CYPHER

Razor Sharp

BLADE'S STORY

Blade's name had once been Tristan Jefferson and he had been part of a pretty normal family .

They had lived in a county town by the west and his father had been the sheriff of the county's police department and leader of the men of Valour from the local church .

His mum had in turn herded the women's meetings and held regular sewing and knitting classes at their home .

The whole county had looked at their family as the ideal family , something they were very far from .

Blade however had never been a good liar , he had been a quiet boy because he was unable to relate his parents from outside with the parents he saw and knew at their home .

His father was always hitting his mum while avoiding her face and his mum had a drinking problem .

It was a whole cycle , they had a little argument that could be solved with just a short discussion but his father would resort to using his belt on his mum or burning her with cigarette butts and then when he was done , he would drive out for his night patrol greeting and praying with the neighbors while his mum would hole up in the pantry , downing wine straight from the bottle .

His parents had expected him to be as cheerful as the other kids when they were out but he could not since he was not sleeping well and was plagued with dreams of his mum's flesh being pelted , their house was constantly smelling like something that was burning .

He tried to get his mum to report his dad but she would always yell at him that his father loved her and was only slightly disappointed in something she had done , she would say that they were okay and would work everything out .

And she was right , by nightfall when they went for the evening service , they would both be exchanging loving smiles that seemed quite genuine .

During Blade's second year of middle school , his parents had an argument while his mum had been cooking and his father had pressed his mum's back into the stove , searing the flesh of her back .

His mum had fainted and Blade had run out for help .

When he returned to the house with a quarter of the county in tow , he found his mum and dad drinking lemonades and reading some magazines in the yard .

His parents had told the neighbors that he was schizophrenic and that they had been trying to keep it under wraps but he was getting more attacks .

The incident had ended with people praising his parents for taking care of a child that was so demanding and still managing to keep his condition within the family .

The next day , Blade had broken his father's sealed shoe box and taken all the money he had there , he had done the same for his mother's jewellery box and walked to the next town where he had taken bus after bus till he was satisfied with the distance between his family and he .

The streets were nothing like he had imagined and he soon found himself being shoved around and beaten up everyday .

The other boys his age would not talk to him because he was white and he did not blame them for not trusting him, even his parents had been racist and had encouraged it within the county .

His money soon ran out since more than half had been stolen and just when he was on the verge of starving , he met another boy who would become a huge part of his life .

His name that his mother had given him was Lulu and he had lived with his mum who was a cleaner for a rich family .

Even though Lulu was the child of the man of the house , he had still been thrown out of the estate when his mum had died of a sickness .

It seems his mum had not told everyone that cared to listen that Lulu was the son of the master of the house .

Lulu was a dreamer unlike the other boys that lived on the streets , he used to always tell Blade how he would one day run the streets and make homes for other homeless Latino and white boys .

They had started small , distributing drugs for the older guys and other errands and since they had always had each other's backs , they had quickly risen up on the ranks becoming the kind of men that Blade had hated as a child .

Deadly , constantly high and unable to respect women .

After years of living without a care in the world , Blade could no longer do it , he wanted out while Lulu wanted more and more .

Lulu said it was okay to stop when Blade told him of how he felt , so they had agreed to gradually take their hands off all the businesses .

It had been a lie and Lulu had been building his empire stronger than ever .

He had little Latino boys running everywhere , delivering drugs and guns , getting into gun fights , getting stabbed and dying .

Blade had never said anything about this since he had suspected that it was the work of their competitor , Carlos .

A man that the Streets had come to fear for being extremely ruthless and dangerous .

One day , Blade's warehouse was raided for weapon possession and even though the search had come up empty , he had still been taken in for being an accomplice to the famous Carlos.

Blade had found out that all this while , Lulu had been Carlos and he too had been working for Carlos .

He served his five years and came out a different man , determined to avoid the streets and Carlos in general which turned out really hard since Carlos had been building more and more during the five years he had been absent .

Carlos had tried to invite him over severally but he had ignored the invitation until a certain day when he had called Blade and asked him to speak to a girl that Blade used to date .

She had just up and dissapeared and since he was too high and had several other woman, he had never stopped to wonder why .

Carlos had put her along with her kids on the phone for them to speak to Blade .

When Blade got there , he was surprised to see how his ex girlfriend and aged and was even more surprised to see the twin girls that were as blonde and blue eyed as he was .

Apparently, she had left as soon as she found out she was pregnant because she had been afraid of something like this happening .

Blade had been too shocked to do much , he suddenly had twin twelve year olds that he had never done anything for .

And now , they were going to suffer more because of him .

Carlos had let the twins and their mother go because he was a manipulative bastard and had only wanted to shove Blade's mistakes in his face .

Blade was still living in shock when a week later , he had been contacted by one of the twins , their mother had collapsed .

Apparently , she had battled cancer before and had recently relapsed again and the doctors were skeptical about her chances .

She had told Blade that she had accepted her fate and had made inquiries for a school for the twins somewhere in Europe , she wanted Blade to send them there when she was gone .

Blade tried to sell his properties but it was hard to , the government had foreclosed some while Carlos had taken the rest .

He had not helped the mother of his kids that had been battling cancer while raising them so he had been determined to send them to the best school that their mother had wanted them to go to , that was the least he could do .

So , when he was approached by someone to play a game for seven days and win any amount of money he could claim , Blade had jumped at the opportunity .

He was not exactly in love with himself , so he had hoped that at least, his death would provide for his children and now , here he was .

With Carlos still here with him and making his life hard even here .

He had hoped that Carlos had not seen him last night but now , he was sure that he had seen him and pretended not to .

Or , he might have not needed any reason to pretend not to if that had not been the first time that he had seen him here .

Blade knew that he had to tell the others , at least tell them the reason why Carlos would begin to try to make their lives harder than it was .

But for the first time , Blade found it a little hard telling people what he used to do .

It worried him , What would May say ?

What would Dean think ?

And how would Jade react ?

Blade rolled around as he thought of all this .

He wondered what the twins were up to and what their mother was doing now .

She was usually on so much drugs that she almost had no idea of what was going on around her .

Blade rolled around once more before getting off the bed , there was no way he could sleep when he had so much in his mind .

Dean stood at his doorway , his eyes on Blade .

" How long have you been there ? "

Dean only chuckled .

" Long enough to see you tossing and turning like I suspected you would be doing ".

Blade blanked thinking that Dean already knew his secret .

" You knew Carlos from before this, right ?"

Blade nodded slowly , he still could not believe that Dean had found out already . He took a deep breath , he would tell Dean about it all .

" Carlos and I used to .... ".

" Wait... do you not think it would be too much to tell me and then the others later ? "

" Just sleep comfortably and then , we can all talk about this at once , for now , you should rest up , we have a long day ahead of us ".

And before Blade could reply Dean , he was shutting the door and leaving him alone .

Blade considered this weirdness of Dean in bitterness .

He was ashamed to say that when he had been Dean's age , he had been going around shooting at people and trying to get drugs past the border while he himself was high .

If he had been a better person , the mother of his children would not have run away from him the moment she had found out that she was pregnant .

He had ended up becoming a worse parent than his father whose whole being he had existed , he thought of all these till he finally fell asleep .