Intermission I

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[a/n SO I'm doing short things called intermissions in this story to give some background and stuff. Enjoy.]

Song of the Chapter: "Cheap Shots & Setbacks" by As It Is

It was maddening in there.

After the fight with Oliver, I was taken immediately to the wing for solitary confinement. Arteaga brought my grey uniform to me, and Carlile firmly locked me into the dark, damp cell. I assumed that Oli was somewhere nearby, but I could hear nothing except the sound of my own heavy breathing.

I wondered how long I would be here. Officer Carlile had said nothing except "get off him" and "shut up" and there had been little to no explanation as to what the exact scope of my well-deserved punishment would be.

I was growing tired. It was late, and my body ached from the fight with a man so much stronger than me. There was no proper bed in the cell, only a mattress stiff with grime on the disturbingly wet concrete floor. I laid down upon it reluctantly, my sleep slow to come since I so desperately missed the feeling of Kellin laying beside me.

Flashback: 10 Years Prior

"Vic! Where are you going? Vic!" my little brother wailed as I stormed out of our shack you might call a house and into the beat-up car that was once my father's. My mother had lost yet another job due to one too many days spent hungover instead of at world. We'd already sold most of what could be considered our valuables to pay the bills, and our options were running low. I was sick of taking care of her mistakes; at 16 years old, I should've been focusing on school and my future, not on what I could pawn next to feed my brother and keep the water running.

"Back again?" the man who owned the pawnshop asked in surprise. He didn't appear to be much older than 22 or so, but he had a head for business and a strong build that made him seem intimidating. I probably gave him more business single-handedly than most of his other customers combined.

"Yeah. How much can I get for this?" I asked, digging around in my torn pockets to produce my old, cracked flip-phone. The man with spiked hair and tanned skin looked at me skeptically.

"Is this a joke?" he asked me curiously. I sighed, putting the worthless hunk of plastic back into my jeans.

"I don't have anything else to sell," I mumbled, looking down at the tattered shoes barely covering my feet. The man looked down at me sympathetically; I'd always been short.

"Come back here, kid," he said, leading me to the back room of his small pawnshop. There were stacks upon stacks of random crap people had tried to sell heaped into boxes, junk that maybe someday somebody would want to buy.

"I take it you're in trouble. You need money to support your family even though you shouldn't have to at this age. I don't know you, but I know what that can be like, and I want to help you," the man explained calmly, not turning around to speak to me face to face. I didn't know exactly what he was talking about, but the word "help" made me perk up.

"How?" I asked quietly, following the muscular man down a set of stairs. At the foot of the stairs, I looked in on a dimly lit room full of tough-looking men. Men who could've killed me with a single punch if they wanted to. There were more boxes, unlabeled, all around the room and one man openly held a needle to his broken veins. I looked in shock at the spiky-haired man. He answered my unspoken question easily.

"My name is Jaime Preciado and I want you to join the Southern Constellations under me."

Flash Forward: 5 Years Later

"I got in! Vic, I got in!" Mike's baritone voice boomed through the new house, empty except for me. He thundered down the hallway of the one-story home I'd bought for us, and we met in the middle.

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