Chương 77: A Real Second Chance

Twitch Fact was, Twitch wasn't built for this guard duty shit. It was just day in, day out of standing around watching people who were free go about their business, right up to the point where they found out they couldn't leave. That's where he was ordered to step in. Yeah, okay, indentured servitude beat sitting around in a cell hands down. And maybe he was being a little bitch because prison hadn't exactly been a picnic either.

Especially when members of his old crew kept turning up dead and no one upstairs seemed real interested in looking into it. So sure, when the opportunity came up to get out and maybe do something productive—get a second chance and all that cornball shit—Twitch had jumped at it. Not like he had really been given the chance to say no. It got him outside the prison and hopefully out from under the notice of whoever was offing members of his gang.

He had the sense his mother gave him and lied through his teeth about his Gift, which was the only reason he landed on guard duty and not... not something worse. So it turned out he wasn't going to die under 'mysterious circumstances' in a cell block after all. He was just going to die of sheer boredom which was interrupted every once in a while by being ordered to drag away screaming, crying people into a van. Then stand back to watch it pull away. Twitch used to think he was hard.

Turned out, he wasn't as hard as he thought. He'd just come back from one of those and he wanted a smoke so bad his hands shook with it. As an indentured, he wasn't given that luxury so instead he slipped out to the courtyard so he could at least get a breath of fresh air. Not like the ten by twelve courtyard was much of an escape. While it was outside the National Guard Marketplace, it was fenced off with tall wrought iron and spiked at the top.

At least it was outside so he could be alone for five goddamn minutes. Twitch found himself staring at the sharp points which topped the fence. How fast could he climb it? Didn't matter. It wasn't the fence that would get him, it would be the ankle monitor. These monitors weren't the type from before the System announcement. They had special mana magic shit. If you cut the strap, you died. He'd seen it happen twice and he'd only been here a few weeks.

When he'd first gotten it strapped on, the CO in charge explained that the punishment was actually 'death of the spirit'. It went past pain into actual grief you got to experience as your last moment. After seeing how hard those guys died, Twitch didn't question it. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. Twitch had never been the type to stand still, even before his Gift. He paced the length of the small courtyard, back and forth. Back and forth.

This situation sucked but he knew something worse was coming for him. Cracks were forming in the government machine. The higher-ups were exchanging bribes and guys like him were disappearing one by one, getting sold like inventory. Luckily, Twitch wasn't pretty enough to catch anyone's attention, but he knew it would only be a matter of time. He was drawn out of his thoughts by a sudden spike of alarm. He hadn't heard anything specific to tip him off but Twitch instantly knew someone was at his back.

Twitch started to turn and caught half a glimpse of a man dressed in black from head to toe. The man spoke, pure SoCal.

"Sorry about this, bro." Twitch swung on him, but the man was ready and blocked his punch with a forearm and stepped forward to grab his shoulder instead. Suddenly, Twitch was standing in the middle of a forest. He broke loose, back-pedaling away and looked around widely. A few feet away stood Thomas, that guy from the Grizzly dungeon. He was holding a stupid-fancy medieval polearm and probably trying to look threatening, but failing.

Twitch could never put a finger on what it was about the guy, except it was like seeing a golden retriever trying to look intimidating. Twitch looked around. He was surrounded by trees with no fence in sight. He was out. Then his ankle monitor started its warming beep. He got ten of those before the light turned red and then he died.

"Shit," Twitch said. Light lanced out from Thomas' polearm and the ankle monitor just... died. Twitch didn't trust it for a second.

"Get it off, get it off, getitoff." He bent, ready to rip the strap off with his fingernails if that's what it took.

"Hold on." Thomas dropped to one knee and split the strap clean with a dagger instead. Standing, Twitch stumbled to the side so fast he nearly ran into the other guy.

"Toss it! Get it away from me!" But Thomas just dropped it where he stood and the guy in black said, "I can do better." A hand landed on his shoulder again and the other reached for Thomas. Instantly, Twitch was... in another forest. This was probably different from the first one, but he wasn't a nature guy. Now he stood on top of a flat-top mountain or some shit. It was a high vista with wind and open sky and no clue where he was.

None of that mattered because he wasn't surrounded by a fence and he didn't have the magic monitor on. Twitch stared at Thomas.

"You got me out." Then he turned to face the teleporter because that's what the guy had to be, as fucking nutty as the world had become. The teleporter pulled off a balaclava, revealing features that were the absolute stereotype of a blond surfer dude. Except for the eyes. Those were hard like any long-timer in the gang.

"Call me Zach."

"Call me Twitch," he replied automatically.

"Also, what the fuck?"

"Yeah, we broke you out." Thomas had a painfully earnest expression on his face as if worried he had stomped over a point of etiquette.

"I hope that's okay?"

"Okay?" Twitch laughed and could hear it coming too high and too fast. He would never have to shove a sobbing, begging person in a van again.

"Nah, it's great, man. Really. Shit was getting bad in there, you get me?" Then he grew serious because he knew from long, painful experience that nothing ever came free.

"But why me? What do you want?" Thomas and Zach traded a look. There it was.

"We need your help," Thomas said.

"Remember the woman from the Grizzly dungeon? Jo? She's in trouble."

"It comes with payment," Zach added.

"Enough mana to get you to level three, and a cut of whatever weapons and skills we find in there." In there. That meant they were planning on diving a dungeon. Another place surrounded by walls, but no goddamn ankle monitor. And maybe, if he played his cards right, a real second chance. FYI: I just posted a chapter on my Patreon called "This Is A Game Changer" and that ain't a lie.