She was faster, she got in more hits - some deep and some not. For about a minute, all either of us saw was red until finally, the knife I’d pulled scored a hit. I’d caught her off guard. Got her right across the stomach. It were as though the red haze in my mind had entered her and was released by the edge of my blade. That made her stop. Made us both stop. It took a few seconds for my brain to fully register what it was that I was seeing, but when I did… ”Oh shit. Faina!” I caught her and lay her down, grabbing her hands and placing them over her wound, telling her to hold them there and apply pressure. Cause we needed to stop the bleeding.

“I fuckin’ knew it.” I could hear her say. “Shut up, Faina.” I tossed my knife away and removed my shirt, ripping it into long strips that I could tie into a tourniquet around her. Scoping her up into my arms despite her protest, I ran as fast as my feet would carry me to the nearest gang I knew some miles away. No matter what, I had to get her there. The Bloods had a guy that used to be a doctor. He’d know what to do, I thought. I didn’t know if I could make it that far, and we still had a bit of ways back to the van. Instead of taking her there, not wanting to take any chances, I stopped and put her in an alley. Told her that I’d be right back. She didn’t believe me. Probably thought I’d left her there to die.

Only I didn’t. I returned with needle and thread. I removed the layer of fabric to see the ugly wound, winced, and pushed the knot by her mouth. “I’m going to need you to bite down on this, hold still, and for fuck’s sake, be quiet.” I’d seen him do it before. I’ve had to sew up Mitch’s arm before. But this was a bigger wound and I wasn’t sure if I could do it right. I just knew that I had to try. If anything, I had to do something to hold it until I could get her to the doc. So I made her bite down on the knot while I sewed her wound shut. “The fuck were you thinking?” I hissed. “Where did any of that even come from? Pissing me off and making me hurt you… The fuck were you thinking?” I wasn’t even mad anymore. I was terrified. What if I didn’t do it right? What if the string broke while I was taking her to the doc? Somewhere during the procedure, I think she passed out, and I pocketed the material before picking her up again. Took her the rest of the way to that gang’s HQ and never left her side.

The doc told me later that she’d woken up while I was passed out with my head laying on part of her bed. I’d have believed him if he’d told me that she’d shoved me off. Apparently my make shift stitching prevented her from bleeding out or some shit, at least long enough to get to him so that he could redo it professionally, but hey, that was good enough. When we left there, the way back to the van was done in silence. I didn’t let her walk. The doc didn’t say anything about her needing to stay off of her feet, but I was paranoid and worried, so she could’ve bitched and flailed all she wanted to - I wasn’t putting her down until we reached that damn van. I set her down then and slid into the driver’s seat. For a moment, I just sat there, thinking about what she’d said the day before. “Faina.” I said finally. I felt her look at me as I put the keys in the ignition. “I do like you. A lot. Maybe a little more than I should.” I looked at her then. “Don’t you ever think otherwise.”

After that, it was a lot… Different. On both sides. For a little while, she was… I dunno. Aloof? Well, sometimes. She seemed okay, but she had times where she was just indifferent. Thinking. I stopped calling her a pissant. For the first time ever, I used the word ‘kid’. She’s the only one that ever got that privilege. I said it in a teasing, playful way. She hated being called a kid, but she knew it was special. And sometimes that made things a little weird. Weird as in there was a bit more that I wanted to do, but knowing how she was about touch, I didn’t try. The guys teased me for that; I wasn’t scared of staring down the barrel of a gun, but when that girl got pissed, I ran for the hills. They were lucky, though; they didn’t see that part like I did. If they had, they’d understand! About two gigs later, we’re in the van having that I think to be a moment, and suddenly she sighs. “Sam, I can’t do this.” She tells me. I look at her, confused. “Do what?” I ask.

