Slightly rushed but you guys wanted an update so here ya goooo
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Thalia Lively
Riley and I sat in my dining room, both of our homework sprawled across the table in front of us as we attempted to finish it all before meeting up with the guys. I've gotten so sidetracked with my personal life that I'm behind in school, and catching up is becoming more difficult since I have no idea what I'm doing.
"I'm dropping out, that's it, I've made up my mind." I said, breaking the silence as I pushed my math binder away from me.
"C'mon we're almost done then we can go to the warehouse— do you know how to get there by the way?" Riley asked me as she picked off some grapes from the stem and plopped them into her mouth. She was clearly the more relaxed one of us two since she has her shit figured out while I, on the other hand, am debating if I should drop out and become a stripper or not.
"Um, no I don't but I'm sure we'll be fine with GPS." I sighed and leaned back in my chair, stretching out my arms as I did so. I chugged the rest of my water then stood up as Riley watched me pack up my work with a confused gaze. "We've been working for hours and I only have one more page to write. I'll finish it tomorrow or later, either way we need a break." I concluded as I refused to touch my pen once more. Riley thought about it before packing up her things too and in a minute or so, the table was completely ridded of our homework.
Riley started getting ready to leave while I searched the house for Nonna, eventually finding her cleaning the main bathroom downstairs. "Do you need any help cleaning the house?" I asked Nonna, realizing I wasn't going to leave if she needed me here with her.
"No, no. I'm almost done and you've been working since you came home. I'm assuming you're about to leave?" She eyed my jean jacket in my hands and I nodded. "Alright, go on then. Don't be late." She gave me a pointed look and I smiled nodding at her.
"Love you," I said while kissing her cheek and she said it back softly before I made my way to the front where Riley waited patiently for me. I slid on my black and white high top chucks quickly then exited my house with Riley following me. We both hurried into my car to shield ourselves from the sharp winter air.
Emmett had sent Riley the address of the warehouse earlier so I left her in charge of putting the address into the GPS while I took care of the music. My eyes flickered to the time, 7:49pm, and noticed we were slightly late since the boys told us to meet them there at 6pm.
The rest of the car ride was filled with a comfortable silence and quiet music playing in the background. Riley spent her time humming to the songs and looking at the scenery while I was too busy being clouded with the different possible endings we could have. Darren's abandoned warehouse was far from us as we parked outside of it, forty minutes later.
"Take it off!" We heard Austin yell as we opened the side door to the warehouse, making Riley and I rush into the room we heard their voices come from. We paused as we watched Emmett sitting on the floor with piles of paper in front of him, Austin holding his leg out as he stared at the bug on his pants and Ethan staying far away from Austin as possible.
"Fuck no, look at how big it is!" Ethan replied to Austin who was panicking as he refused to take his eyes off of the bug.
"You're so fucking useless!" A clearly very stressed Austin yelled then he turned to us with begging eyes. I looked to my left and saw a broom leaning against a shelf on the wall. I shrugged, taking it then walking over to Austin and staring directly at the huge bug who stayed still on his pants. Austin looked at me hurriedly and I took the hint as I smacked the bug off of his leg. I watched it fly across the room then chuckled at Austin's gratefulness as he crushed me in a hug.
"You guys can fight a group of men and workout to the bone, yet you can't handle a bug?" I teased them and they shrugged, not caring that they had a bug weakness. "Why did we need to meet here again?" I questioned as I took a seat next to Emmett on the ground.
"We were bored and figured we could go through all that—" Austin pointed to the pile of papers and files in front of Emmett as he spoke. "— quicker with the help of more people." He concluded and I raised my eyebrows at him as he suddenly had a football in his hands, throwing it to Ethan.
"Well maybe if you two helped him, you would've got somewhere." Riley stated in a teasing manner. We all silently dove into our own assigned piles of documents that Darren left behind, each of us hoping to find some sort of clue to anything at his point.
I was the first one to snap out of my focused gaze around forty minutes later. My eyes scanned over everyone else's either stressed, anxious or tired expressions— some being a combination of all three. I knew non of us had been in the right state of mind since Nathan and Carter left, and not to mention each of us dealing with our own issues as well. I sat back on the cold floor, not bothering to look through the files surrounding me anymore as I focused more on my friends.
I could see Riley looking up from her papers to Emmett every once in a while which hints to me that he still hasn't told her about his father, since she looks sad every time he won't return her gaze. Ethan was growing more and more frustrated as he kept coming to blanks through his set of files. Austin and Emmett look tired as I assumed all they've been doing is searching through hundreds of papers to find the last activity Darren did before leaving.
