20. Nitro

TWENTY

NITRO

Parking the bike at the back, I take my helmet off, my fucking face needs some fresh air on it. I'm even in the mask or a helmet at the moment.

I knew there would be a time I couldn't control myself around her, and it happened. I fucking fucked her, and enjoyed every second of it. Even now all I want to do is go over and do it all over again, but this time with some toys, and really make her beg for me.

I punch the bike, shaking my head. What the hell have I done? She has the tattoo, she could be working for them and this is all an act, but my fucking dick needed it. I needed it.

Walking into the house, I tell my brothers I just need a minute, because I'm not sure if I need to let the demons out of me, or punish myself for fucking Emily, and lying to my brothers about the tattoo and fucking her.

The door to my bedroom slams, and I walk over to the open fire pit I have to the side of my room, and smile when the flames burn bright. This is what I needed, I need to feel the heat on my fire.

I grab my gel from the side. My brothers started to notice my skin was becoming weak if I kept burning it without protecting it, so I got this gel which people in film use when they are set on fire. Now the gel protects my skin from burning, but I only put a small amount on so I can still feel the flames burning me, sometimes I still let it burn my skin, and without the gel, when the demons are really eating at me.

The cream works, as I lean forward and let the flame hit my skin, and I close my eyes as I let the pain move through my skin, letting every demon inside me burn.

"Don't you think he will be good at it?" I hear a voice I've never heard before. How many of these people are there?

"He will be, but he's still young, I don't want him dying on us, I have a lot of plans for him," the man replies, and I know that voice. I've known that voice for years now, it's the only one I can pick up out of the room, when there are more people in here. "Someone wants time with him, they will be here soon.'

"What are they doing?" The unrecognised voice asks.

"Something about fire, told them not to kill him, or I'll kill them." The voice begins to fade as they walk away from me.

What do they mean by fire, are they burning me? Are they making me walk through fire? What does that mean?

My eyes open quickly, stopping the memory of the first time fire was used, and then became my fuel and they didn't even know about it.

"Fuck," I move away from the flame, and look down and see I've stood there for a little longer than I should have. "Fuck." I shout to myself again, taking a deep breath in, I grab my t-shirt and head down to have breakfast with my brothers to fill them in with what I found out.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, I see Esha in the kitchen with Tic, Nyx looking through his phone, and Ares where he is all the time these days, with his head buried in the notepads. Most of the time he's looking for answers for me, but then he will look for other things to help us find the Gatekeepers.

Pulling out the chair for myself, Nyx and Ares both look at me, but say nothing as they look at my stomach. Nyx leans behind him, and opens the draw, and throws the first aid kit to me, and I leave it on the table. Ares hands me his joint, and I lean over to get it from him as I sit down.

"Want to talk?" Ares asks, and I shake my head, because I don't know what to tell him.

"She remembered a little more. I told her to listen to the conversation-" I stop talking when Esha and Tic walk to the table, and place breakfast down for us. Looking up at Esha sitting next to Ares I give her a smile to say thanks for breakfast. "-She said the man said she wasn't a part of their plan, they only wanted her sister, and that Eros will know what to do with her." I take a drag of my joint, and look at Nyx and Ares turning to each other.

"As in the Eros family? From the notepads?" Nyx asks.

"That's what I thought. She pulled out of the memory after that, but she knows more." I lean forward and dig into my breakfast, because I'm starving after the night I've had. "She will open the memory up, but it's going to be a while, each time I get closer and see what happens." I turn to Ares who's rubbing his eyes, and then looks back down at the pad. "You going to the strip club tonight?"

"Yeah, I heard on the police radio there was some trouble there a few nights ago. It might be the ones looking for her, hoping they will be back tonight." He answers without looking up from the notepad, and I look over at Nyx.

"Hey, you want me to take over?" Nyx asks.

"You going to read the ones before this one, and look at the notes I've made." He points to the book he's been writing in. He has one for each family so he can figure what they all do. "This one is one on the Eros family, what I've found out so far," he slides it over to me, and I start reading through it.

The first date he has in here is from fucking years ago, we we weren't even born, but I stay quiet, and start looking through it, but the burn on my stomach is starting to sting like crazy, I stand up, and open the first aid box as I continue to read.

"What does the N mean?" I point to the big N on the top of the first page, make Ares and Nyx again look between each other.

Before answering me he opens two more of the five pads, and turns them to me, pointing to the N on the top.

"If you were born in that hell, it's on these families from what I can work out-" Ares stops when i sit back down, and pull the other two pads closer to me, to look at the names. Eros family, Erbus family, Death. "-Plutus family was Esha's so they are out, and from what I can see the Kratos family are another family, but they are still a question mark. Nitro-" Ares says my name for me to look at him. "- I'll find them, every day I've read more pads, and got more information."

