24. Nitro

TWENTY-FOUR

NITRO

I open my eyes when I hear the door to the bedroom open, and Emily walks out wearing a large hoodie and shorts.

"I'm sorry-"

"Leave it." I cut her off.

It's not her fault, she has nothing to be sorry about I fucked up not her.

"But-"

"I said drop it," I snap at her, taking a drag of my joint, as she sits down next to me.

"What's on my back?" she asks in a whisper, and I finally turn to face her.

"We are looking for someone, and people who are linked with them, and are part of the organisation all have one tattoo. It's like a level tattoo. It starts with an outline, then as you get further into the organisation the more of the tattoo you get filled in, and you have the outline of it." I'm not sure how else to tell her. I can't be soft with her anymore. I need answers from her. I need her to remember what happened to her, because Ares will not be kind to her.

"But I told you I don't remember how I got that one." Emily picks at the loose thread on the sleeve of her hoodie.

"I know, but you have to start remembering, you have to start focusing on the memory-"

"I can't," she snaps at me, and I turn to face her.

"I won't warn you again, you cut me off and I promise you won't like what happens. I've given you a few chances, you don't get anymore," I warn her, and her eyes pop wide open.

"Sorry, I try to remember what happened, but I can't. I get pulled out. I had a memory last night, I was going to tell you about it..." She stops and stares at me, but I'm not facing her.

"Then tell me." Closing my eyes letting the smoke dance around in my lungs, before letting it escape through my nose.

Listening to her memory, my body tenses as she talks. She was a sex slave for the men in that fucked up place. She stops and I lean forward, shaking my head. I need more than this for my brothers to leave her alone. Fucking hell I need more for them to forgive me.

"It's been a fucked up evening, I need to go talk to my brothers, and it will give me time to think about how to tap into whatever it is your hiding." I get up, and walk away from her.

Right now I have no idea where the fuck I should be. I can't be with her, and I can't go home.

Taking my mask off, I head back home, even though they don't want me there right now, it's where I need to be. I need to try and fix this fucking mess.

I walk over to the sitting room where they all are, and Esha goes to walk out, but Ares tells her to sit back down. I need to fix the mistake with Esha too, but that's a job for another day.

Sitting next to Tic, he hands me his joint, and I stare at the TV, not really watching the film they have on.

"I fucked up, and I'm sor-"

"What did you find out about the eye?" Ares cuts me off, knowing he doesn't want an apology, because it's something we don't say to each other. No matter how much we fuck up, we never say it to each other. To us it means there is a crack in our foundation, but there is a crack, and I'm the reason why.

"It can be done, but he was creeped out about the whole thing. I gave him Wes' number, hoping he calls him." I have a few days left before Nyx and Ares take the girl, so I'm praying the doctor calls me. I continue talking as I have a feeling no one is going to talk about anything. Telling them about Emily's memory, hoping they can see she is trying, and telling me everything she remembers.

"So they used her?" Nyx asks.

"I don't think she's a part of them, the number on the bottom of her foot proves she was a pawn for them. Her memory is coming back, but in parts." I look over at Ares who isn't looking at me, but he's listening to everything.

"Well, you'd better get fucking her so she remembers, the clock is ticking," Ares comments still not turning to face me. I stay quiet because right now I have no right to say anything back to him, I fucking punched my brother.

No one says anything, but I'm sure that's because not one of us knows what to say.

"What did the doctor say?" Nyx asks, and I totally forgot about it with everything that's happened this evening.

"He can do it, I just have to hope he calls Welsey to make sure I wasn't crazy, and then I will go from there. Did you get the rest of the files from Wesley?" I ask, not really wanting to be the person talking at the moment.

Everything I say is even going to be wrong, or just piss them all off even more.

"Yeah, put your pile on the table. I have a few cases which I'm looking into, but other than that I have nothing. What about you?" Nyx leans forward and blunts out his joint before looking at the time.