I admired each of them for working to their bones, all for Nathan and Carter. They will stop at nothing until they find them and I could tell the fact that Nathan left them out of the loop was taking a toll on them. They've never been separated like this before. Even those who don't know them could tell they were brothers at heart.
"Ethan?" I called out to him softly making him look up at me, his hard expression shifting to a softer one as he met my gaze. "Can I have the number Blake gave you? I thought might as well give it a try, you know?" I asked shyly, unaware of the butterflies that stirred up in my stomach at the thought of Nathan possibly picking up. However, Blake said it was from a disposable phone so it's probably long gone by now.
He gave me the sheet with the number on it and I took it silently while standing up and walking out of the warehouse for some fresh air. I breathed in the brisk air, the cold making me shiver. I pulled out my phone and started dialling the number on the paper, nerves taking over my body as I did so.
I hit call and was ready for a, "this number is no longer in use" message, but it never came. It started ringing making me freeze in my spot, the rings giving me more chills than the weather. It continued to ring a couple more times and although I felt like hanging up, I stayed on the phone regardless. Just as I was about to hang up, the rings stopped and I heard loud voices in the back.
I heard a faint, "shut the fuck up", come from the background followed by a string of chuckles. I didn't have it in me to say anything at first. I immediately started imagining Nathan on the other line of the phone and that alone made me smile.
"Hello?" I heard a deep voice say from the other line, clearly sounding annoyed and tired. I immediately knew who it was and I finally let out the breath I've been keeping in.
"Carter?" I finally spoke.
I heard a silence that was soon followed by a sigh and string of curse words. I tried to take a deep breath in and out but it came out shakily. "Are you guys okay?" I asked the questions I've dying to know.
"Are you?" He bounced the question right back at me, seeming genuinely curious.
"No," I answered truthfully. "None of us are, and I'm sure you can guess why." I continued. My feet caught my attention as I stared at them, getting more and more nervous to talk to Carter, and I had no idea why. If I'm like this with Carter, I can't imagine talking to Nathan.
"You know it wasn't our intention." He answered nonchalantly, barely giving me anything to work with, and I knew that was for a reason.
"Where is he?" I asked, disregarding the last topic. I'm trying to get as many questions out there before he hangs up on me and we've lost contact with them. I could feel my heart beat faster as I thought about him. I don't know why or how but I could feel something was wrong with him.
"He's, uh," Carter hesitated. "He's on the job right now." He quickly recovered and said, keeping it short.
"Is he okay?" I mumbled, feeling disappointed that I wouldn't talk to him today.
"He'll manage." Again, he gave in a short response.
"Can you please stop being like this? Why can't you talk to me properly? This isn't like you, you're different." I slightly snapped, getting annoyed that he's barely saying anything but deep down I know it isn't his fault.
"If you think I've changed, you're not ready to talk to Nathan." He answered quite fast, without hesitation. Before I could question him, he continued. "Don't worry, we're okay, regardless of the situation we're in. I know everyone back there is trying to find us or figure out a plan but please don't. For your own good." He finished.
"Ha, yeah, that'll be easy." I fake laughed. "Ethan hasn't been the same, all he's been doing is trying to find you guys. Emmett is getting backlash from Nathan telling him to keep quiet about you guys leaving, and now he's also dealing with his family issues. Riley's trying to remain positive. Austin's been staying up all night trying to help— they won't stop and you know it." I explained.
He stayed quiet as he listened to my rant about everyone's current state of mind. "What about you?" He asked and I was taken back by the question.
Now it was my turn to take a few moments to think. Fuck it. "I think I'm going crazy." I heard him chuckle on the other end and I smiled briefly. "No but um, I'm not great obviously. God, I miss him so much and I'm so hurt and worried, about both of you. I hate being left in the dark, I want to scream at you both for leaving but I can't because I know you wouldn't have if it wasn't seriously important." I ranted, once again. "D-does he talk about me at all?" I asked softly.
I knew he was still on the phone even though he wasn't saying anything, and I was starting to feel my heart drop to the pit of my stomach as I feared his answer. "Everyday, Thalia." He answered, then a loud slam of the door interrupted our conversation.
"Nathan, calm down." I heard an unfamiliar voice say on the other end of the line and I subconsciously stood up straighter as I tried listening harder.
"Don't fucking tell me to calm down—" he was cut off by Carter speaking to me.
"Goodbye, Thalia. Be careful, okay? Promise me." He started ending the conversation.
"I promise." I muttered.
"I'm getting rid of this phone right after this, so don't try calling again. They'll kill me if they knew I spoke to you. We won't be gone forever, I can promise you that." And with that, he ended the call.
