Brothers In Arms (Batfamily) - Completed

Chapter 12 ~ Gotham's Alleys

WARNING : graphic depiction of abuse in this chapter. If you are not comfortable with this, skip it ;).

Kyle carefully looked behind his shoulder to check that no one was following him. It had been one whole week since he had been with Roy (who was actually Jason undercover) to Matt Jensen's headquarters. It had also been one whole week since Red Hood had in his hands a complete folder of Jensen's and Black Mask's researches on him and on their whole drug business.

The young man had waited patiently for Red Hood to get out on a mission to sneak into his office to find this folder. He had looked up everywhere, looked into every drawers... But he never found it.

Hood wasn't stupid, and he knew it. Nonetheless, he had hoped for his own sake that the folder would still be there. Indeed, this folder was supposed to be for Black Mask because it was containing extremely important and precious information on Red Hood and his gang...

Kyle knew what was going to happen to him as soon as he stepped into the building. He thought about running far away from Gotham, getting a new identity and starting a new life. But he did nothing of it. He gathered his courage and reached for Black Mask's office.

"Tell me you have the folder, Barnes," the drug lord said with a threatening tone as soon as the young man stepped into the office. Before the young man entered, he had been writing stuff on a paper with an expensive black and silver pen. Kyle mumbled inaudibly under his breath. "Louder please," the man replied with a pissed tone.

"No sir, I don't have it," the young man replied with a trembling voice. The drug lord slammed his hands on his desk, startling Kyle.

"And why is that?"

"Hood has it..."Kyle whispered, but loudly enough for the other man to hear it.

"WHAT?!" Black Mask stood up, causing his desk chair to fall roughly and with a loud noise on the floor. Kyle instinctively took a step back, lowered his head and glanced at the ground. The young man had observed the drug lord's behavior when he had an anger crisis. The best thing to do was to avoid any eye contact because it was turning the man even angrier.

Black Mask walked with furious steps in Kyle's direction. He posted himself just in front of the young man who was doing his best not to flinch and who was still looking at the ground "I sparred you, I gave you another chance even though you didn't deserve it. I gave you ONE single mission! And you fucked up everything even more!" the man yelled as he punched Kyle harshly right in the temper, causing the young man to fall on the ground.

"I'm sorry sir," Kyle stammered, half dizzy.

"Oh you are sorry?!" the drug lord replied while his fist collided with Kyle's jaw again and the young man started to feel the horrible metallic taste of blood in his mouth. "We will see how sorry you'll be after this," he said as he kicked him with a precise movement directed right in the stomach as Kyle was still lying on the floor. The young man coughed crimson red blood on the ground as he curled up into a ball, trying desperately to protect his head with his hands. However, the drug lord, completely out of him, wasn't caring if his blows would kill the young man or not...

Still lying on the floor, Kyle was starting to feel himself go. His body was completely numb and Black Mask kept punching and kicking. Soon, the eighteen-year-old heard a loud 'CRACK' inside his chest and the pain became even more unbearable. He was sure that the furious man above him had broken at least three of his ribs. However, quickly, the young man's body became completely numb and he felt like all of his bones were broken under the savages rains of strokes coming from the drug lord.