Grim

In the heart of the slums, where smoke rises like prayers and steel bleeds rust, there was a gang feared and respected: The Bite Dogs. At their head stood Grim sharp eyes, sharper mind. He ruled the district known as Best Life, a place named in bitter irony, where survival was a daily war. Grim was untouchable. Until one night. She came with red lips and promises of fast money a setup cloaked in perfume. Grim went with her, hoping to score enough for his crew to eat for a week. But the drink she handed him turned his world into static. When he woke, the sky was gone. So was freedom. Three years vanished behind iron walls and nameless hands. I searched every alley, broke bones, cracked skulls. My name spread like fire: Grim’s boyfriend the quiet storm. They called me Reck, and I lived up to it. But there were no leads. Just silence. Until last week. A pawn shop downtown sold a guitar our guitar, the one we used in underground rock gigs, blood-stained from bar fights and dreams. Inside the case was a torn photo Grim, dazed, with a number scrawled on the back. The clues began to surface like oil in water: cryptic notes in old haunts, hidden keys behind bricks, puzzles leading deeper into the city’s rotten core. I followed every thread, my fists doing the talking when needed. Then I heard a whisper in an abandoned train yard: “The Phantom Ward keeps those they break.” It wasn’t a place. It was a prison, private and cruel, hidden beneath the city. That’s where they had him. Grim wasn’t just a leader he was family, power, love. And I would raze hell to bring him home. We were Bite Dogs. We don’t let go.