I immediately started regretting my choice of questions, I should've asked if they found Darren or where they are— but I somehow knew he wouldn't have answered either of those. I pulled my phone down and away from my ear, staring down at it as I recapped the call. I saw a tear drop fall from my eye and onto my hand randomly, I didn't even realize I was crying. I wiped my eyes quickly, not wanting anyone to see me like this; an emotional wreck.
I knew Nathan wasn't okay, I could feel it. I wish I could see him, hear his voice, hug him, but I can't. All because of fucking Victor. I'm growing more and more angry at the knowledge of Victor being the only thing keeping me away from Nathan. This is all his fault.
"Hey, did anyone pick up?" Ethan's voice came from behind me, making me turn around to face him silently. I didn't have to answer for him to know what happened, it seems we're twins since he automatically knew to come hug me. "Whatever happened, it's okay." His soothing voice brought me little comfort but enough to make me slow my rapid breathing and calm down for the moment.
"I miss him so much, I barely heard his voice but I heard enough to know that somethings wrong. I-I can't help him because I can't be with him. I don't know what he's doing or where he is, or what the fuck is going in with him, period. I want to hate him so badly for leaving me like this, but I can't. Fuck I wish I could though, maybe it'll make the separation easier." I poured out my feelings to Ethan, which was unusual for me since lately I've been really open about my thoughts and that's unlike me. I usually keep it all in but it seems that I've kept too much in, and now I'm slowly exploding.
"I know, Tal, I know." He said understandingly.
"Carter said he still talks about me," I muttered, letting another single tear slip past my eyelashes.
"You might not know it, hell even he might not know it yet, but he's in love with you Thalia. Anyone with eye sight could see it. I knew it from the moment his first instinct was to protect you from any harm the second you found out about all the bullshit we're going through. I doubt he could ever forget about you, no matter what happens. You've changed him to be a better person, and I'm sure just the thought of you is the only thing keeping him sane right now." Ethan's words struck me deeply as I took in some shorts breaths.
"I feel so useless. Being here while he's out there going through the real pain. God, I'm complaining now but I'm sure he has it ten times worse. He was forced to leave, and now he's forced to go back to his old life that he hated, all for us. And we aren't trying hard enough, Ethan we need to try harder. I know they're telling us to stay away but that's not who we are. We don't 'stay away' when one of us are in danger. We need to try harder, there's nothing here clearly so we need to start hitting up Darren's other companies, buildings or venues. There has to be someone out there that knows something, and we're going to find them." I finished off, my goal is finally set and I'm being driven by determination. I'm not giving up on him.
• • •
It's been three days and I'm slowly losing determination. We've only been drawing up blanks regarding Darren, everywhere we go. Darren really does know how to disappear. There's truly no trace of him left. So, I've started looking for Nathan's traces rather than Darren's. I figured that I won't find out anything about some stranger, but with Nathan, we have a better chance. So far we've found some hotels that Nathan has stayed at in the beginning of his take off, all just outside of the city. The most recent one we've found is all the way in New York, and the only reason why we found that out was because we found Darren's tracking computer in his warehouse. Thank god, Austin is a tech genius and was able to hack into Darren's tracking software.
However, with that being said, we still have no idea where he is right now, at the moment. But I'm not giving up. I've been writing down every place they've been, and even marking it on a map so we can see which direction they're heading in. So far they've heading more towards west of America, and for what reason, I still don't know. I remember Carter saying that Nathan was "on the job" therefore they've been some type of work across the country, never staying in the same place for too long.
It's not like that have that much time left anyway, Victor is out in five days. Whatever they're doing, they're running out of time.
"You guys missed a place owned by Darren." Riley spoke up as she went down the list of places we visited for information. She showed me the list and we did indeed miss a place called "Blackhole".
"Blackhole? Yeah, I'm not really 'bout it." Austin pipes up as he walked by us while peeking at the paper.
"Sounds like a death trap." Emmett commented, putting in his input as he too, walked by us and straight on to the couch that they bought yesterday for the warehouse, with a bag chips in hands.
"We're going." I stated, grabbing my jacket off of my chair as I knew we couldn't miss a single thing.
"There's probably nothing there," Ethan said and I looked at him weirdly since he's been too silent lately.
"We still have to check, E. C'mon let's go." I said while tossing him his jacket.
He caught the jacket and after taking a moment to think he sighed and followed me outside. The whole drive to the place he was silent, almost like he wanted to say something but couldn't.
"So are you going to tell me why you're acting weird or?" I questioned him after we parked.
"Nathan used to fight here." Was all he said before exiting the car without another thought. I followed him quickly, not bothering question him anymore. We stood outside of a building painted in all black, really bringing out the black in "Blackhole".