Faina gestured to herself, then me, and the open air. “This!” She said. “I’m just sixteen, I can’t do this. I can’t be your girlfriend. I don’t -- I’m not… Like other girls.” I was a little confused at first. Then it dawned on me. Leaning back in my seat, I looked at her. “Faina, I don’t care about that.” I told her. Then I made a face. “Well… That doesn’t define,” I mirrored her hand gestures. “This. This is not based on that. That isn’t a requirement. I know how old you are, and I’m a patient man. So when you are ready, you can make the moves - or let me know. If, at that point, you find it’s not something that you enjoy, it’s not something that you ever have to do again. I respect your wishes.” I didn’t want to say that it didn’t matter at all to me, because it did. I’m a guy, okay, I have needs, and if I absolutely needed to, I could find relief elsewhere if she was okay with that. I just didn’t want her thinking that it was an obligation.

Silence. “Not now. When you’re older. Maybe seventeen or eighteen. Okay?” She nodded. I really hoped that what I was saying wasn’t scaring her. So I added, “By the way, this… It doesn’t have to be a thing.”
She looked at me. “But I want it to be.” That was probably… The hardest thing she’d ever made herself say. For a minute, I was silent. Shocked. Finally, I flashed her a grin. “So do I. But slowly. Nothing too extreme until you say otherwise. Maybe just a kiss and hand holding. And before I do either, I will ask for your permission. Cool?” After reaching an agreement, I started the van. “Let’s go to Applebee’s.” That struck her as weird.
“But you don’t like Applebee’s.” She said, thinking of the last time we’d gone. I don’t know why, I’ve just never had a good experience with that damn place. That and limited time items piss me off.
“I like you.” Yeah, it was a little cheesy, but fuck it, it worked.

Now don’t get me wrong, I didn’t spend every waking moment with her. I kinda wanted to take it slow because that helped me from going insane, though I imagine it helped her too in the long run. I had specifically set aside certain days of the week for boys’ night and ladies night. The ladies all did their thing and the guys all did our thing. And little by little, I started to notice something. Isaac seemed to have an eye for my girl. Sure, it might’ve been a little early to call her that at the time, but to me, that’s what she was. I was always seeing him take pictures. He seemed to take a lot of her specifically. Part of me was okay with that; I didn’t know jack shit about cameras and it was sort of a comforting thought to know that such pictures of her, of all of us, existed. The other part of me wasn’t. Faina was mine. She was too young, too naive to notice it, but I wasn’t. Isaac wasn’t fooling me. But he never did anything about it, which I appreciated. I just wished that he’d find himself a girl, one more his age and speed. Cause really? My Faina’s a little firecracker. They do alright as friends. As anything more? I dunno. I just don’t see it. That would be a trainwreck waiting to happen, I think.

Years passed in the blink of an eye. The Ravagers flourished; with me as the leader, keeping my group’s fingers in a bunch of different pies, we were a jack-of-all-trades group. I liked that. It meant that there wasn’t anything that we couldn’t do. We didn’t dabble in drugs, of course, but everything else? Yeah. Occasionally I would be a hired gun. I was the face of the organization, the brains, the planner. Isaac was my right-hand man, my advisor, jury judge and executioner, my brother that happened to do all of the dirty work. My girl was my left-hand, the rest of the brains; she handled money better than I did, so she handled all of our finances. Everything was great. My relationship with her wasn’t an overly sexual one. In a span of three years, it only happened thrice, and I’m okay with that. Like I told her, that didn’t make or break our relationship. Truth be told, it just made those moments more special. In the mean time, I had other ways of scratching the itch - none of which involved other women; tried it once, decided it didn’t feel right, and never tried again.

Which was weird... But I guess that’s what happens when you’re in love. Funny how that worked out, being each other’s first loves. But as time went on, I wanted… More. Not for me, but for her. For all of us.

She deserved better. We all did. What we had going, it was good. It was decent. But we deserved better. My crew, my girl, they deserved a nice ass house with fancy fuckin’ appliances. The good shit that leaves your clothes smelling like lavender and feeling like a fucking pillow. She grew up as an orphan and Isaac was on the streets for a while… I wanted to give them lives. Better ones. Big beds without painful springs. Their own rooms. Big showers. Hell, I wanted to buy that kid a boat and take her out on the river. But to do that, I needed to do something bigger. I needed better work, better money than what we were getting. Isaac wouldn’t approve. He told me from the get go that he would never touch the shit. And Faina? I didn’t want her having a part of it; I wanted to surprise her. I wanted to come home with this fancy ass diamond ring and ask her to marry me with a deed to our new house in hand - that’s what I wanted.

