Rise of the Street King

Chapter 22: Scarred Night

The sun had barely set, but the city felt darker than midnight. From the rooftop, Jayden crouched, eyes locked on the street below where shadows moved like predators circling prey. The hunters had multiplied. What began as desperate hustlers had turned into seasoned killers. They were coordinated now, rifles glinting under the orange haze, radios buzzing with clipped voices. The bounty was no longer a rumor it was a war declaration.

Tariq’s boots scraped the gravel as he joined him. His shirt was stained with dried blood, his chest wrapped in bandages from the graze he had taken earlier. He followed Jayden’s gaze, whistling low. “There’s more of them every time I blink.”

Jayden didn’t answer. He watched the hunters, how they moved in small groups, cutting off exits, funneling through alleys. They weren’t rushing in like fools. This was planned. Someone higher was directing the hunt.

Tariq squinted. “Iron Fangs?”

“Who else,” Jayden muttered. His jaw clenched tight. “This isn’t just the bounty pulling them. This is a message. They want the streets to know I bleed. They want fear to choke my name.”

“And what do we do?”

Jayden’s eyes narrowed. “We choke them first.”

The rooftop shuddered as bullets cracked against the walls. The hunters had spotted them. Jayden and Tariq ducked low, sprinting toward the stairwell. Dust filled the air as chunks of brick exploded above their heads.

“Move!” Jayden shouted, leading the charge down the stairs two at a time. The stairwell echoed with gunfire as bullets followed them, ricocheting off rusted rails. Tariq fired a blast upward, buying them a heartbeat.

They burst into the building’s second floor, an abandoned textile shop. Torn fabric and broken machines littered the room. Jayden dove behind an overturned table while Tariq flipped a shelf for cover. Boots thundered above. The hunters were descending.

“Hold the line,” Jayden ordered, voice calm despite his racing heart. He peeked over the table, pistol ready.

The first hunter crashed through the stairwell door. Jayden put two bullets in his chest before he touched the ground. Another followed. Tariq’s shotgun roared, ripping him apart. Still, they came faces masked, eyes cold.

Gunfire turned the room into chaos. Fabric caught flames from muzzle flashes. Smoke thickened. Jayden moved like water, every shot placed with deadly precision. A bullet grazed his shoulder, tearing flesh. He ignored the sting. Focus was survival.

Then it happened.

As he pivoted to fire at a hunter flanking from the left, another hidden in the shadows pulled the trigger. The bullet tore across Jayden’s side, hot iron ripping flesh. He staggered, breath punched from his lungs, vision swimming. Pain flared white and endless. He nearly collapsed.

“Jay!” Tariq roared, blasting the shooter into the wall. He lunged forward, dragging Jayden down behind cover. Blood poured through Jayden’s fingers as he pressed the wound. His shirt turned dark. His first true scar.

“You good?” Tariq’s voice cracked with panic.

Jayden’s face tightened, sweat dripping, but his eyes burned steady. “I’m alive. That’s enough.”

But the truth clawed at him. This wound was different. It wasn’t a scratch like before. It cut deep, a reminder that he was mortal, that one mistake could end his story before it began.

The hunters pressed harder, voices shouting orders. The stairwell groaned with more boots. Jayden forced himself up, leaning against the table. He swallowed the pain and steadied his breathing. He could not show weakness. Not now. Not ever.

“Tariq,” he said through gritted teeth, “we’re not holding this building. They’ll burn us out. We cut through the fire escape.”

Tariq hesitated, eyes on the blood soaking Jayden’s side. “You won’t make the climb in this state.”

Jayden shoved him. “I’ll make it. Or I’ll die fighting. Move.”

Reluctantly, Tariq nodded. They fought their way across the room, blasting through another wave. Jayden’s arm shook each time he fired, but his shots still found targets. Every kill fueled his rage, drowning the pain. His legend wasn’t in how he avoided scars it was in how he carried them.

They kicked through a side door into a narrow corridor. Smoke poured in behind them. Tariq smashed the window at the end and shoved the rusted fire escape ladder down. It screeched against the wall, nearly breaking off.

“Go!” Tariq urged.

Jayden went first, one hand gripping, the other pressed to his bleeding side. Each step burned like knives. His vision blurred, but he forced himself down. Hunters burst into the corridor above. Tariq fired upward, covering him, before scrambling down after.

They hit the ground in the alley, panting, guns still up. Hunters shouted from above, rushing to follow. Jayden didn’t wait. He pushed forward into the maze of alleys, Tariq at his side.

Blood dripped with every step. He left a trail behind him. The city itself would know he had been wounded.

They ducked into an old garage at the alley’s end. Tariq barred the door with a steel pipe. Jayden collapsed onto a crate, clutching his side, breath ragged. He peeled back his shirt. The wound was raw, deep, bleeding slow but steady. His first scar of war. His proof of survival.

Tariq dropped beside him, pressing a rag to the wound. “You should be dead.”

“Not yet,” Jayden rasped. His eyes were cold. “Not until I’ve buried them all.”

Tariq studied him for a long moment. His friend wasn’t just surviving anymore. He was transforming. Every fight, every scar, every betrayal was carving Jayden into something else. Something harder. Something ruthless.

“You’ll wear that scar forever,” Tariq said quietly. “Let it remind you what the streets cost.”

Jayden’s lips curled into a grim smile. “It’ll remind me of what I owe them.”

They rested only minutes before the hunters returned. Voices echoed outside the garage. Lights swept across the broken windows. Tariq gripped his shotgun, but Jayden raised a hand, listening.

“They’re spreading,” Jayden whispered. “Sweeping the block. Too many for a straight fight.”

“Then what?”

Jayden’s eyes gleamed. “We turn the hunt on them.”

Despite the pain, he rose, steadying himself. He dragged a crate to the back wall and kicked out the rotted boards. A crawlspace opened into another alley. He motioned Tariq through. Together they slipped into the shadows, vanishing as hunters stormed the garage.

From a rooftop across the street, Jayden and Tariq watched the hunters searching. Jayden’s side throbbed, blood seeping, but his focus was sharp. He pointed to a group splitting off into the alleys. Easy prey.

“Two at a time,” Jayden said. “Silent kills. We bleed them till they fear shadows.”

Tariq grinned. “That’s the Jay I know.”

The night turned into a reverse hunt. Jayden and Tariq moved like ghosts, striking isolated hunters, dragging them into dark corners. Knives flashed, guns coughed quietly, bodies dropped without cries. The hunters had thought themselves predators, but now panic spread. Radios crackled with fear. The bounty was supposed to make Jayden prey. Instead, he became nightmare.

Hours later, the alleys stank of death. The hunters scattered, broken and humiliated. The bounty still stood, but fewer would dare chase it after tonight. Jayden sat on a rooftop, bandaging his wound with strips of cloth torn from a dead man’s shirt. The scar would stay, etched deep into his flesh.

Tariq sat beside him, quiet for once. The night breeze carried the stench of gunpowder and blood.

“You bled, Jay,” Tariq said softly. “The city saw. But you didn’t fall. That matters.”

Jayden looked at the horizon, where the first pale light of dawn crept over the ruined skyline. His eyes were hard, distant. “Let them see me bleed. Scars don’t mean weakness. They mean I lived when others didn’t.”

He clenched his fist, veins standing out. “And I’ll keep living until I take this city.”

As dawn breaks, Jayden and Tariq spot a figure watching them from a distant rooftop. Not a hunter, not a Fang but someone calm, smoking, as if studying him. When their eyes meet, the figure simply tips his cigarette and vanishes.

Someone new has entered the game, and Jayden knows the bounty is no longer the greatest threat.