Lost and Found

Panic

Nick and Alex held me tight for a few minutes to let me calm down a bit before we headed downstairs to "talk" with the boys. My heart started racing when we came to the bottom of the stairs and I realized that there was no way to talk myself out of this one. I had admitted there was something else going on and I couldn't make anything up that would even remotely make sense at that point.

When we reached the spacious living room, Nick, Alex, and I sat down to wait for the rest of them. I looked around and saw that there was a decorative mirror on the wall and when I saw my reflection I almost gasped out loud. My hair was matted and gross, my cheeks were stained red from tears and my eyes were bloodshot. There were massive bags under my eyes as well. I looked away and wiped my eyes quickly as if that made a difference.

Lorenzo and two other equally intimidating men walked out of a corridor in the house I hadn't even noticed before. I recognized the other two men from that morning. The three of them were wearing dark suits, which I thought was a little strange. Who wears a suit in their own house? The unknown men were my brothers too, but I hadn't even learned their names yet or met them. "What are their names again?" I whispered awkwardly to Nick.

He chuckled and whispered back, "Luke on the left and Leo on the right." I hoped that no one had heard.

Lorenzo, Leo, and Luke took a seat on the large couch next to ours. My heart rate increased again, in anticipation of what I had to tell them. When they were seated and patiently waiting, I hesitated. "Well?" Luke said impatiently. "What did you want to tell us?" He looked kind of angry, although I didn't know why. It almost made it harder for me to tell them when he was looking angry already.

I took a deep breath and just decided to get it over with. "Well um... I wasn't lying when I said I still had nightmares about my mom dying, but I also have them about something else too, that happened a few weeks back..." I started, but suddenly Lorenzo interrupted.

"A few weeks ago??" He asked, with a bit of a worried look under the hard features of his face. It seemed like maybe they had all expected for the mystery trauma I'd had to not have been so recent.

"Um yeah," I continued. "I was walking home from one of my jobs- I had a couple at the time, to you know, pay for my mom's medical stuff..." I realized I was already off-topic so I tried to get back on.

It was also hard to talk with them staring at me so intensely so I focused my gaze on an intricate painting on the wall ahead and continued. "So anyway, I was walking home, it was night, and there were these two guys, and I noticed that they were following me so I tried to run to get away but then they chased me into this dead-end alley and so I was trapped..." I paused my rambling to look at their reactions for a second and they looked horrified.

"How are you even alive?" Alex blurted out. My eyes watered for a second as I remembered what I'd had to do to stay alive, but I forced myself not to cry again and continued the story quickly.

"Well, I had a pocket knife with me and um..." I tried desperately to continue but my mouth couldn't form the words to tell them. The looks on their faces were also not helping me when I was trying to hold my emotions together. I refused to look at them and buried my face in my hands while trying to forget. I felt a hand rubbing my back and recognized it as Nick's. He always seemed to know what to do.

I heard someone crouching down in front of the couch I was sitting on, and it turned out to be Lorenzo. He used his thumb to gently lift my chin so I had to look him in the eye. "Lizzie, I know how hard this must be for you, but you have to tell me. I'm your guardian, and your brother. I need to know."

His eyes were hazel and they felt almost...safe, though telling someone you killed people wasn't something you could just blurt out. "Would it be any easier if it was just you and me talking?" He asked. I looked around at my brothers and their piercing stares before nodding almost imperceptibly.

All he had to do was flick his wrist toward the door for them to surprisingly listen and stalk off without complaint. I couldn't look at Nick as he walked out because I felt bad for making him leave. I made a mental note to apologize to him later because I had a different pressing problem at the moment.

Lorenzo held my gaze for a moment with his eyes before sitting down on the couch and turning his body toward me. I knew that it would be hard to say but I decided to just get it over with and done quickly. "I killed them." I whispered. I had tried to stay strong but my voice had betrayed me by cracking mid sentence.

He just nodded, as if he wanted me to continue. It seemed a little strange how my confession didn't affect him though. It was as if he heard 'I killed someone' every day.

He reached out to grab my hand and he instantly noticed my bruised knuckles. It looked like he was trying to work out all that had happened in his head "Is this your only injury?" He asked warily. I shook my head and his eyebrows furrowed.

I lifted the hem of my shirt quickly up to my ribs to show the bruise. He took a sharp intake of breath and I could sense he was trying to regain his composure as not to worry me. "Lizzie, are your ribs broken?" He asked quickly. I shrugged casually and It seemed to make him upset, but I could barely even tell what he was feeling through the scowl he seemed to constantly wear.

He pushed on them gently and it almost seemed like they had shifted, but I foolishly didn't say anything about it. I was surprised that such a light touch could create such a big movement. It felt like a knife had slashed through my side. He pulled his hand away quickly. "Stay put." He said, and then went off to god knows where.

I suddenly felt that sharp stabbing pain the internet had warned me about when I had searched it up weeks before. When I stood up from the couch to try to ease the pain a bit, I somehow made it worse.

The pain was indescribable. I waddled toward the kitchen, trying not to move them anymore, to complain to my brothers and I began to feel light headed. I pushed through the kitchen door and saw an ice pack with a towel wrapped around it sitting on the table. I saw Lorenzo looking through a drawer on the opposite side of the kitchen.

I looked around at the boys all standing around the island and immediately knew they were talking about me. I was just about to say something about my ribs when my vision went blurry and I struggled to breathe. I stumbled over to Leo, as he was the closest and definitely must have startled him when I collapsed into his arms.

He held me up for a few moments and I could hear muffled, panicked chatter all around me. He carefully lowered me to the floor, and for the second time that day, I was surrounded by 5 equally intimidating men. I tried to help them understand that I couldn't breathe by motioning to my neck and chest, but I didn't know if they ever understood because I blacked out a few moments later.

All I remembered after that, were the pretty red flashing lights.