And I knew exactly how to get it. So I reached out again to Leo, who stayed with those guys from way back when… When we met up, away from the prying eyes of my crew, he passed me some contact info that his mom sometimes used. There were two lists of people, all of whom I contacted. To get where I wanted to be, where I wanted all of us to be, I had to get into drug rings. Not the small ones - the big ones. And not just those; lots of supernatural gangs wanted specific shit. Some of them wanted drugs, others wanted black market supplies. Others wanted information and hookups. Isaac and Faina? They weren’t going to have anything to do with the drugs. They were also oblivious to the supernatural underground, and for their sake, I wanted to keep it that way.

At first, I did the deals all on my own. And man… I was putting away some good shit. Good amount of dough. I kept it mostly separate from our main funds; didn’t wanna tip off my girl, and I didn’t wanna spoil the surprise. I started putting money away, in two different jars that I kept hidden: One for the ring, another for the house. But it got bigger, and it kept getting bigger. First I brought in Lilly. Took her to one of the rings with me, free up my time for more work. Later on, I brought in the rest of the crew, gave them their cut of the profit like I promised. Me? I handled the supernatural groups. They handled the drugs. Of course, I did a few here and there, and checked their work, but the real cash came from the sorcerer and the wolf groups looking to one up witch covens.

The deals got shadier and shadier. The more risky the jobs, the better the pay out. And I was close. A few more jobs and I could reach my goal. I had a ring picked out, and a new house went up for sale in the town over. I wanted to reach that goal in one sitting; so I reached out to a big group. A werewolf gang. They wanted drugs - lots of ‘em - and they wanted at least half my weight in wards; some kinda trouble with a local vamp group or some shit. Sure, okay, whatever. That was the deal. But it wasn’t the leader, Reid, that helped to make the deal. It was someone else.

She was a shady bitch; I’d seen her a few times before over the years, smuggling shit here and there for some big named smuck that no one dared to mess with. The witch’s name was Reinare. She always wore a white uniform, like a military cadet. She would see to it that I would hold up my end of the bargain; the wolves had located someone to make their wards, but to pay her, they were going to give her half of the drugs that I promised. It was a three part deal - and I agreed.

It was supposed to be easy. It was going to be easy. I got Lilly the info she needed, and I worked my magic (ha) to get in the drugs they wanted. The rest of the crew helped out while I stayed back. This deal was sweet; the wolf gang paid in advance. Everyone got their cut, but me? My goal was done. After this deal was complete, things were gonna change. And I was definitely right about that part… Things certainly did change.

Isaac was starting to get suspicious. He was starting to wonder where all this shit was coming from, why the guys were doing this and that, blah blah blah… So I sat the guy down and I told him, look bro - this will be good for us. It’s gonna be big. Don’t be pissed; I promise that I have plans, but I made a drug deal with some wolves. And he took that a little… Well, he took it just like I thought he would. Well, sort of. I expected a “what the fuck, werewolves, what” thing to happen, but nah, he was cool with that shit. His concern was that I was putting us all in danger. Especially Faina. Not going to lie, that got me more than a little hot.

“Look here, motherfucker,” I told him. “I left her out of this for a reason. ‘Kay? She doesn’t have to know until it’s over. I’ve made all of the arrangements. The shipment will be in tomorrow, and it’s going to go smoothly. I already took care of it. None of us are in danger, bro. It’s going to be fine.” Me and my big mouth…

To the others, I was getting a little power hungry. Honestly, yeah, I was. Just a little bit, but I had goals. I had reasons. Good reasons. If they couldn’t accept that, then they could suck my dick. I just told them to trust me. Trust me.

The shipment went well; Lilly and the guys were able to get it out of port undetected. I met up with them later that night. “I already counted it, boss.” One of the guys, Mitch, told me. Mitch was one of my first guys. This woulda been our sixth year together in this thing. So he counted it. Alright, fine. I trusted the guy. We loaded the truck and made our way to the wolves, dropped it off, shook hands, and went on our merry way. Fuck yeah, we did it. I did it. It was happening, finally, after all that time.