"This is creepy." I stated, especially since it was dark out now too. He didn't answer as he walked in first, the guards at the door not even questioning him which shocked me at first but again, I didn't want to bother him. He already looked set off.
We walked down a long narrow hallway until we turned the right and walked down wide stairs. Everything was black and although it looked fancy and well, expensive looking, I was still getting chills. Once we made it down the stairs we were met with two big steel doors, two guards once again standing on the outside of them.
"Ethan Cohen." Ethan said to them and it was enough to get them to nod and open the doors for us. I was instantly met with loud screaming and claps, taking me back as I looked over at Ethan's face which remained controlled and calm.
"You okay?" I muttered softly and he nodded at me.
We walked in and pushed past people as we tried to get a better look around. I was focused on the ring in the middle of the semi-arena, trying to get a better look at the two fighters. They were both big men who wore shorts, boxing gloves and fighting helmets. One was covered in tattoos and the other was slightly more buff. I got chills just watching them fight each other without holding anything back.
"Winner gets a paid a shit load of money, some people let it get to their heads and stop at nothing until they win. You don't want to know how many people have died in that ring." Ethan's voice said from beside me but my gaze was stuck on the two men.
"So I'm guessing this place isn't legal?" I asked.
"Darren has a way with the law." Ethan answered.
I nodded slowly and then averted my gaze from the ring to the balcony above where guys in expensive suits stood and watched.
"Those are the people who make big bets on fighters." Ethan guided me once again. "Rich assholes are what they really are." He continued and I nodded my head, getting that hint from the first impression I had on them.
"Didn't think otherwise." I replied. "What now? Who can we talk to?" I asked.
"We have to find this guy named Terrence, he's a trainer here and used to be close with both Darren and Nathan. I'm sure he's still around watching over the place." Ethan said while scanning the place for Terrence.
He continued to looked around until he spotted something, or someone and stopped.
———
Ethan Cohen
Nathan Reyes.
The last place we tracked him in was New York and they've been heading farther and father from here lately so I couldn't comprehend the idea of him standing in the main balcony.
I could tell he could feel someone staring at him since he looked away from the man who was talking to him and scanned the audience until his eyes landed on mine, then onto Thalia who remained oblivious. I could see shock cross his features then it went straight back to being stone cold. He gestured to Thalia by flickering his eyes over to her then back to me, shaking his head as of saying "don't tell her."
I looked away from him since Thalia was now staring at me was about to look up at follow my gaze. "Maybe he's in the back?" I said while grabbing her hand and pulling her towards another section of the arena, knowing full well they don't let you into the back without being connected to a fighter. Only trainers and fighters are in the back, and without their authorization, you can't go there.
"Actually, I don't think we're allowed back there so why don't we come by tomorrow morning or something? I'm sure he'll be here and he's really the only one who could help here." I tried to convince her to leave and although I was torn between telling her that her lover was in the same building as her, or not. If I tell her, she'll end up going up there to him and that might alter his plans or orders for the night therefore putting him in a bad situation, but I also don't have it in me to keep this from Thalia when I know how heartbroken she is.
I didn't fucking sign up for this type of responsibility.
"Uh okay but can we at least watch the next fight? It's about to start." She said while standing up on a ledge near us to get a better look at the ring that was sort of far. I looked towards the ring and my eyes widened once I saw that Nathan was up next, since he was now on the main floor rather than the balcony. How the fuck does he expect me to hide him from Thalia when he's about to be the centre of attention?
"No, no, no, we should go now. Like right now. It's pretty late and I'm getting tired, I'll probably pass out like any second now and we don't want that now do we?" I rushed her off of the ledge and started guiding her towards the main entrance that we came from.
"But—"
"No buts." I said and made sure she couldn't see the ring from where we were. Thankfully Riley called her just in time so that caught her attention and made her walk out of the arena to have enough silence to talk on the phone. I let out a deep breath and turned around to face Nathan was who already staring at the door that Thalia walked outside of.
I, once again, saw his expression falter into a saddened one as he kept his gaze on the door. He then looked at me and have me a curt nod, as a thank you for not telling Thalia. In response, I shook my head at him and sighed.
The match was about to start and I didn't have it in me to watch him become a whole other person when he fights, just like old times.
"Good luck." I said and I knew he could read my lips which made him nod at me once more before he entered the ring and the bell rang.
With that, I left to find Thalia and get her as far away from here as possible.
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{not edited but is it ever?}
Hi, I missed you guys a lot. I have valid reasons I swear but I won't get into those right now. I'm sorry for it being late.
Love you, thank you for reading ❤️
Me coming back from the dead
Me imagining Nathan in the ring though