baby girl, you the shh...

He grew up in fear, nestled in his bed with his older brother’s hands over his ears. The screaming was only muffled, the sound of his mother’s pleading underneath his father’s shouts and the inevitable crash of kitchenware.

His mother had locked him up in his bedroom with his brother the night she was packing their bags. Their father was home early and all their things were quickly stuffed beneath their beds when she kissed them and went to investigate.

Their new beginning ended when his mother’s blood curdling scream resounded through the house. His brother told him not to move, kissing his head before running down to check on them. Trevor, perhaps in spite of his upbringing, was a curious boy and left his room when his brother didn’t return for him, walking straight into a horror movie.

He found all three of them on the floor of the living room, a growing puddle of blood soaking the carpeting. Near the entire room’s flooring was squishing under his slippered feet when he stepped inside. To this day, the image of their faces, his mother’s frozen horror, brother’s resolute determination in the face of death and passive eyes of his father, give him nightmares, his own screams waking him up.

It took two days before the neighbors came around, discovering the grisly murder suicide and Trevor was swept away to an orphanage.

He made only one friend in the eight years he was shuffled between foster homes, the growing list of names markered onto the lining of his brother’s old hoodie. Her name was Steffie Hardy, her story significantly less terrifying than his own. She smiled with her whole face and fit snugly under his arm when he wrapped it around her shoulders.

At the age of eighteen, Steffie was pushed from the foster families and into the cold dark world, dragging Trevor after herself. She promised him a life, even if it wasn’t going to be perfect. The two of them against the world, an unstoppable pair.

Trevor, however, was desperate to pay her back and finding a job at the age of 16 was near impossible. He grasped at straws in convenience stores in the thick of Los Santos, and then liquor stores and eventually he found himself on street corners, hands in his pockets and eyes smeared with liner.

It was his in into the dark underworld of Los Santos, the way he left at night without telling Steffie exactly what he was up to. She was working in the middle of the day as an accountant and Trevor relied on her tiredness helping him out of the house without question.

His first was when he was 17 and he panicked.

Getting an older gentleman’s attention was easy, leaning on the car window and smiling at him when he pulled up. And he was easy on the eyes, offering his passenger seat to Trevor and a soft bed in a motel.

When his hands wrapped around his throat, Trevor panicked. He thought it was it for him. His death, only 17 and found in a motel room in his boxers. He didn’t even say goodbye to Steffie that night.

His frantic thrashing put the man off, pulling back to strike him. It was a movement that Trevor got used to when he was young, was still used to, but it was like a switch had turned inside of him. He lifted his eyes from the floor and grabbed for the ankle of the man’s slacks, tripping him hard on the ground.

The sound was dull, the man falling heavily onto his back and Trevor reached for the pen on the desk in the corner of the room. He crouched on top of him and jammed the pen in his neck. The man sputtered and gasped, reaching up to stem the flow of blood from his jugular but it only took less than a minute for him to slouch on the ground, wide dead eyes still looking at Trevor.

Trevor swallowed and picked himself up, snatching all the cash in the man’s wallet and his clothes, walking out of the motel.

It was the first kill on a slippery slope in Los Santos that had a new killer’s name on everyone’s lips. People want to know who a new player in a deadly game is, but Trevor hid in the shadows, the blood staining his fingertips no matter how many times he washed them. He didn’t get involved in things like that, his first and last kill in his mind.

Until it got dangerous, and someone told someone who told someone and put them in Trevor’s path.

His second and third kills were faster, in quick succession from a pimp looking to make money off of Trevor’s young ass. Trevor wasn’t having it and smiled sweetly as the blood pumped from their wounds and onto the dirty concrete in a back alley in Los Santos.

“You’re sloppy,” someone said and Trevor spun around to look at the owner of the voice behind him. “You’re efficient, but you’re gonna get caught like that,” a black, skull mask told him.

“I can learn.”

“Better do it fast because it’d be a real shame to lose so much potential,” he joked and disappeared into the shadows. Trevor lifted the blade in his hands, still red and shiny with blood, to his face and wiped it on his jeans before closing the switch blade and walking out the alley himself.

Abandoning his street corner, he started doing modest hits for gangs in the area. He was more than glad to use his newfound talent but he was hesitant to tell Steffie, keeping his duffle of slowly accumulating cash under his mattress. He didn’t know how to tell Steffie about what he was doing, until she found it.

“Steff-”

“How?” She asked, bristling the cash with her thumb and lifted her eyes to look at him.

“I’m a hitman, for people. It’s pretty fucking bad.”

“You got a name?”

“What do you mean?”

“You gonna be a pro, you gotta get a moniker.”

“Zed.”

“Alright, Zed. Let’s make some more money.”

Steffie dropped out of accounting and starting managing his hits. They were a crime creating time, Trevor’s sharp smile in the dark of the night striking fear into anyone and everyone’s hearts. Steffie counted cash and took hit requests, learning the right way to holster a gun at her belt for her own safety from Trevor.

“I don’t really-”

“I’m nothing without you, Steff,” Trevor told her, strapping the thigh holster tightly around her leg. Steffie lifted her eyes from the pistol held in her hand and into Trevor’s eyes. “I’m not losing you to these assholes.”

Steffie nodded and she turned the gun over in her hands, sliding it into her holster.

Zed’s hits got bigger and bigger names until they were all Los Santos could hear about. He rarely traveled out of the city, keeping tabs on Steffie and the people who were looking to push him out of the game. He smiled at assassins that came after him while he drained their blood and shot bullets into their bodies. He was a dastardly guy, the last one you wanted to meet in a dark alley if there was a bounty on your head.

“I’m surprised, kid,” the black mask told him when he was 24 and sliding a knife into his sheath. He lifted his head from the dead body, picking himself up to his feet. “You really came into your own.”

“We meet again, Vagabond.”

“You know who I am, now.”

“Aren’t you working with the FAHC now?” Zed asked, his voice carefully monotoned and his eyes impassive in the shadows. He didn’t dare step up to the Vagabond.

“Yeah. They’ve been asking about you.”

“I’m solo.”

“Not so. I heard about your little girlfriend.”

“She’s just a friend,” Zed replied, clenching his fists. “What do you want with her?”

“Nothing. But there’s room for both of you. If you want in.”

“And be bottom ranked when we’re doing so well out here? I’d have to be crazy.”

dad says i just didn’t want to go