After dropping them off, I went out to secure my first goal: The ring. The jeweler cut me a sweet deal; for a little green, he agreed to hold it for me until I could pay for it, and now that I could, it was a sweet, sweet victory. It was a 14 karat ring with sapphires and diamonds. Real fancy. Real shiny. Faina was going to love it. And the best part was, she had no idea. I had plans to get the deed to the house tomorrow. But as I was walking out with the ring, thinking about the future, I got a call.

It was Reid. “You think you’re a sneaky little fuck, don’t cha?” Hell of a way to start a conversation. “Where’s the rest of the coke?” I had no idea what the hell he was talking about. “What? It’s all there, dude. All 235lbs.” Or however many fuckin’ pounds it was. A lot, I remember that much. “One of my guys counted it before we brought it in.”
“I don’t give a fuck who counted it, Sam. There’s twenty bags missing. If I don’t have those bags at my feet by 9am tomorrow, we’re coming for you. Ya got that?”

Twenty bags of coke was nothing to sniff at. Reid hung up on me, and I made my way back home. No one was picking up their god damn phones. By the time I got back, it was about 3am. I had to push everyone but my girl out of bed and haul them downstairs - asking all of them where the fuck twenty bags could have gone. Long story short? It was Mitch; he took out twenty bags and stashed them in the van for personal use. While we were celebrating, he made off with them and sold them to other addicts for a hefty penny. Get something new for his corvette. A radio and some new tires, I think. The rest spent on drinks. Fucking. Idiot.... I couldn’t pull it from my personal funds; I didn’t have enough left after buying the house.

Frantically, I looked in the safe. There were a few times in my life that I wanted to cry, I’m not going to lie. That right there? It was at the top of my list. There wasn’t enough for twenty fuckin’ bags of coke. The others had already spent their halves. We were fucked. And with three hours left to go, after calling all my people to see if I could pull a deal out of my ass, that didn’t leave us with a whole lot of options. The crew was torn between running. I wanted to see if I could get a time extension with Reid. That was the only thing I could think of to do. Run? Psh, yeah, we could try. Wolves are fast, though, and they can be merciless. if we ran, we were just going to make it worse. And they were coming for us.

On the edge of my seat, I sat with Faina in our bed, letting my fingers trace the ring in my pocket. There wasn’t a whole lot of time left; she couldn’t be there when the wolves came. She had no part of it. So I took what I had left of my savings, and I woke her up. I pushed the money into her hands and I told her to make a store run. I told her to buy as much as she wanted, to get the good shit, and I watched her leave while the rest of us walked on eggshells waiting on Reid and his gang. They were early. I explained what happened, and I asked him to give me a time extension - that I’d double the amount. But y’know… Drug addicts? They don’t play by the same rules. When they want their shit, they want it right then and there.

Reid wasn’t having it. “Which one is Mitch?” He asked. Daft, Mitch spoke up. Without warning, Reid pulled out a handgun and dropped two shells in Mitch’s head. “Put the rest in the car. Grab all of their shit. Scrub the floors. Clean it out. These people were never here.” Reinare told them. They listened. Isaac and I were stuffed into a car separated from the others, driven away by one of the wolves while Reinare and Reid emptied the house. My brother tried to get me to talk, but I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. What the fuck was there to say? My girl was going to go home to an empty house. She was going to be confused. She was going to be sad, she was going to fucking hate me, and I was riding with my brother to who the fuck knew where with a gang of weres that were probably going to fucking eat me. I was fucked.

The driver got sick of his shit and knocked him the fuck out. We were unloaded separately. Reid and Reinare let the others have the crew. “Here’s what’s going to happen, kid.” Said the witch. “I agreed to spot Reid here of the half he owes me if I got a say in what happens to you and your people. My say is this: you’re going to stay here as one of them to fulfill your end of the bargain. You’re going to do jobs to pay me back, and you’re going to give what you owe to the wolves. If you try to leave, I will catch you.” Through clenched teeth, I asked her what was going to happen to the rest of my crew. “Oooh, that’s the fun part.” She said, “They’re all going to die, Sam. All but one.” The witch smiled. “Your pick.”

