Thorns (Sequel to A Dozen Roses)

Chapter 22 Home Base 2.0

Chapter 22
Ty POV

Our new home base was a lot larger and able to accommodate more people. To accommodate the ever growing team.

It was much like the house we had lived in with Ghost. But a bit more up to date and professional.

You entire the front doors and are met with a grand staircase, lined with white marble railing and polished stone stairs. The floors are a darker polished stone.

In the room to the right sits Brice and the kids, sitting on the living room floor  with a thousand piece puzzle spread out between the four of them. It wouldn't take them more than thirty minutes to finish it.

The couches are are made of a scarlet red memory foam that forms around you when you sit. It was like sitting on a royal throne made perfectly for you.

The kitchen and dining room branched off of the living room. Our kitchen was top quality and equally matched the ones in fancy five star restaurants. The dining room gave off a dark aura with a long painted oak table running down the center.

Dartron and Kyle are at the table whispering quietly behind a computer screen. With one of our new members, Steven, wedged between them with his broken glasses hanging off the edge of his nose, and whispering along with them. They hardly notice me walk by.

The rest of our new members, and the ones we just brought home, have made their way upstairs into the series of rooms on the second and third floor.

It's essentially all riddled with bedrooms and bathrooms for everyone to use. This house was built to hold a team. As a safe house, or a meeting place, or whatever it was needed for. For now it was our home.

The fourth floor on the top of the house sits two bedrooms. Meant for the leader and Co-Leader of the group, whoever was heading our gang.

This meant Seto and I.

At the top of the stairs it split into the two solid wood doors. To the left was where Adam and I slept; and to the right was Seto and Brice's room.

"Seto?" I called out knocking on his bedroom door. At first I got no response then the door knob jiggled and the door opened.

Seto's hair was dripping wet and he wore just a pair of pajama pants. A white towel hung around his neck. He looked tired, tired of everything.

"What Ty? I was just getting dressed." He turned and walked into the room. He left the door open for me to follow and I did, kicking the door shut behind me.

"Are you alright?" Seto paused before he opened his duffle bag and pulled out a long sleeved pajama shirt. Despite being extremely hot in the house he always wore a long sleeved shirt.

His body was riddled with scars, and now slowly fading bruises. He didn't like his kids to see the marks or know what he's been through.

"Im....Alive." He said calmly, pulling the navy blue shirt over his head. "My children are alive, my husband is alive. My family is alive...I don't know what else a man could want." He hung his wet towel on the desk chair and sat down at the foot of the bed.

I crossed the room and sat down next to him, pulling my legs up to sit cross legged.

"That's not what I meant. I mean how're you doing with everything. It both took us time to...get used to not being under his thumb anymore. It's not going to happen over night." Seto scoffed and ran his fingers through his damp hair, making it stick up.

"Trust me. I got over it the second I left that maniacs side. The second I was out of Captain's car. I was done with it and over everything."

My brother was a seriously stubborn man. He would hold onto every last grasp of his pride and dignity before he admitted he was broken.

"Seto this room is to military standards and then some. Your duffle bag is organized to his standards. You haven't touched your phone since you get back because you know it's his rule against phones." I brought my hand up and placed it on his shoulder, his entire body tensed up quickly before returning to its relaxed form. He clenched his fists in his lap.

"I feel like he's going to be standing around every corner Ty. Like I'm going to get comfortable again and he's going go rip everything away from me. He's going to put me back in that uniform, that prison cell." He got up off the bed, rubbing his hands on his pajama pants, "Like he's going to kill the part of me that I never want to die."

"The part of you that's good. The one that cares about your family and your people."

No human being is born bad or evil. We are born with a neutral moral compass. How you are raised depends on everything; how you'll behave, who you are, who you'll become, how the world will see you.

How everything will turn out.

"Not all of us want to be evil Seto. We don't all want to be serial killers and sadists. I mean some do, but not all of us."

"I don't know how to be anything else Ty. I was born and raised to be a serial killer. I love the site and smell of blood. Do you remember what happened when Ghost tried to stop me from killing? I went insane from not seeing blood and tore my own skin open. You had to stitch up my legs and arms so I didn't die!" He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists at his sides.

"Ty I can't do that to my children. I can't raise them to be like this. I don't want them to want to grow up and murder people. I don't want them to have to tear their own skin apart to satisfy their urges to see blood. I don't...I don't want them to end up like me.."

I got up on the couch and placed my hand on his arm softly.

"Seto. Once we've taken care of Ghost, you and Brice and the kids can pack up and go somewhere and settle down and live a real life. The kids can go to school, Isaac can go to college at 12 or whatever the fuck he wants to do. Brice can sell his art and you can follow your dreams. Once he's gone we have everything we've always wanted alright? Anything."

He lifted his head and looked at me with cold lifeless eyes.

"I really hope you're right."