He'll be leaving soon for about an hour, and I bet he's anywhere but here right now, because I do. I might even go for a ride to pass the time, but I know I'm not in the right headspace to be riding alone. Tic looks out of it, and I doubt Ares wants to be anywhere close to me.

"I've been looking to see if any officers, or heads of departments have been on any of the same cases, though maybe they should be the first ones to look through." Nyx nods his head, and I glance over to Ares as Esha gets up and tells him she's going to bed.

I still have to apologise to her, I shouldn't have thrown her name into the fight. Esha's been through enough and I didn't need to make her feel bad. I'd protect her the same way I would my brothers without a second thought, and she needs to know that too.

I go to get up, hoping to get upstairs before she does, but Ares gets up too, and I give Esha a small smile as they both leave the room.

"Fuck," I whisper to myself, and begin rolling up a joint, but even this isn't going to be enough tonight.

"Give him the night, he'll be back to dickhead self in the morning," Nyx says, making Tic laugh at the comment, all I do is nod, because I'm not sure if it's that easy this time.

"I punched him, I fucking punched him, and it wasn't us messing about, it was a fight, and I hit my brother." I light up the joint and take a long drag.

"Yeah, which family in the whole world has brothers who don't fight, it's called being a family. Everyone fights. The only thing here is you had a fight over pussy, who you should have been hiding your identity from. Come on, you stabbed the fucker and he was fine in a day." Nyx smiles at me, and I shake my head.

"So why aren't you pissed off?"

"I am, but I think Ares is making you feel like shit enough for the three of us. I don't think it's the sleeping with her, it's the fact you hid the tattoo from us, that's what has Ares pissed off, and me-"

"Me...me too." Tic turns to face me, and again I sit there in silence.

"I'm going to bed." I get up and walk away, but stop when Nyx grabs my arm.

"You need anything, Ares won't ever say no, remember that." I give Nyx a nod and go to my bedroom. Taking my t-shirt off, I throw it on the floor and lie in bed staring at the ceiling.

My body hurts, my body is on fire. Why use fire? It fucking hurts. I didn't think there was anything in the world I would hate more than being locked in the dark tiny room, but I was fucking wrong. Being in a room full of flames became my new hatred, and I swear every time they put me in here, the flames are closer to me. "How much pain do you think he can take?" I hear the man talking, and the voice makes my skin crawl as if the words are eating my skin.

"We've been talking, and thought this might be a good one for a live show. I think we will get a lot of interest in it." The female voice speaks, and the only thing I can think about is what the fuck will they do on a live?

"You think he's ready?"

"We have three weeks to get him ready," I hear her laughing, and I look at the flames moving closer to me.

I close my eyes to try and block the pain out, try and block the heat coming from the flames.

"Ahhhhh," I scream as the fire burns my skin. I fucking fucked up in the guilt, the memory, the demons, I didn't realise how long the flame was on me.

"Nitro, what the fuck-" Ares throws a blanket over the flame. "Esha, in our bathroom is a first aid kit with Nitro's name on it." I hear him shout at her, as he continues to pat on my stomach. He grabs my face, stares at me. "What the fuck are you doing, knock on my fucking door," he shouts into my face.

Ares walks to the door, gets the kit from Esha and she leaves. Then I hear Nyx and Ares talking.

"I've got it," Ares says, then slams the door shut, and looks at me, then my stomach and he shakes his head. "I don't fucking care what is happening in our life, I would never say no when you need me." He throws the kit on the bed, and walks to the bathroom.

Fucking hell, how much can I fuck up at the moment all because I couldn't keep my hands off Emily.

"Fuck," I shout at Ares when he places the towel on my stomach.

"Wouldn't fucking hurt if you knocked on my fucking door. But seems like you're keeping more-"

"I fucked up," I shout at him.

"I don't care that you fucked her. I care you fucking hid it from us, and hid something so big." Ares removes the towel, and opens the box to get the cream out. It's not the first time I've burned myself like this, so I know what can to do, and so does he. "I always thought brotherhood came before anything, especially for us, and-" Ares stops when I take the cream from him, and sit up, shaking my head. I stand up and walk to the other side of the bedroom from him.