She expected me to chose a sole member of my family, my crew, to make it out of this… And she gave me to the count of five. If I didn’t pick, they would all die. I loved all of them, in their own way, but… “Isaac!” I shouted once she reached four. “I pick Isaac.” Grinning, Reinare straightened up, pulled up her walkie, and started talking. Reid pulled me up and shoved me inside. I was made to watch them all roll away, never to see them again, without the chance to even say goodbye. The witch went with them; she came back laughing. “You should’ve seen the look on his face!” She told me. “The others were gone. We let Isaac go, but… I couldn’t resist. I couldn’t just let him free without messing with him. That’s no fun, right, Sam?” Fucking bitch. She’d created an illusion of me getting torn apart by the wolves for him to watch. She made those same wolves circle him, attack him, laugh and leave him while he turned. They’d turned my brother into a god damn werewolf.

“One more thing, Sam.” Reid spoke up finally. “You’re with us now. And guess what?”
“What?” I asked, bitterly.
“This is a wolf pack, my friend.”

No matter how much I resisted, there was no way that I could stop the wolf from making me one of them. Or rather, the same as him. Reid was the only Jinrou in an otherwise Annunaki pack. It was my punishment. Making me one of them. Plus, as a wolf, Reinare’s magic had more of an impact on me. She made me into an obedient little dog for the gang… Even arranged to have me “rented out” by other gangs to do work for them. She said it was to earn back what I’d costed them, but I still don’t buy that shit. What that bitch had me do was often humiliating. Demeaning. Completely against my moral code. To say that she relished my torment was like saying that the Atlantic Ocean is damp. She made a game of it, really. Witches that I’d known growing up were never like this. Sometimes she would have me be a hired gun. Othertimes an executioner… That was the hardest for me. And it wasn’t because I had a thing against killing, either. I’d injured a lot of people in my line of work, some of whom I’m sure were fatal. Although I made it a point to avoid fatal confrontations, they couldn’t always be avoided in gang life. It was who she made me go after.

They were always people I knew. And if I refused to do it? She would do it instead and punish me afterwards with the cruelest magic I’d ever known. She trapped me in my regular body, made me unable to change. The itch to Change would get so bad that sometimes I started clawing myself, as if trying to dig the wolf out and make myself change. I still have the scars from it. This would last for days until finally, finally, she let me go. This lasted for months. I would be made to bounce back and forth through gangs, always to go back to them, under that bitch’s thumb. I fucking hated that cunt. My worst fear was that she’d eventually find Isaac or Faina. Thankfully, that didn’t happen. They were gone before that.

Gone, like I wanted to be. I wasn't supposed to be there with those jokers - I needed to be out there, looking for them. Making sure they were okay. Making sure she was okay. I longed to speak to them. Hear them. See them. At first, their formation was so tight that I couldn't even sneak a piece of paper from the printer upstairs to write notes on. I tried. Once I was successful; Reid caught me and read the unfinished note to Faina aloud for everyone to hear, then shredded it to pieces. Reinare just had this smug ass grin the entire time. Fuckin' cunt.

Fortunately for me, she didn't stick around long. Apparently she had other business to do. Something about going back to her Goddess? Whatever... Bitch was crazy. As soon as she left, things became a little more... I dunno, relaxed. Well, no, not really relaxed so much as less tense, I guess. Reid and his gang were really ones for torture. I was able to sneak paper out of that room. Started going to the bathroom with that paper while I had free time to write to the two of them, jotting down everything. Every thought, every feeling. That I was sorry. That Isaac was right. That he needed to find her and take care of her. All of those things, written down with the dates I wrote them. None of them were particularly long. They became almost like short letter-journals addressed to two different people. I used every part of the paper that I could in what little time that I had. And I carried them with me everywhere. I always wanted them with me in the event that I found them, because I wanted them to know that I never once forgot about them.

Not long after, when coming back from dispatched work for other gangs, I noticed a pattern. The gang was leaving an opening. Every day around 6PM and 9PM, the other wolves seemed to be on some kinda break and were abandoning their watch post. There was always a 15 minute window. That's it, I thought. That's my way out. Did I take it? You're damn right I did. I waited until 9PM rolled around. I gathered everything I could and, being as quiet as possible, booked it across the city as fast as I could. First, I went to one of our old meeting points, thinking that maybe there would be some kind of sign that one of them had gone back there. The old post seemed freshly used. Empty. Faina must've gone through everything. Smart girl. I could still smell it; their scents all over the place. They were old and stale, but they were there... And I wept. But I didn't stay there long. I had to keep moving. Hide my scent somehow.

