West Antiok wasn't so much a town as it was a collection of buildings that had collectively given up. Giulano walked the cracked sidewalks, acutely aware of every curious stare tracking his movement. In a place this small, a new face was either entertainment or trouble—sometimes both.
Christ, it's like walking through a museum of broken dreams.
The locals didn't bother hiding their interest. Old men on stoops paused their domino games to squint at him. Women hanging laundry from fire escapes craned their necks for a better look. Even the stray dogs seemed suspicious. In his former life, people stared out of fear. Now they stared because he was probably the most interesting thing to happen to West Antiok since the last meth lab explosion.
First order of business: food. His stomach was eating itself, and the hundred-dollar bill felt like it was burning a hole in his pocket.
Lulu Supermarket sat wedged between a pawn shop and a place that optimistically called itself "Tony's Authentic Pizza" despite clearly being run by someone who'd never seen Italy on a map. The supermarket's neon sign flickered like it was having a seizure, casting sickly pink light on the sidewalk.
Lulu? What kind of brain-dead marketing genius names a store after their pet poodle?
Inside, the place smelled like industrial disinfectant fighting a losing battle against something that might have been cheese. Or death. Hard to tell. The aisles were narrow enough that two people couldn't pass without an awkward dance, and half the fluorescent lights hummed like angry wasps.
Giulano grabbed the essentials: chocolate milk ($10—highway robbery), bread ($8—for what, artisanal air?), and tortillas ($6—apparently made from gold dust). Every price tag felt like a personal insult. In his previous life, he'd owned restaurants that charged less for full meals.
The register was manned by a girl who looked like she'd stepped out of a telenovela—all dark eyes and defiant beauty. Maybe seventeen, definitely trouble. The kind of girl Theodore used to obsess over before his... unfortunate encounter with a wood chipper.
Giulano reached for his back pocket and felt nothing but fabric. No. No no no no no.
He patted his other pockets with increasing desperation, but the hundred-dollar bill had vanished like his former empire.
"God! Don't tell me I've lost my money," he muttered, checking his pockets again like the bill might materialize through sheer wishful thinking.
The girl—Maria, according to her crooked name tag—watched his minor breakdown with the patience of someone who'd seen every flavor of human disaster. Her dark eyes studied him like he was a puzzle she couldn't quite solve.
"Hey," she said, her voice carrying a slight accent that made even concern sound musical. "Take your time. You new in town?"
"Yes, I am." He forced Marcus's shy smile. "I'm Marcus Chen."
"Maria Hernandez." She slid his groceries across the counter without scanning them. "Take these. You can pay when you find your money. We're always open."
The gesture hit him like a gut punch. When was the last time someone had shown me kindness without wanting something in return? In his old world, generosity always came with strings attached—usually the piano wire variety.
"Thank you," he managed, grabbing the bag like it might disappear too.
Outside, the reality of his situation crystallized. He was broke, almost homeless, and apparently indebted to a teenage cashier at a store called Lulu. The irony was so thick he could taste it. From commanding millions to owing twenty-four dollars to a girl who probably makes minimum wage.
Hunger won the battle against pride. He found a spot near Antiok Community Bank—a building that looked like it had been robbed so many times the bricks were tired—and tore into the bread. The first bite was heaven, the second was reality: stale as cardboard and twice as flavorless.
A blur of motion caught his eye. A kid, maybe fourteen, sprinted past like his ass was on fire. Skinny, desperate, bleeding from his nose. Behind him, the thundering footsteps of pursuit.
None of my business, Giulano told himself. Keep eating. Keep your head down.
Seven teenagers rounded the corner thirty seconds later, moving with the coordinated menace of a pack hunt. The leader was a redhead with arms like pipe cleaners and the swagger of someone who'd never been properly introduced to consequence. His crew looked like extras from a very low-budget gang movie.
"Where'd he go?" Pipe Arms demanded, scanning the street.
One of his crew spotted Giulano. "That punk saw him."
Shit. They approached with the casual arrogance of apex predators in a very small pond. The redhead stopped just close enough to invade personal space.
"Where'd the little bastard run?"