I nod letting him know I get it. Now he is getting more information, a part of me is thinking whether I want to know them. They didn't care about me, why should I care about them? Maybe because I want to kill the person who kept me there, and let them do all that shit to me.

I look at the words on the paper, but not looking at them, as my mind is working on what Ares said.

"Nitro-"

"You think my parents are part of them?" I ask but don't look up at Ares, because if it's true I'm not sure how I will react to the news.

"Honestly, I don't know. As of now two babies were born there, but they were both girls, and the pads says they dropped them off at the hospital-"

"Lucky," I whisper to myself, but they all hear me.

"I'm still reading, you have to give time to work through them all." I know he is, and I know if he's not working in the shop, he's got his head buried in the notepads. Some nights he doesn't even go to sleep with Esha, I can't ask for anything more.

"You're booked up all day, you want me to go over to keep her company, I have a break between clients?" Nyx asks me, changing the subject, and I turn to face him smiling.

"Why are you asking me?" I ask, and both Ares and Tic let out a small chuckle to themselves.

"No reason, she seems more comfortable with you-"

"Yeah, because I was the only one who thought she was innocent and fought not to kill her. Tic, well he hasn't been alone with her, Ares scares the shit out of her, and you, well trying to get a conversion out of you if you're not comfortable around them is like finding a needle in a fucking pile of needle. And when you do talk it's a bit fucked up." I snap at him which makes him smile and shakes his head.

"Well, I don't trust her yet, so it's best I don't talk," he answers and my lips spread into a smile, because it's best he doesn't.

"So the only one she's going to be okay with is me, but if you want to go over, go over. She might open up to you, and give us some answers." I light up a cigarette, and lean back in my chair as I push the notepad back to Ares so he can keep adding notes to it. "When you call Wesley, tell him to fucking keep in touch. I was almost going to go into the house last night as he wasn't flicking the light on."

"Calling him later, I want to look through the cases he's working on. Someone is watching his cases, one of them is important." Nyx leans over and grabs a few more pancakes and puts them on his plate.

"I'll take a look through some of them with you." It might be good for me to do something other than ask Ares every day if he found something, and take my mind off Emily when it gets too bad.

"Once I get them, I'm also going to tell him to get a camera on the front door looking out on the street, so we can see if anyone is watching him." Nyx stops when we all start laughing, but he knows why we are laughing. "He will hate it, but he doesn't have a choice."

"Good luck, right I'd better get ready, the first client is coming in soon." I get up and turn to Esha. "How you feeling Princess?" I've not spoken to her much the last few days.

She smiles at me. "I'm going to say better than you," Ares lets out a chuckle, and she slaps his arm. "I'd say the same to you too, you know."

I give her a nod, and head to my bedroom to get changed for the day. I'm hoping one client will cancel so I can get an hour of sleep in, because at the moment I have no idea what the night has in store for us.

I wasn't lucky enough to have a client cancel. As one finishes the next one is waiting. The only good thing from it is I haven't thought about Emily and how perfect her pussy was for my cock. How I want to be buried deep in it again. So being busy has been good today.

Nyx was going to go over to see her, but then Wesley called to say he had made copies of some of the cases, and will drop the files off somewhere. Nyx wanted to leave to make sure no one was following him and took them before he could.

He got back about an hour ago, as he had a client, so neither of us have had a chance to look through them yet. Told him to just half the pile, and we can both start when we can. I will be taking them to Emily's safe house, as I have to check up on her, and bring some food for her. Ares had ten minutes in his day, so he dropped off some lunch for her.

I clean up my work station, and turn to face the door when it opens.

"You done?" Nyx asks, walking over to the stool and sits down.

"Yeah, the day felt like it's dragged," I joke with him which makes him smile to himself.

"Lack of sleep will catch up with us all sooner or later." He looks through the polaroids I took of today's clients.

We like to take pictures of the work we do, and in the front of the shop we have a massive frame where we put them. We have about four now, the wall is almost covered, but we'll find another place to put them.

"What's happening?" I ask him.

"Wesley left a note on the file, another girl in the morgue. We need to go check it out." Nyx finally looks at me, and I know what he's going to say.

"Camera. How the fuck are we meant to get it out, the question is how are they getting it in there?" I ask, I've been looking through so many medical books to see if I can find an answer, so far nothing.

