Chapter 1

Trigger Warnings: Language, mention of rape, mention of abuse, mention of drugs, death, violence.

POV Willa

West and I laughed as we ran through the alley.

"That was hilarious!" He grinned as he grabbed me and spun me around.

"That was risky." I added and he made a face and shrugged.

"Where should we go tonight? Gang hangout? It's close." he asked and I nodded.

West and I are twins. We've been on the run for as long as either of us can remember. We had mom with us until she died two years ago.

Mom was... odd. When we were little, she trained us in everything she could. Guns, knives, every fighting style you could think of, even languages and hacking. Hell, we even knew sign language. She said that we had to be ready for anything. She said that someday, THEY would find us and we would need to fight.

West and I could never get her to explain who THEY were. We had some ideas though. We were always moving too. Every few months, once she would get enough saved, we would move. New town, new school, new names, new backstory. even new ages. It was exhausting but we had each other.

Don't get me wrong, it was a hard way to grow up but I always had West and our Mom loved us. She took good care of us, even if she was tough on us. She never abused us and always helped us whenever she could.

Until she found drugs.

We were 12 when we first realized that Mom was using. I have no idea how long it was going on before then but we found her snorting lines in the living room one night, mumbling things about Liam and how he'll never stop. When she saw us, she ran at us and pushed us down.

After that, we saw less and less of her and when we did, she seemed enraged and paranoid. I mean more than she already was.

Of course, that didn't stop us from moving every few months. We just moved to worse and worse areas.

When we were 14, we came home to find her dead on the floor with a needle in her arm. I remember it clearly. West and I looked at each other and I checked her pulse. I shook my head at West and he nodded. Then, without a word, we started packing up. After we packed our stuff, I turned to West.

"We need to look through her stuff. To make sure that we get everything we can use and make sure that nothing can be traced back to us." I said and he agreed.

We went through her room and I found an envelope in one of her drawers. West and I went through it and found pictures of her with a man along with pictures of us as babies and five boys of varied ages. I looked at West in confusion and he shrugged.

"Who do you think they are?" I asked.

"I have no idea but we better take it with us. It seems important." he replied and I stuck it in our bags.

We packed her money stash with her knives and guns and left that vary night, not shedding a tear for our dead mother.

You may think us heartless but in honesty, our mother died the minute she started using. She was never the same after that. Plus she had trained West and I for this day. She had always told us that if she died or disappeared to move and keep running without her. So that's what we did.

For the last two years, that's what we did. We've been in this area for a couple months. West and I really liked it. We faked documents to get into school and decided to be juniors this time. We're 16 but we've been in every grade. Last place we moved from we were seniors but since we were planning on staying the three months leading up to summer, we decided that we didn't want to deal with the hassles of graduation.

That's something else you should know about West and I, we're really smart. Mom forced us to be. We had to study all the time since she would switch our grade levels whenever we moved. Most of our lives we spent either training, studying or moving.

You might be wondering why we would keep going to school if we could graduate and had no parents to force us but honestly, it was easier to blend in if we went. Adults tend to notice if kids or teenagers are out during the day and it puts us on the radar for police and other officials to start looking into us. That's attention we don't need.

Plus school gave us important contacts. Like here, we fell in with the local gang. The gang provided us with access to weapons and ways to make money. Things we desperately needed. Don't feel too bad for the gang though, they are always happy to welcome kids with our particular skill set. It's a win/win. That is, until we ghost them and they realize that our names, backstories, basically everything about us was fake.

Things weren't always like this. When Mom was alive and not strung out, she would get a job and then West and I would go to school. She would steer clear of all the gangs and criminal activity. Of course now, we didn't have that luxury. She would be disappointed to see how we lived but we really had no other choices. No one would hire a couple of teenagers and we had to survive somehow. Doing some petty crimes for gangs seemed like our only option.

I followed West into the abandoned building that the Vipers used as a hangout. I know, it's a terrible name for a gang but, oh well gangsters weren't always the most creative bunch.

"Twins! Where have you two been? Causing trouble no doubt." Damien the leader called to us as the group greeted us.

Ugh. Damien. He's fine as hell but unfortunately he knows it. He's been after me since we got here and I would have totally thrown him some but his ego just kills me. It doesn't help that he uses girls and likes to beat on them afterwards. Honestly, I really wanted nothing to do with him.

"You know it!" West called, pretending to like him when I know that he doesn't.

West is a bit protective and doesn't like any guy that flirts with me but he especially doesn't like Damien because of the way he treats women. West is no saint and has had his fair share of one night stands but he's always made it very clear to the girls what they are getting into and he would never and I mean, never, hit a girl.