From there, I went to a local pay phone and looked through the phone book. Yellow pages, white pages, all that shit. I didn't get far before they caught up to me. Tried to run, but couldn't get far enough. They took me back, but I always found my way back out. Without the witch's magic, they couldn't make me stick around, and I used every outting to keep looking. Keep sniffing and searching until finally, finally, I found their phone numbers. As soon as I found them, I ran as fast as my legs would carry me to the nearest phone booth. I called Isaac first. Faina sometimes had a habit about not taking calls from numbers she didn't know. Isaac picked up on the second ring. "Hello?" The sound of his voice, not mangled or broken but mellow, filled me with joy. "Isaac!" I almost yelled it. "Isaac, it's me, Sam."

"Hello...?" He repeated. "Bro, can you hear me?" Nothing. "Isaac?" He repeated 'hello' again. Shit, I thought, that movie shit where the person the main character needs to hear them over a line or whatever - but the other party can't understand or hear them - does exist. He only kept his calls to 3 hello's. "Don't hang u-" Too late. "God damn it!" Why couldn't he hear me? I tried again, but with the same result. That time he didn't get to the third hello. I kicked the phone booth, took in a breath, and called Faina. She was going to be so surprised. Shocked, probably. But I couldn't wait to hear her voice again. Eventually, she picked up and I had to wipe my eyes. I was so overjoyed to just hear her that the tears just started flowing. Fuck, man, this distance shit was really fucking with me, I realized. "Faina!" Silence. "Faina, it's Sam. Listen, I don't have muc-"
"... Hello?" ...
It didn't matter what I said or what booth I used, neither of them could ever hear me. Being so close and yet so far clawed at me. But it was something. I tried going to a different city. Even stole a guy's cell phone once. Nothing helped. They couldn't hear me.

Faina started getting pissed at the phone calls, thinking that I was someone prank calling her. It was kind of funny. She would always get so pissed and go on a rant, mostly saying that I should go fuck myself and find something better to do. At least I knew that she was okay. As hard as things were for me, hearing her voice was my escape. If I could just hear her voice... I could be happy. I didn't hear Isaac in the background though, and wondered if he'd found her or not. Still, no matter how pissed she got, I would always say "I love you", even though I know that she couldn't hear me. One time, however, I thought that maybe she did. Or at least part of it, because she went silent and hung up. Thinking that maybe it had finally broken through, I tried again. She didn't answer again that day. Every time I went out, they always tracked me down and took me back. They would change up their positions and shifts, yet always left holes in it, and I'd find my way out again.

At least until that witch bitch came back. While she was there, I was lucky to write. Reid kept busy most of the time, and kept me busy too. But as soon as she was gone and they relaxed, I was out again. Being able to just hear them, I think, is what kept me going. I tried running away. Running far. Only it didn't matter where I went. They always found me. I did this for years. Sometimes my calls would be days apart. Sometimes weeks... Sometimes months. But I called. Their phone numbers changed eventually and I had to search for the new ones. I found them. Then those numbers changed and I couldn't find anything else. Like they'd just fallen off the map. Then that fucking aether cunt started coming around a lot more and I was forced to stop.

Except this time when she came back, there were two people with her. A red-headed shifter girl and someone with a hood over their face, with a smell I didn't recognize. It was like... Grave yard soil, mixed with hate and fear. And something strangely familiar. As Reinare dragged them around, I realized that I'd seen them before when that witch bitch left the first time. They'd been on a leash then.

There was no leash now.