Giulano pointed toward the alley where the kid had disappeared. Just business. No reason to complicate his life over some stranger's problems.
The pack started to move, but their leader paused, studying Giulano's face with the intensity of someone trying to remember where they'd hidden a body.
"You pointed us toward a dead end," he said conversationally. "If we don't find that piece of shit, we're gonna come back and redecorate this sidewalk with your face."
They jogged off, leaving Giulano alone with his stale bread and growing certainty that West Antiok was about to become very complicated.
He was halfway to his feet when the shouting started. "Got him!"
"Nowhere to run now!" Of course it's a dead end. This whole town is a dead end.
"Hey! You!" The redhead was walking back, flanked by two of his crew. Between them, they dragged the kid Giulano had seen running. The boy's face was a canvas of fresh bruises, and blood dripped from his split lip onto the cracked pavement.
"You seem new," the redhead continued, like they were discussing the weather. "We got a proposition for you."
The beaten kid looked up, squinting through swollen eyes. Recognition dawned across his battered features.
"Marcus?" Oh, fuck me sideways.
Every eye turned to Giulano. The redhead's grin widened like a shark scenting blood.
"You two know each other?"
The smart play was to deny it. Claim mistaken identity. Walk away and let whatever was about to happen happen without him. But something in the kid's eyes—the same desperate hope he'd seen in Marcus's photograph—made the decision for him.
In his previous life, Giulano González had commanded armies. He'd orchestrated wars and ended bloodlines with a phone call. But that was with resources, with respect, with fear as his weapon. Now he was just another broke kid with anger management issues.
The first punch caught the thug on his left completely off guard. Giulano's knuckles met jaw with a satisfying crack that sent pain shooting up his arm. Christ, this body is soft. But Marcus's body remembered how to fight dirty, even if it had never needed to before.
The second punch dropped another thug, teeth scattering like bloody confetti. The kid they'd been holding stumbled free, more surprised than grateful.
Seven against two. In his old body, with his old resources, it would have been a massacre. But that was then. This was West Antiok, where even the violence was discount.
Giulano moved like his life depended on it—because it probably did. Knees to groins, elbows to throats, everything his father had taught him about survival distilled into thirty seconds of pure chaos. Marcus's body protested every impact, but adrenaline was a hell of a painkiller.
When the dust settled, five teenagers were running like their asses were on fire. The redhead was on the ground, clutching his nose and reconsidering his life choices. His remaining crew member was somewhere between conscious and next Tuesday.
"Holy shit," the rescued kid breathed. "Marcus, when did you learn to fight like that?" When I used to kill people for a living, kid.
"YouTube," Giulano panted, flexing his bruised knuckles. "Lots of YouTube."
The redhead struggled to his feet, blood streaming from his nose. His eyes promised future violence, but his body language screamed retreat.
"This isn't over," he snarled, backing away. "You just made a very big mistake."
"Get in line," Giulano called after him. "I'm collecting mistakes like trading cards."
As the defeated gang limped away, Giulano turned to his new friend—a skinny kid with intelligent eyes and the look of someone who'd seen too much too young.
"Thanks," the kid said. "I'm Danny. Danny Reindgers. Remember me? "
"Of course, from SaintMary's." The lie was getting easier. "What was that about?"
"Long story." Danny wiped blood from his mouth. "But you just declared war on the Red Serpents. In case you were wondering."
Red Serpents. Even their gang name was bargain-basement intimidation.
"Let me guess," Giulano said, collecting his scattered groceries. "They run this part of town?"
"They think they do." Danny's smile was sharp as broken glass. "But maybe it's time someone taught them different."
Giulano looked at this beaten kid with his defiant grin and felt something he hadn't experienced in years: possibility. Not the calculated possibilities of his former life, but something raw and desperate and real.
"You know what, Danny?" He shouldered his bag of overpriced groceries. "I think you might be right."
West Antiok stretched around them—a forgotten wasteland where broken dreams went to die. But every wasteland needed new management, and every revolution started with two people crazy enough to believe in change.
The Red Serpents didn't know they'd just picked a fight with a ghost. And ghosts don't play fair.