"Debby, come here for a minute." Damien called to me.

Debby is my name here. West is Derek. It sucks. We need to buy a book of names to find some cooler names for the next place.

I grabbed West's hand and pulled him with me up to Damien who was playing pool with Clay. Clay's a meathead but he's a hell of a fighter. He's an asshole too but who isn't in this place? West and Clay start chatting as Damien looked me up and down. He smirked at me.

"When you gonna let me take that fine ass to my bed?" he drawled and I rolled my eyes.

I really athletic and I have curves in the right places. Guys seem to dig my blue eyes and dark brown hair but I am by no means a model. Especially since I'm only 5 feet tall. Guys seem to dig that too, though.

"Come on, dude. She's my sister." West whined as he pulled me closer to him in a protective manner.

Damien was the reason we were considering leaving soon. Originally, we were planning to stay another month to finish school but Damien was getting aggressive to me and West wasn't having it.

"Whatever." Damien scoffed.

"Anyway, we need to meet. We've got some heat on us and I need you two to cause some chaos for a gang that's trying to take our territory." He continued.

West and I smirked at each other. We lived for shit like this.

"Okay. What gang?" West asked.

"The Kings." Damien said and everyone around us froze.

"Seriously?" I spat out and Damien nodded.

"That's not a gang, that's the fucking mob. They're mafia. They'll kill us if we even look too close at them." West ranted and Damien snarled.

The Kings were notorious. They were blood thirsty and vicious. Brutal killers that didn't have any compassion or regard for human life. If you fucked with them, you were guaranteed to be dead the next morning. I was nervous just talking about fucking with them and trust me, not much made me nervous.

"I know that you aren't telling me no, cause that would be a death sentence for both you and your sister." Damien replied.

"Of course, I might change your assignment if your sister was with me." He added, pulling me away from my brother.

"Come on, Debs. Every King needs a queen. You could be mine. You could rule with me." he offered.

I played it cool and shrugged.

"Maybe. Let me think about it." I replied and he smirked.

He pulled me closer and I felt movement behind me. I looked to see Clay holding West at gun point.

"Sure, you have until I count to ten to choose. Either go against the Kings, fuck me in the bed down the hall or you both die. What's it gonna be?" Damien snarled as he put a gun against my head.

Damien began counting as I looked to West. He and I both knew that we could get out of these holds but the room was full of loyal gang members. The chances of both of us walking out of here with no injuries was slim to none if we went that route. We also knew that no matter how good our cover was, the Kings would never stop hunting us if we screwed with them. I was about to agree to fucking Damien as he hit 9 when suddenly everything went sideways.

I mean, more than it already was.

The doors were slammed down and cops in full tactical armor flooded in the building yelling at us to freeze. Damien froze as the rest of the gang ran. Thankfully, Clay let go of West and ran too. West paused to look at me but I nodded for him to run.

"Go! Save me later." I commanded and he nodded and took off.

"Let her go!" a cop yelled and Damien chuckled.

"Now, you wouldn't want me to shoot this pretty, little girl, would you?" he threatened.

"Let her go, Damien! We have you surrounded. You have no way out." another cop called.

"Nah. Baby girl and I are gonna walk out of here together. Otherwise her blood will be on your hands. Back up and clear a path." Damien shouted.

I took a deep breath and looked around as much as I could. I hid my smirk when I spotted the snipers upstairs. As Damien forced me to walk forward, I faked a stumble and leaned my head away from his, hoping that the snipers were smart. One of the snipers took the shot and I felt Damien fall to the floor. I hesitated and then decided to go full in as the innocent girl and screamed in horror.

Before I knew it, I was in a cop's arms and he was whispering soothing words to me to calm me down. He led me out and towards the back of a police car. I tried to stop but he kept pulling me.

"I need to get home. My brother will be worried." I cried but the cop wasn't having it.

"I'm sorry miss but we need to take you to the station. We need to know what happened to you." he pressed.

"That monster just kidnapped me off the side walk. He was going to rape me! Thank God you all showed up when you did." I lamented.

"We need to get all your information, sweetie. Come on." he pressed and forced me into the back seat.

Fuck! I can't go to the station. That was a huge rule in our life. My mom always lectured us. Who ever was after us, had the police in their back pocket.

The car pulled away and I looked out the window. I saw West a couple blocks away with his hood up. He sent me a look and quickly signed in sign language that he would find me. I gave him the I love you sign back and thought about the best way to play this.