Terrance Brooks
Muscle
Primary Attributes
The Chronicle
The West End raised Terry Brooks the way it raised a lot of boys—by teaching him early that love was something you proved with your fists and safety was something you earned with your silence. He was eight years old when he first stood between his mother and a man who'd had too much to drink. He was twelve when he figured out that the only way to keep his little sister safe was to make himself big enough that no one wanted to cross him.
His sister, Monique, was the reason he got up in the morning. Four years younger, with a laugh that could fill a room and a stubborn streak that meant she never backed down from anything. She was brilliant, sharper than anyone gave her credit for, and Terry promised himself that she would get out. She would go to college, build a life, become someone who didn't have to flinch at raised voices. He would make sure of it.
Football was his ticket. He was big for his age, fast, hungry in a way that coaches recognized. By high school, he was a name—recruited, scouted, talked about. Georgia Tech came calling with a scholarship that felt like a lifeline and Terry grabbed it with both hands.
The Dream
College was supposed to be the start of something new.
And for a while, it was. He was good on the field—really good. NFL scouts came to games, wrote down his number, said things like "future" and "potential." He started letting himself believe. Started thinking about the money, the house, the life he could build for his mother and Monique.
Then there was Simone.
Pre-law, sharp-tongued, the only person on campus who didn't care that he was going to the NFL. She sat next to him in Intro to African American Studies, asked to borrow a pen, and never let him forget that he was more than his stats. She made him read books he would have never picked up. She made him argue about things he'd never thought about. She looked at him like he was worth knowing, not for what he could do on a field but for who he was underneath it.
He fell hard. Fell first. Fell in a way that scared him, because loving Simone meant wanting things he'd never let himself want before. A future that wasn't just survival. A life that wasn't just protecting.
He bought a ring the summer before his senior year. Small diamond, simple band. He carried it in his pocket for weeks, waiting for the right moment, the right words.
He never got to use it.
The Fall
Monique called him on a Tuesday night. Her voice was wrong—too high, too fast, the kind of wrong that made his blood go cold before she even finished the sentence. A man she'd been seeing. Someone she'd trusted. Someone who had hurt her in ways Terry's brain couldn't process and his hands were already answering for.
He didn't remember the drive to her apartment. Didn't remember the door coming open. Didn't remember his hands finding the man's collar, his fists finding the man's face, the sound of bone breaking under knuckles that had never been used for anything but football. He remembered the way the man's jaw gave way. He remembered the way it felt to keep swinging long after he should have stopped.
He would have killed him. He knew that now. Would have kept going until there was nothing left to hit. But Monique was screaming his name, pulling at his arm, crying, and that was the only thing that could have stopped him.
The cops came. The charges came. The man pressed charges—felony assault, aggravated battery, the kind of charges that ended futures. The NFL didn't want a linebacker with a record. Georgia Tech didn't know what to do with a star who'd become a liability. The scholarship disappeared. The scouts stopped calling. Everything Terry had built, everything he'd worked for, gone in the time it took to lose control.
He told himself he'd do it again. He told himself that every time he looked at Monique, safe now, rebuilding, living with their mother while she finished school online. He'd do it again. He'd do worse.
That was the problem. That was always the problem.
The Sentence
Prison wasn't like the movies. It was louder, smaller, more boring than anyone warned you. Terry did his time, kept his head down, learned to make himself invisible in a place where invisibility was the only safety. He wrote letters to Monique. She wrote back, every week, telling him about her classes, her new job, the life she was building. She never blamed him. He blamed himself enough for both of them.
When he got out, the world didn't know what to do with him. Construction work, odd jobs, the slow death of watching his potential rot. He was too old for football, too marked for the careers that had once been open to him. He was strong, quiet, capable—and no one wanted to hire a man who'd done time for beating someone within an inch of his life.
His mother died six months after his release. Lung cancer, fast, the kind that didn't give you time to say goodbye. Terry stood at her grave with Monique's hand in his and felt the last thing tethering him to who he used to be slip away.
He was twenty-eight years old. He had a felony, a dead mother, and a sister who didn't need him to protect her anymore.
He had nothing.
The Offer
Dame found him on a construction site.
They'd known each other as kids—different crews, different circles, but the West End was small. Dame was older, already building something, already becoming the name that everyone whispered. He watched Terry work for a week before he approached.
"You're wasting yourself here."
Terry didn't answer. Didn't know what to say.
"I need someone. Someone who can handle things. Someone who doesn't ask too many questions."
"I'm not that person."
"You're exactly that person." Dame's voice was calm, certain. "You're strong. You're smart. You've got a record that means no one else will touch you. And you've got nothing left to lose."
Terry looked at him. Saw the man he could become if he said yes. Saw the man he was afraid of becoming if he said no.
He said yes.
The Right Hand
That was eight years ago. Eight years of debts collected, conversations had, lines crossed and uncrossed. Eight years of being Dame's right hand, the one who stands in the shadows and makes everyone nervous without saying a word. He's good at it. He hates that he's good at it.
He has rules. No women. No kids. No one who can't fight back. Dame respects them, mostly. There are always other people for those jobs.
Terry tells himself that makes it okay. He tells himself he's different, better, that he's just doing what he has to until he can do something else. He's been saving money for five years. A youth football program in the West End. For kids like him. Kids who need someone to show them another way before it's too late.
He doesn't know if he'll ever use it. Doesn't know if he deserves to.
The Weight
He doesn't think about Simone. Not if he can help it. He doesn't think about the ring under his bed, the one he bought eleven years ago and never gave her. He doesn't think about her letters in prison, the way they got shorter, the way they stopped. He doesn't think about the last time she came to visit, the way she said "I can't watch anymore" like it was killing her.
He doesn't think about her.
But sometimes, late at night, when the apartment is quiet and the city is dark, he opens the box under his bed. He looks at the ring. He remembers what it felt like to believe he could be someone good.
And then he closes the box and goes to sleep, and tomorrow he'll be Dame's right hand again, and that's the only thing he knows how to be.
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