"I haven't spoke to the other two yet, and I know you're all going to think I'm fucking crazy, but I think we need to keep the body so we have more time-"

"And keep her where? Are you crazy?" I snap at him, when the hell did he become the one who thinks this stupid. I expect it from Ares, but not Nyx. "We are not fucking kidnapping a dead girl." Turning away from him, because I can't believe we have come to this.

There has to be a way we can get the camera without doing this.

"We have a meeting, once you're done." I hear the door close behind me, and I shake my head. Are they fucking crazy? That girl has been through so much, her family and we're thinking about kidnapping her, so we can give her more fucking pain.

Closing up everything I close the door, I see Nyx has shut the shop, so I make my way to the house and see everyone is around the table, Esha drinking tea on the couch and watching TV.

"What time you two going to the strip club?" Nyx asks the two of us, and I walk over to the kitchen to grab a few beers for us.

"About eleven, so what's happening?" Ares asks, and I glance over at Tic talking to himself. The man seems happy tonight as he laughs to himself, but I know he is still listening to what we have to say.

"Be back for two, Wesley left a note,there's a girl in the morgue." He leans forward and grabs a beer, and then looks at Tic bringing all his focus to the table.

"Cam...Camera?" Tic asks.

"He thinks so, I spoke with Nitro quickly. We need the camera, but we don't have enough time there to do anything-" Nyx cuts off when Ares roars with laughter, and I shake my head at him.

"Since when have you become me? I'm game, but the question is where do we keep her?" he asks, and I cuss to myself, and he turns to me. "Not agreeing?"

"Fuck no. Her parents have been wishing for their daughter back, and they finally have answers and we're going to kidnap her, so we can look at the camera in her eye-" I stop, taking a sip of my beer before I lose my shit, and give myself a second to think what I can say. "-how long do we have until the funeral?" I ask.

"Wes said it will be a week, the parents want to make arrangements."

"Give me five days to figure something out, there has to be a way to get into the eye without fucking it up." I look between all my brothers, and they look between each other.

"Five days. If you don't come up with anything we take her." Nyx looks at me.

"Deal." I nod thinking about how I can get to the eyes without anything going wrong. Touching the eye causes it to melt, so there has to be a sensor on it. I need to work out how to get around that.

"Why don't you speak to an ophthalmologist, they laser eyes all the time, they might be able to give you something." We all turn to Esha sipping her tea, and she turns her head slightly to me. "They might even be able to talk about how they got the camera in there in the first place. No harm in asking, and FYI I'm with Nitro, fucking kidnapping a dead body, seriously guys." She shakes her head at the three of them, then gets back to watching the TV.

Turning to face my brothers with a smile, they tell me to fuck off which makes me laugh. Thank you Esha for being on my side with this one.

"So, you do whatever you want, you have five days. I'll let Wesley know what we are doing, and here is your pile of files to look through." He slides the pile over to me, and I shake my head a little.

"This is only half of them?" I question.

"The man has a lot of open cases. Right I'm getting some sleep, so should you," Nyx looks down at me as he stands up.

"I'll go over to the apartment, and sleep there for a little then start looking through these." I point to the pile of cases. "I'll write down any officers or heads of departments that I see." I light a cigarette, and watch Nyx grab the file and place them to the side. "Does Wesley have any idea if anyone is watching him?" I ask, if he has an off feeling about someone, then we can watch that one better.

"No, but it has to be someone with power, one thing about the Gatekeepers is that you have to have access to money because they bid with a lot of money." I turn to Ares who is taking a drag of his joint. "One bidding for water play ended at fifty thousand, so whoever is watching Wesley has to have money or connections."

"So someone in the department with money. That should narrow it down a little," I joke, blunting out my cigarette and leaving the table to have a shower before I have to spend the night in my mask and read a lot of fucking cases.

I brought over some of the Indian food Esha made for dinner for Emily, and she's been staring at me the whole time I've been here. All I'm trying to do is not look at her, because the woman had to wear shorts and a tank top. Showing off all her sexy tattoos on her sexy body.

As soon as I got here I started looking for a local ophthalmologist so I could go there in the morning and talk to them. Or maybe I should go over there in the middle of the night as the ghost. Going as me asking fucked up questions like that is going to get him thinking I'm messed up in the head. I mean I am, but he doesn't need to know that. I'll talk to Ares or Nyx to see if they want to come with me, one of them will. I'm hoping to find out if there is anything I can which doesn't trigger anything so it melts. Once we've done that, I should be able to work out the rest.

"Was your day busy? What do you do?" Emily asks, and I look up from my phone as she eats her food.

"Work was busy, that's all you need to know." Turning my attention back to my phone, I hear her cuss to herself, and my lips curl up under my mask.

