Grig leaned against the crumbling wall of the slave barracks, watching the yard with eyes that never seemed to blink. His sharp, bony fingers drummed against his side, a nervous habit he couldn't shake no matter how hard he tried. The deal with Leon was on his mind—always one step ahead, always calculating. But before Grig became the sly, opportunistic survivor that he was today, he had been something else. Someone else.
And his story was as twisted and ugly as the scars that crisscrossed his back.
He hadn't always been a slave. No, Grig had once been a free man—or as close to free as a beggar could be. He had been born in the rotting slums of Blackwater, a city where life clung to the shadows like mold on a corpse. The only rule in Blackwater was survival, and it didn't matter how you achieved it. Grig had learned that lesson young.
His father was a drunk, his mother a whore who rarely made it home, and Grig was left to fend for himself in the filth-ridden streets. The only warmth he ever felt was from the fires that burned in the alleyways, where the other street rats gathered to cook stolen scraps of food. He had no family. No friends. Just the hunger in his belly and the bite of the cold at his back.
Grig's first taste of brutality came when he was eight. He had stolen a loaf of bread from one of the market stalls, slipping it under his tattered shirt as he darted through the crowd. He was quick—quicker than most—but not quick enough. A hand had grabbed him by the neck, yanking him off his feet. He remembered the taste of dirt in his mouth as he was thrown to the ground, the harsh laughter of the guards as they loomed over him.
"You think you can steal from us, boy?" one of them had growled, his boot pressing down on Grig's skinny chest.
Grig had tried to fight, but what could an eight-year-old do against the armored fist of a guard? They had beaten him senseless, their fists landing blow after blow until he could barely see through the blood in his eyes. When they were done, they hadn't even bothered to arrest him. They just left him there in the dirt, bleeding and broken, like a stray dog.
That was the first time Grig had tasted blood. But it wouldn't be the last.
He learned after that. Learned how to move in the shadows, how to steal without being seen, how to survive without attracting attention. But even in the slums, there was no escaping the cruelty of men. The gangs controlled Blackwater, and it wasn't long before Grig found himself under the thumb of one of the worst of them.
The Skinners, they called themselves. A group of cutthroats who ruled the streets with knives and brutality. They didn't just kill their enemies—they skinned them, leaving their bodies hanging from the walls as a warning. Grig had tried to stay out of their way, but one day, his luck ran out.
He had been caught stealing from one of the Skinners' supply caches, a mistake that could have cost him his life. But instead of killing him, the gang leader—a man named Roark—saw something in the scrawny boy with quick hands and a sharper tongue.
"Why kill him," Roark had said, his voice like gravel as he twirled a dagger in his fingers, "when we can use him?"
And so, Grig had become one of them. He didn't have a choice. You either worked for the Skinners, or you died. And Grig wasn't ready to die.
At first, they used him as a runner, sending him on errands, passing messages between the different gangs. But it didn't take long for Roark to realize that Grig was smarter than most of the other street rats. He had a knack for getting things done—for finding ways to survive. So they gave him bigger jobs. Riskier jobs.
Grig did whatever they asked of him. Stole. Lied. Killed. It didn't matter. In Blackwater, you did what you had to do, or you ended up skinned and hanging from the walls.
But the turning point—the moment that shattered what little humanity Grig had left—came when Roark asked him to do the unthinkable.
There was a rival gang in Blackwater, the Bloodspitters. Roark wanted them gone, but he didn't just want a fight. He wanted to send a message. So he gave Grig a job—sneak into their hideout, poison their water supply, and kill everyone inside. It was supposed to be a quick, clean job. No bloodshed. Just poison.
But when Grig slipped into the hideout that night, he found something he hadn't expected: children.
The Bloodspitters used kids as runners, just like the Skinners did. And when Grig poisoned their water, it wasn't just the gang members who drank it. The kids did too. He watched them die—watched as their little bodies convulsed, as they foamed at the mouth and choked on their own blood. And for the first time, something inside him broke.
Grig had never been a good man. But that night, he became something else. Something hollow. Something worse.
When Roark asked him about the job, Grig had simply nodded and said it was done. But from that moment on, he knew he couldn't stay in Blackwater. He couldn't stay with the Skinners. So he ran. Disappeared into the night, leaving behind the gang, the city, and the life that had twisted him into a monster.
But Blackwater had a way of dragging you back.
Grig had thought he could escape, but it wasn't long before the past caught up with him. The Skinners tracked him down, and Roark—furious at the betrayal—had sold him into slavery. It was a fitting punishment, Roark had said. "You want to run? Let's see how far you get in chains."
And now, here Grig was. A slave in a labor camp, working for the same kind of monsters he had once served. But Grig wasn't the kind of man who broke easily. He had survived worse than this, and he would survive again. He had learned to play the game—how to manipulate, how to make himself useful, how to slip through the cracks.
He wasn't a fighter. He wasn't like Leon, with his muscles and his military training. Grig's strength came from his mind, from the shadows he lived in. He was the rat in the walls, the one who could navigate the filth and come out on the other side.
But even rats could only run for so long.
As Grig slipped through the camp, his eyes flickering toward the overseers, he felt that familiar itch—like the one he'd felt back in Blackwater, before everything went to hell. Leon had made him an offer, one that could change everything. But Grig knew better than to trust anyone completely. He had been betrayed before, and he had no intention of letting it happen again.
Still, something about Leon's plan, the way he spoke about freedom—it stirred something inside him. Maybe, just maybe, this was his way out. Maybe this was his chance to finally escape the chains that had bound him for so long.
But Grig knew one thing for sure.
In this world, freedom always came at a cost.
And Grig was willing to pay it—no matter how many bodies he had to step over.