Reinare took me with magic from her stupid fucking glove, dragged me into a white room. The other two followed her. I fought her the whole time, even as she chained me up. "Sam." I hated her voice... And I growled at her . "This is how this is going to work. You are going to do exactly as I say-"
"Like hell I will." I spat.
She removed the mystery person's hood and I... Froze in time. The last time I'd seen that face, it had been laying in a crimson pool, eyes wide and mouth open in a silent scream. Now it was expressionless, pale and didn't have a scratch. As if nothing had happened. As if she'd never... Died. She'd been a mage. She'd always been so animated, so full of life... And uppity. God, she'd been uppity as fuck. But the woman I was looking at now was quiet. Obedient. Not a mage.

Sandra's eyes met mine slowly and lit up. But she didn't look happy. She looked horrified. "You're going to do exactly as I say from now on, Sam." Reinare repeated, stepping between us. "If you don't, your friend will be punished until you surrender. As long as you are obedient, I will allow you to have Sandra's company. Do you understand?"

As I unfortunately discovered... Reinare wasn't playing. If I didn't do as she told me, Sandra was beaten. She was bled. But when Reinare was really pissed... Sandra was starved, and I was forced to watch. Forced to listen as she went mad with the hunger, as she begged and pleaded and cried, clawing the ground and gnawing on anything in her path. Sandra had been turned into a ghoul. And until I bent the knee and groved at her feet, telling her that I would do as I was told - that I would do anything, Reinare turned a deaf ear to me. Only by begging did the torture stop.

I knew exactly what she was doing. And I... Couldn't... Stop her.

I was tortured, physically and emotionally. On numerous occasions, Reinare would cut me open - adding and subtracting things. I never knew what she did to me. But the wolf hated it. The wolf fought regardless. It got so bad that the wolf was constantly in charge, and I couldn't change back. They shocked us. Prodded us. Laughed at us. Attacked us. When changed, I always fought back. I had no control over the wolf. As a werewolf, I was a cornered animal in a constant state of fight or flight, always fighting as though my life depended on it. The wolf's goal was to kill before being killed.

She made a green gemed amulet. While wearing it, the wolf is suppressed. The second it comes off, he comes out. I cannot control him. But eventually... she...

I was... A proud individual. I was cocky. I was cleaver. And I would never bow to another person. I am a survivor, and I could never be broken. Until Reinare. After years of being her... pet... She succeeded. She broke me. The last straw was calling her 'master'. I am... I don't recognize myself anymore. When I had spare time with Sandra, I wrote my letters, but now I write them for myself. To keep some semblance of whatever sanity I have left. To remember that there was a time before this nightmare when things were good. To beg for forgiveness. I've tried to run, many times now. But it's never worth it. It's never worth it. We can't run away. We can't run and we can't die.

Sandra isn't the same person she used to be either.

I have been reduced to an attack dog on a leash.

Last year, Reinare took Sandra and I away from Reid to travel with her. While we were gone, I overheard that the pack had been massacred, their group taken over. I'd have rather been with them than my master. At least then, Sandra and I would have been set free.

Recently, master has been talking about the new 'hq'. She wants to take us to meet her Goddess. It's not like we have a choice...

Samael hated his parents and never kept in touch with any side of his family. "Skiles" may not even be his real last name. After they died and the streets became his home, the only people he considered family were members of the Ravager gang. It's only other survivors are the two people that he holds the most dear: Isaac and Faina.

Among the Reine, he doesn't have any friends. They aren't his captors. his keeper, Reinare, is his enemy and his master. The only friend he has left with him is Sandra, who was reanimated into a ghoul to control him, and he feels that he's lost her to their tormentor.

Werewolf

The Ghost of the Pit is a monster of a werebeast, standing at 8'8". The beasts' body told the story of the life he had been forced to live; every inch of his form was full of scars, bits of fur missing here and there. But the most prominent loss was on his muzzle - which had no fur - and his stomach in an 'X' and straight scars across his stomach. The same pattern matched his legs, arms and even his neck. A number of scars and other marks adorned his face and the rest of his body, obviously from the teeth and claw marks from other beasts.

The golden fur, however, is long and thick and hides most of those marks - and its bristling, prepared for a fight, making him appear much bigger than he already is.

In this form, so long as he's still wearing it, the amulet changes into a golden band around his neck with a single emerald jewel. When wearing the amulet, Sam can retain a form of control over his beast form. However, when it's off, the monster that dwells within him is unfettered... And is as unpredictable as he is violent.