"Do the four of you work together," I don't answer her, and I hear her cuss again. "Come on, only this moring you were fucking me on your bike, and I know nothing about you," she snaps at me, and it gets my attention. I turn to fully look at her.

I can go two ways with this, I know I have to take a step back from her, but I also know I need her to talk to me.

"I can say two things but I'll choose one. Before I came over here I was fucking some blonde, so don't think you're special." She stares at me, and I'm not sure if she believes me or not, but I can see she doesn't like the thought of it. I never fucked anyone before coming over, but she doesn't need to know that.

"With your mask on?" she asks, and I smile again.

"No, you're the only one I've ever fucked with my mask on." Now that's pissed her off, because she storms off into the kitchen, and throws her empty plate into the sink, before coming back to sit down. "Jealous they get to see what I look like under here?" I ask, wanting to poke the bear more because she looks so cute when she's pissed off.

"Yes, they get to see you, while I can only imagine what you look like, and I have a feeling I'm far from it too." She shakes her head, and grabs her drawing pad and a pencil, and starts sketching.

"What do you think I look like?" I ask.

Emily rips a page out and throws it over to me, and I look at the picture of what she thinks I look like. No tattoos, my eyes I'd say are pretty close, but nothing else on the face.

"Give me the pad, and pencil." I stretch out my arm for her to give it over to me.

The second I saw the tattoos on her body, I knew I wanted to ink her, ink her with my own design, not some of the fucked up jobs others have down, because in time I'll cover them up too with something much better. But I've only been thinking of one at the moment, on the part of her skin she doesn't have anything. Her neck, I draw the design, taking my time to make sure she knows I know what I'm doing. The only thing I haven't worked out is if I want colour on it or not, but in time I'll figure that out.

I feel her watching me as I draw, only stopping to answer my phone and hold it in place with my shoulder and cheek.

"Hello," I answer as I continue to draw.

"We've got CCTV footage for the guys who came into the stripclub," Ares shouts over the music in the background. "He won't give us the tape, so I'm going to record it, see if Wesley can get a hit-"

"I can do it, I don't have the laptop with me, but once I get back it will be the first thing I do," I tell him, smiling at my design. I mean it's not the best and I'll spend more time on it before I ink her with it, but she'll get the idea.

"Okay, we should leave soon, Tic wants some fun." Both Ares and I start laughing, and I glance up at Emily smiling, but quickly look back at the pad.

"See you later." I end the call, and finish the last few touches to the image, before handing it over to her.

She quickly looks over at me with a smile. "Are you a tattoo artist?" Then looks back at her pad with a smile on her face as she traces the drawing with her finger.

"I am, and as soon as all this is over, I'm tattooing that on your neck, and then slowly I'm going to cover the others you have which are not very good." I tell her looking through my phone again.

"Not the chest," she quickly tells me, and I look up at her. "It's the one my sister designed for me, it's not the best, but-"

"I won't touch it, but the others I'm covering." She starts laughing, touching her neck. "What's so funny?" I ask.

"Now this is amazing, I mean it's beautiful, and it's meaningful to you, but you think very highly of your skills, why?" She looks over at me, and I tilt my head a little just watching her for a moment. "Come on White Eyes, answer this one for me."

"I know I'm good, how do I know? I'm booked up for almost the next two years. People book me so far in advance," I smile to myself when her mouth pops open, and she stares at me. "I answered yours now you answer mine, the half done tattoos on your back, who gave you that?" I ask. This might be the best time to ask about the Gatekeeper tattoo, because that's the first tattoo I'm covering, so I never have to see it again.

"The outline one?" She asks, still looking at my design.

"Yeah."

"Honestly I have no idea. That one, and the one on the bottom of my foot, now that one would fucking hurt you'd think I would remember it, but nothing. I don't even know what it means." She doesn't look up at me, and leans forward, because now I want to know about the one on her foot.

"Can I see the one on your foot?" She turns to face me with a smile.

"What do I get to see?"

"I'll show you something, but first the foot." I point to the table, for her to place her foot there, and without fighting she does. I have a look at the small tattoo. Quickly taking a picture of the numbers and letters, I lean back on the couch.

"Your turn."

I lean forward again, and pull my glove a little down to show my hand. Now I know she will be able to tell the world she saw the tattoo, but I have a feeling once all this is over she will never mention anything about us.

Emily pulls my hand closer to hers, and looks at the bird and rose tattoo on my hand. I go to pull my hand away but she holds it tight and I let her look at it longer, as I wonder what the number means. Is it part of the Gatekeepers? Or is it something different altogether?

I can tell my brothers about this, because this is new to us. At last one thing I can finally tell them. Maybe Ares has something in the notebooks about it? Can we finally get something from Emily?