The meeting was held at an old warehouse at The Pit.

Outside the warehouse was surrounded by small white flowers, covered in them, and on the side of the building were several strange symbols, only known to the most unsavory of characters in the area. All everyone knew around there was to avoid it because the people who came and left were not to be trusted and there were always fireworks and explosions going off, fights happening, gunshots, and drug deals.

Aster tried dressing for the occasion. He didn't know what gang members wore or acted, so he tried to wear black jeans, pants, a white shirt, and a leather jacket. He looked more like someone playing a gangster in a movie than an actual gangster.

Because of this, he looked quite suspicious when he came to the location given earlier.

Loud thumping music came from outside, bright lights echoed, and Aster was confused if this was the right place. It looked more like a rave than a gang meeting. He awkwardly stood in front of the building instead of going inside, and a teenager with dyed grey hair wearing combat boots, a skirt, and a crop top approached him. She was smoking, and Aster was about to tell her to stop but held his tongue when he saw the dead look in her eyes.

"Who the fuck are you," she asked.

"Aster."

She snorted and Aster chalked her behavior up to the problems of a lack of parenting.

"You gave your real name," the girl said. "You must be new, brave, or you don't belong here....which is it?"

"I belong, I belong, Kylan invited me, I swear," Aster insisted.

She took a long drag of her cigarette and decided not to mug him.

"Where'd you meet him," she asked.

"High school."

She nodded in approval and decided to let him inside.

Aster followed her into the strobing light show inside. The warehouse seemed to be divided into little sections for different groups of people and different activities. One part had younger people sitting on beanbag chairs eating food, smoking, drinking, and kissing. A DJ in the corner was playing the worst music he had ever heard in his life and Aster thought this was the weirdest gang recruitment meeting he had ever seen. Most of the people in the group weren't young, they were older adults, and some looked well-dressed too. They had their section on the far left side of the warehouse, with a long table, many chairs, and a minibar. It looked more like a networking event than a meeting of gangbangers.

Aster clearly did not belong and was not good at hiding it. While the girl led him through the warehouse to a metal staircase, he was swiveling his head left to right, looking at all the different groups. Some of them didn't seem as bad as the others, and hoped that Kylan was right, it wasn't a gang after all.

The young girl led Aster up a metal staircase to the floor above, and inside was an office with Kylan and a few others inside. When Aster opened the door Kylan went from serious to thrilled.

"ASTER," he shouted.

"Aster," everyone else shouted. "Get in here!"

Many were tipsy and greeted whoever entered the room with open arms, like they were long-lost friends, even if they had never met before. Aster laughed nervously at the over-enthusiasm and regretted not bringing his kitchen knife.

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"Thanks for helping him find his way, Ash," Kylan said.

"No problem. I'll be downstairs keeping watch if you need me," she said.

The moment she left Aster felt comfortable enough to ask questions.

"Why is a teenager your security guard," he asked.

"Because she's scary and people are pussies," someone replied.

Everyone laughed and Aster did not want to admit that he found Ash scary and laughed along with them.

"Who are you," a man asked.

He wore a green shirt, boots, and baggy pants. His face was covered with a motorcycle helmet decorated with various stickers, muffling his voice, which he kept rubbing the back of. He sat on top of the desk in the center of the room.

Aster felt he was in charge because when he spoke, everyone went quiet.

"Who...am...I..," Aster said slowly. "I am...."

He did not want to give his real name because of Ash's reaction from earlier. But the longer he hesitated the more everyone became more suspicious of him.

"Aster, his name is Aster," Kylan said.

"Oh, cool man. I'm Ghost!"

"Why do they call you Ghost," Aster asked.

He pulled up his left shirt sleeve and showed a tattooed silly cartoon ghost sticking its tongue out.

"Because if you get on my shortlist I'll make you a ghost," he explained.

"What's the shortlist?"

"Explain to him what the shortlist is, Kylan."

Kylan got up from the desk chair next to Ghost and had a giant smile on his face while he explained their murderous plots.

"The shortlist is a list of people we kill," Kylan said. "We try to keep it as short as possible!"

"Oh. You're rebels with a cause," Aster said hopefully.

"No," Ghost corrected him. "If the list gets too long they're we're doing something wrong. Gotta keep it short."

The room started cheering, keep it short, keep it short, and someone brought out more drinks from the mini-fridge. Kylan offered him one, and Aster drank because he wanted to fit in, even for a moment, and then gain Kylan's trust to get him to leave.

His plan wasn't working very well so far.

"So uh, what is this place," Aster asked Ghost. "What do you do here?"

"We're a group of like-minded individuals that believe in social change," they shouted in unison.

"No, but seriously we can't tell you what we are. You're a visitor," Ghost said. "Nothing wrong with visitors."

Ghost got off the desk and in a cheery voice he explained why visitors are visitors.

"Visitors come and go! They're temporary! We don't want you never leaving," Ghost replied.

"So I can know nothing and leave, or I can stay and never leave the group," Aster asked.

"He's getting it! We've got a genius here!"

"That's right, I TOLD YOU HE WAS SMART," Kylan shouted.

Ghost took a few steps toward Aster and Aster was surprised that Ghost was a lot shorter than he was when he was close up. His palms had ash all over them and he smelled slightly of chemicals and cologne. He started to walk around Aster slowly, in a circle, like a shark waiting for its prey to fall out of a boat.

"Heard you were a doctor," Ghost said. "True?"

"I am n-"

Aster saw the urgent look on Kylan's face and quickly changed his sentence.

"I am n- now! Just finishing med school," Aster said.

"Cool, cool. We need someone to patch us up after we have uh...fun," Ghost said.

"Yeah, fun," one of his goons repeated. "Like what you did today."

"It was nothing," Aster said.

"No, man, that was everything," Ghost said. "I mean, a little light stabbing can go too far when you're drunk sometimes with friends, y'know? We've all been there."

"Wait. They really stabbed each other on accident," Aster clarified.

"Yeah, that's what happened," Kylan said.

Everyone in the room agreed, and Ghost discussed locking up knives whenever they were drinking, or at least making sure one person was sober during every meeting. He was weirdly charismatic for a man whose face none had ever seen, and whenever he spoke, everyone in the room hung onto every word like it was scripture.

"So how about this," Ghost suggested. "We come to your place and patch us up, we give you some extra cash."

"I don't need the money," Aster said.

"So you want to work for free? Wild!"

"No, I mean-"

Aster again saw a look of panic from Kylan and changed his tune.

"I think that the clinic is not the best...place....for your specific...needs," Aster said.

Ghost nodded, looking a tad silly with the helmet bobbing up and down, a little too loose for his head.

"Cool, so we get you your own office, got it," Ghost said.

Aster was about to object by saying he had class, but then he knew he would be caught in his lie of just completing med school. He couldn't think of any more excuses to give him and caved in.

"I'm not a visitor anymore, am I?"

"Nah, man, you're a brother," Ghost said.

Aster did not want them calling him brother. He already had brothers from the military academy. He felt nauseous that they thought he would be easily swayed, and understood why Kylan had joined after leaving school.

He missed his brothers.

"Welcome to Rhiannon's Revenge, brother," Ghost said. "Hope you like it here."