Memories were far more habitual intoxicated than sober. Sober, I opted to stay away from Africa, to stay away from my family, to stay away from that compound, from that couch, from that graveyard. I had grown up in the middle of trouble, in a home rife with it. I knew the metallic taste trouble usually left in my mouth with a seeping wake of crimson. I was well versed in manipulation, and in panicked phone calls that elicited fear-filled responses laced with violence. Growing up in a very poor township had taught me a lot; but then again, so had the back of my father's hand. I knew trouble, yeah. It had started so early that I had begun to think it was my middle name, bold and with a capital T. The woman in front of me seemed to feel the same, which made me think that was why she had gravitated towards me. Animalistic instinct told her that I was safe because I was strong, masculine, and knew trouble in a familiar way. Similar souls, similar auras tended to find one another. I had learned that by my own hand, and by my craft. When you have a glimpse of hell, you recognize the fire.

On the other hand, victims had a different aura. Sometimes, the hellfire burned the exterior down, stripping someone of their humanity and withering their skin away from their innocent, or maybe not so, interior. Some wriggled, burned, and smoldered in the fire. They began to accept their fate, their wounds refraining from scabbing because the fire raged on, and kept growing. As time goes on, others begin to smell the sizzling, burnt flesh and they feed on it. That kind of weakness never leaves you, and the victimization only hangs over you like a cloud saturated with acid rain. Others? Sometimes, people like the fire. It burns back their skin, revealing an inner desire to thrive, to become the predator that pulled them into the hole beforehand. They scab quickly, they embrace the heat. Some like to swelter, some even like the burn of the sweat into their wounds.

My sister knew fire like I did, but she had come back in a different manner. Time and time again, she'd been subject to abuse far more violent and harsher than I could imagine. Every time her lips opened to tell me about it, without so much as a tear or fear in her eyes, I gained more respect and felt myself wish I could be like that. Elenore was an angel, she was angelic and innocent and I ... Felt myself teeter once before putting my hand on the bar. It wasn't the alcohol, but it was the recognition of the same kind of weakness and innocence in the woman beside me. The men were preying on her much like those who had come before them, come before them with my sister. With any of my sisters, honestly. I almost felt a wave of sobriety come over me, but alas... That was false. I shook the feeling of nostalgia off, remembering the kind of men that they were, and the kind of man I was.

I had come from a very different kind of hell. I saw a glimpse of what I could be, and I pulled harder on those chains and bear traps than anyone I'd ever met. I could have ended myself, I could have found an end so much faster than my mind would have let my physical self would ever agree to. My mind? Twisted and sometimes more than I wanted it to be, was always over matter. I had let scabs come quick enough that by the time my sister had disappeared, I was ready for the pain of bias and scapegoating that my father had given me. I was ready for the taste of blood â€" truth be told, I enjoyed it because it meant that I accepted fate, and was going to learn from it and come out on top.

Men like those in front of us were absolutely nothing to me; it was a piece of cake.

"Oh, lighten up. It's just a silly piece of rubber anyhow," I said, amused with her fearful reaction. I concentreated for a very brief moment, willing the rubber to ebb away. "See? What tire." It was gone as quickly as it had flung through the window, the glass it had broken ebbing away to the sand it had come from. I'm sure my accent was thicker than usual, my proununciation nearest to slang I had grown up with. But the woman? She sure as shit wasn't about to wait around, because before I could start playing with the bottles of liquor behind me and arcing them gracefully towards the intruders, I had been yanked by my arm to an escape route at the back of the bar.

I was not about to leave without a bang. They had intruded with malicious intentions against an innocent woman. I may be familiar with bad intentions, but innocence is important in a way I understood far more than I would have liked to. The bar stools we had been sitting on conveniently were light, light enough that it took very little effort and energy and magic to expel them from their current locations, pinning the men against the walls they were nearest to. I hadn't even hesitated, pressing them tightly enough that they wouldn't be able to move and I might be able to come back for them later. Their breathing would slow, their panic would ensue...

"I'm not 100% sure of what you saved me from: an incredibly large bar tab, or being arrested."

I wouldn't have been harmed, and if I had? I would have enjoyed it as much as I had that first beating. The men would have deserved whatever rage I could muster. I reached in my pocket for a pack of cigarettes, feeling as if my heroic, albeit probably drunk, behavior warranted it. The alley was cooler than the bar had been which was pleasant, but it gave me impetus to run a hand up my own arm to kill the goose bumps that might have started. I shrugged at her words, finding myself oddly not angry in any way. Emotion, to me, was a roller coaster and often came and went as quick as the ride started.

" While I appreciate the sentiment, they would have deserved whatever I had to withstand to give them their own bullshit back," I started, taking a slow drag of my cigarette before raising my gaze to her's. I was nonaggressive, something an animal would understand. At least, now. She would understand that the hierarchy left me at the top, and rarely moving from that position. And what's more? I knew it.

"... I would offer you a ride home, but I honestly don't remember where my car is... "