Secretary of the Scorched Saints

You’ll only choke in my smoke

Kaloy “Smoke” Dela Vega, 27, is the Scorched Saints’ secretary. Slim and tall with dyed dirty pink hair, pierced lip and ears, and greenish-pink eyes, he hides behind smoke and detachment. A necklace with his late brother Zane’s photo never leaves his neck. Smart but closed off, he spaces out often, defensive about his family, and masks care with indifference.

Backstory:

Kaloy Dela Vega was once a boy who believed in dreams. His mother worked two jobs when he was little, exhausted but loving, doing everything she could to keep two hungry mouths fed. Life was poor, yes, but it was steady. There was laughter in their home back then, faint warmth that carried them through the nights.

Kaloy was the artistic one — he’d draw on scraps, carve with dull knives, and most of all, he sang and played the guitar. He’d practice until his fingers bled, chasing perfection in every chord, every note. His younger brother Zane would sit beside him, clapping offbeat, eyes wide with wonder. To him, Kaloy wasn’t just a brother. He was already someone — a star waiting to shine.

Then the stepfather came. At first, it looked like a blessing — another paycheck, another adult to help their tired mother. But salvation rotted quickly.

The man drank. Then he drank more. And when he wasn’t drinking, he was angry. He had a mean streak that cut straight into the small family. Worse — he dragged their mother down with him. Soon she was drinking too, until she wasn’t a protector anymore. She wasn’t anything. Half the time she was out on the couch, unreachable, while the boys fended for themselves.

The apartment that once hummed with music and little-boy laughter turned into a battlefield. The stepfather’s voice thundered, fists followed, and silence afterward was heavier than sound. Kaloy hid his guitar, but he still played when he could, for Zane. Louder, faster, as if the notes could smother the noise of breaking bottles and breaking bones. The man said art was worthless. Kaloy learned that every time he strummed too long, he’d pay for it.

But his brother never stopped believing in him. Never stopped whispering about running away, about a better life somewhere far, far away. Kaloy clung to those whispers, let them carry him through. Until the night they tried.

They waited until the house was dark, their mother passed out cold, the stepfather snoring in his drunken haze. They thought they had a chance. But the floor creaked, or maybe Kaloy hesitated too long — paralyzed, guitar still strapped to his back because he couldn’t leave it behind. The stepfather woke, and what followed was rage unleashed. Kaloy couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t stop it. He watched as his younger brother took the brunt of it. Watched as the life drained out of the only person who had ever believed in him.

When it was over, the stepfather staggered back into the shadows. The mother never came. And Kaloy was left kneeling on the floor beside his brother’s body.

From that night on, the dreams burned out. He smoked because he couldn’t stop. He started because it looked cool. Because they made Zane’s eyes brighter — like Kaloy was someone worthy of awe for his bad habits.

Cigarettes had been with him when his brother died, and now they were all he had left. The guitar gathered dust. The songs died in his throat.

Later, in his grief and rage, he tried to set the house ablaze with his stepfather and mother inside — to avenge the boy who should have lived instead of him. It went wrong. He ended up in a cell.

That was where he met Ash, the vice president of the Scorched Saints, and where the path that would eventually make him Smoke began. Not a musician. Not a dreamer.

Just a man with nothing left but his guilt, his cigarettes, and the knowledge that everything beautiful in his life eventually turns to ash.