Before I could get in her face and ask her what her deal was, Kayson interrupted with a pointed cough from the hall leading to the kitchen. He walked in and flooded the room with a delectable scent of fried plantain and seared snapper. His sister came behind him, she matched the same sallow skin as Kayson, though her face didn’t carry the same gaunt eyes. She looked uncomfortable—glancing at me and my clenched fists.

“Don’t know where you were raised, Luca. But under my roof, there is no fighting. Well, at least with fists. I’m afraid there’s not much I can do about the arguing.” Kayson said.

“B-bruno’s broke that rule before.” Suzaki tugged his collar, and the big man gave an award-winning smile.

“She stole my phone!” I yelled.

“Stealing is not allowed either, especially when making first impressions. Rein it in, Eve. I even went to the trouble of buying plantains, because you like them. The least you can do is behave. Apologize to Luca.”

She mumbled a half-hearted apology, which only served to make me madder, but Kayson had a point. This wasn’t my house. Ma would’ve smacked me with a kitchen utensil if she found out I behaved like this as a guest. I begrudgingly accepted her false apology, settling back down into my chair and scanning my phone to make sure she hadn’t taken any other liberties.

Kayson and his sister cleared the table, setting down the aromatic meal; his sister took charge of the conversation. She tried to mend the barely concealed grudge between me and Eve. For the most part, his sister was nice—I felt bad causing trouble, but that didn’t stop me from shooting Eve dark looks—Kayson's sister was a couple of years older. She was a student at a New Valentine University. She kept trying to bring up more pleasant topics of conversation, but we kept lapsing into charged silence.

The food was superb, the relief of the plantains melting well into the coconut-and-lime seasoning on the snapper.

Bruno on the other hand seemed to have a ball watching the tension between me and Eve. Offsetting everyone else’s unease by occasionally bursting into laughs or trying to goad me and Eve to go at it again. Soon after the meal started Kayson’s sister made an excuse to leave, claiming she just remembered she had an assignment due.

“Pfffft, didn’t have to eat so much, newbie. Could’ve left some for the rest of us.” Eve said as the dinner came to a close.

“Me? I ate a lot? Lady, you must of scarfed down three whole fucking plantains—then took two servings of fish—“

Kayson massaged his forehead, shooting us both an angry glare. A guitar riff of the euro-rock track playing in the background was the only other noise aside from our bickering.

“You must have something wrong in your head, dumbass—you ate half of one of the snappers in a couple of seconds flat. I’d be impressed if it wasn’t so damn disgusting—“

“C-can I go wash the dishes?” Suzaki fidgeted in his seat. Kayson massaged his forehead.

“No. Both of you, stop acting like children, right now.” Bruno snickered while me and Eve held an impromptu stare-off, refusing to be the one who looked away first. “I realize that you two have more differences than I predicted. But we need to pull together, not fight. The Brass Kings are getting into more trouble with this war. Things are escalating. Especially with that Tristan now pushing for more action. I’ve heard he’s trying to use the Seventh Division as bodies to take the brunt of the Crimson Eagles’ retaliation. We cannot afford to fall apart inside of our own squad. This isn’t a game, you’ve already seen people end up dead, don’t you dare think that doesn’t go double for you Bruno.”

The silence hung heavy. A sober reality with far more weight than a small feud between me and this good-for-nothing arrogant girl. Till died in front of me, just two weeks ago. And here I was arguing with someone over which one of us ate too much food. What the fuck was wrong with me?

Everyone else’s face read the same as mine. Kayson pressed forward. “We’ll be taking jobs for Captain Atkins. They will be risky. We need to trust one another, and work well together.”

“Yea… Listen, I’m sorry. I’m new and while I’m not used to someone nabbing my phone and just going through it, I could’ve been a bit more… chill.” I said, shaking my head. “I understand, I’m coming in and ya’ll don’t know me. I’ll drop it. This time.” Eve stared at me, looking a bit startled by the response.

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Kayson nodded slowly. “Fine then. I can accept that, I wish for us to all work together and get to know one another well. A new person added to any group is bound to change the group dynamics. It’ll be a process, but we’ll be stronger for it.”

Sure, I came in a little hotheaded and ruffled some feathers, but the analytical take was looking at it a bit too deep, right? I gave Kayson a weird look.

“No need to overthink it, boss! We just punch anything that comes into our way, haha!” Bruno clapped his hands loudly. “If we learn to punch hard enough there will be no threats in our way!” Kayson adjusted his glasses and sighed. For a moment, just a single second, I felt that the fact Bruno essentially agreed with what I thought maybe said more about me than him.