"I'd die before I'd let anything happen to you, nothing would come before you." I stop when Ares lets out a chuckle.

"Then why hide it?"

"You were right I let my dick do the thinking, I fucked up the second I touched her, and then when I saw the tattoo, and knew you'd all think she worked for them, I just wanted something to prove she wasn't, and-" I stop when I don't know what else to say to him, because i know there is nothing I can say to him, there is nothing I can do to make him believe how much I'm killing myself for fucking up.

Ares leans on the wall behind him, and stares at me as I put the cream on, it's going to need fucking cream for a week if not more.

"I'm sor-"

"You punch like a girl, and never say that word to me, and I mean never. The last I checked you're my brother and shit happens." I can't help but laugh at him. The man never holds a grudge with anyone. "So, whatever guilt you're holding for that, let it go. We have bigger things to work out."

"Well, I have a week to figure something out." Ares lights up a joint and hands it over to me. "We've never done anything like this." We kill people, find information, we've never had anything like this before.

"Meet me downstairs." Ares leaves the room, and I'm not sure if I should be worried or not with what's going on in his head. Half the time you never know what he's thinking.

I put some more cream on my stomach as the burn is fucking killing me now, and the fucking crawling sensation has started, the one thing I hate. It reminds me of the demons scratching their way to the surface to eat at me. I burn myself to rid them, burn them away, but it never lasts, they find their way back, and I don't think they will ever leave.

I don't bother wearing a t-shirt as I don't need anything covering it right now. Making my way to the kitchen, I see my brothers already sitting at the table. Nyx and Tic look at my stomach, then back up at me, and Nyx shakes his head a little.

"What's happening?" Nyx asks.

I turn to Ares as he is the one who thinks he has an idea. I don't know what's happening.

"Now our brother has fucked her, where are we putting her? I mean killing her is still an option, but it's the last one." He smiles, and I shake my head telling him to fuck off.

"She's innocent, they-" I stopped on the words which my brothers know I don't want to say, so I don't. "-agree she's hiding something, but I don't think she's doing it to piss us off, she just can't remember."

"And I'm giving you a week, but if everyone agrees then maybe we don't need the week." Ares stops and takes a drag of Tic's joint, and Nyx asks what he's thinking. "She's seen enough of Nitro to go to the cops, so he might as well show his face. They go see a specialist, make up some shit about something that happened to her and she's not sleeping. They tell the specialist they need someone to open up the memory to find out happened to her so that she can begin to move forward."

The three of us all lean back in our chairs, not taking our eyes off Ares. The man comes up with some fucked up things, but this one, might be the best thing he's thought of.

"How can we make sure she won't tell anyone who Nitro is?" Nyx asks, and they all look at me. They know I've said I'd kill her if she did speak a word about us, but they don't think I will.

"Because I'm going to talk to her, we all go over there, but no one talks but me-" Ares stares at me, and leans forward. "No one will talk but me." The words come out slowly making sure I understand what he is saying.

"When do we go?" I ask.

"Now. Don't know about you three, but I'd like some fucking answer sooner rather than later." Ares smokes the rest of his joint, and we all stand up ready to leave, but we stop when my phone rings.

"Wesley-" I tell them, then answer the phone. "Hello," I say, hitting the speaker button so they can all hear.

"The doctor called, he's in. He said to go over to talk to him in three days at eight in the evening, he'll be alone." Then the line goes dead. I know Wesley is trying to keep away from us, so no one links us with him, so I'm not annoyed with him.

"Right we will get some answers from the eyes hopefully," I say, putting my phone away.

"Now let's get some answers from her," Tic says walking away from the table.

Can this plan work? I have no idea, but we need answers, and it might be the only way to get them. She doesn't need to know our past, she doesn't need to know about my burn marks. We need one thing from her right now, and that is my focus, getting what my brothers and I want. Revenge.