“I’ve been getting a bit better at slinging fists.” I wasn’t anywhere near the crazy fighters of the gang. The moves Romeo had been showing me offset that, by a bit. And I knew that if I fucked up and dosed up on bad luck, I just needed to give myself range. I’d started to test out the range of Fickle Fate like Romeo suggested, but hadn’t come up with any real insights on it, yet.

“Fists are a small thing. Tactics and planning provide strategies that result in more reliable victories than tossing bodies at a problem.” Kayson said in a dry voice. Bruno and me shared a look of confusion. Eve snickered. “I’ll cut to the chase—you’ve probably realized it already, but everyone in this squad has a Soul Seed. Most squads have a mixture of cultivators and mortals. Ours doesn’t. In fact, other than our squad, the Seventh Division only has three other cultivators, including the captain. Why do you think that is, Luca?”

“Easy. Other divisions get priority on people who can actually cultivate. Since they’re better.” Kayson scowled; Eve threw out a cuss in my direction. But my point stood. I was correct.

“Aside from a gross misunderstanding of the Seventh Division’s capabilities, you are partially correct. The Seventh Division doesn’t have as many cultivators since the other captains take them on a priority basis. But, the Captain has gathered most of us in a single squad to be her direct enforcers. The squad to tackle sensitive or difficult jobs. Applying a strong force at the point of a dagger often digs deeper than slicing with a dull edge.” Kayson kept remarkable control, despite my harsh comment, I couldn’t help but notch up my respect for the guy. “That is why she took a risk with you. Not because she believed your story about Tristan murdering your former captain, even if I did. But it was because she looked into your Soul Seed. Do you understand?”

There it was. She intended to use me, not surprising. Of course they did, there were no acts of pure altruism in a street gang, I couldn’t even be angry about it. “Alright, I understand. That’s the point of me being here. I appreciate that I aint getting fucked over more by that psycho and ending up dead in some ditch. But I don’t get what ya mean about ‘group dynamics,’ or ‘providing strategies,’ if ya want us to get stronger, then we should just train to get stronger.”

“Brute force only gets so far. We all have Soul Seeds. We’re all cultivators. Tell me—with that knowledge, how do you suppose you’ll work together efficiently without understanding what the person next to you can do.”

I worked my jaw, pointing to the obvious answer. “I do my thing, they do theirs.”

“Oh. By the Immortals! He’s like the King of Idiots—Bruno, give up your crown!” Eve laughed hard enough to tilt back in her chair. I shot her a dark look. Willing to slip back from angry stares to verbal jabs if I needed to.

“How do you know if ‘their thing’ requires you to move, or else you get hit in the crossfire? How many other cultivators have you even fought?” Kayson pressed his point. I did some quick calculations. Most fights with Tristan when an actual threat got involved… Well, he often packed me away in the back, claiming my Soul Ability was too ‘unreliable.’ Get unlucky once, and trip both yourself and a squad-mate into broken glass, and they never let you live that shit down.

“Not many. The other guys in my squad with Soul Seeds usually fought them. And they didn’t exactly spell out their Soul Abilities to anyone but Tristan. Y’know how it is.” I reluctantly admitted. Most cultivators kept things like that tucked to themselves.

“How many times have you fought side-by-side with the cultivators on our side?”

“…A couple.”

“I see that I’ll need to demonstrate my point. Alright, then. We’re going to explore some bars bordering Uptown together. Get to know one another, consider this our first training session.”

Bruno grinned and Suzaki muttered “O-oh no,” under his breath. I was at a loss.

“How in the name of the Immortals is a bar crawl going to ‘demonstrate’ your point? Let alone training. Drinking aint training. Hells, I don’t even got a spare spirit chip!”

“Don’t worry. I’ll buy all the drinks. Consider it a present from your lieutenant to his subordinates.” Kayson shook his head slowly. “Get ready, everybody. I’ll gather my things.”

“Hahahahaaha! Kayson you just made my week!” Bruno shouted, clapping his hands eagerly. Eve snorted, making her way to the couches and collecting everyone’s jackets. I looked around dumbly, not quite understanding what the fuss was about. Suzaki seemed damn near a nervous wreck. While Eve divvied out everybody’s colors, aside from mine.

She raised an eyebrow at me, then gestured towards the one remaining jacket on the couch. Didn’t need to say a word to get her point across. ‘Get your own, motherfucker’.

Bitch.