I'm back! Glad to see you people like the story so far :D I won't make any promises with the updates, because life just doesn't like me all that much.

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters in this story or any other registered brand that may appear in the chapter.

Chapter 2

Battle scars.

He violently throws the duffel bag to the floor. He's frustrated. No, scratch that, he's pissed off. Groaning, he lets himself fall face first on his bed.

"I take it it didn't go well." J.T. says from behind.

Barely lifting his head, just enough to open one eye, he looks over at his friend. He's leaning against a wall, arms and legs crossed, a bored expression on his face.

"No, J.T. It went great. It actually went so great that I've decided to break stuff for the fun of it." Vincent replies, sarcasm everywhere in his voice.

Rolling his eyes, J.T. pushes himself off the wall. "Okay, Captain Sarcasm, hold your fire. Tell me what happened."

Turning himself so that he's laying on his back, he says "Well, it was all going pretty well you know? Went to Atlanta, found the guy, started trailing him. Nothing related to Murifield as far as I could tell, until yesterday morning. He gets a really weird call and looks on edge for the rest of the day. I follow him after work, and confront him. He's just about to spill it when BANG!"

"BANG?"

"Bullet through the head. Poor guy didn't even see it coming." He sighs and lays his head on the mattress. Pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes, he grunts "I was so close J.T. He was gonna tell me and they killed him for it."

"You don't know that."

Pushing himself onto his elbows, he raises an eyebrow at his best friend. "Oh really? And pray tell, what other reason could they have possibly had to kill one of their own?"

"Well, he could have left the AC on in the lab." J.T. says with a shrug. Vincent just looks at him funny, so he says "Hey, these people are crazy bastards okay? You don't know what pet peeves they have."

"I'll keep it mind for when we finally find them." He says, chuckling under his breath.

"If it makes you feel any better, my week hasn't been so great either. I spilled coffee all over one of my manuscripts in class, got a speeding ticket and completely failed at finding a cure."

"Wait, you got a speeding ticket?"

"Seriously? That's what stayed with you, not the bit about the cure."

"I'm sorry, it's just, you barely even reach the speed limit when you drive. I can't believe you got a ticket." Vincent says with a laugh.

"I know right?" J.T. replies, an incredulous tone in his voice. "But anyways, the cure thing was a total failure. Thought I had it, tried it on one of the rats, and now we only have 2 rats."

"Wow. Dude, what did you put in that thing?" Vincent asks, sitting up and stretching his neck.

"Nothing poisonous I swear. I really don't know what happened." J.T. replies, looking down.

He gets up and walks over to his friend. "Hey, don't dwell on it, okay? You'll get it eventually."

"You really think so?"

"If anyone can get it, it's you J.T." J.T. smiles lightly at him, and Vincent slaps his shoulder friendly. "I'm gonna take a shower."

J.T. watches him leave. Once Vincent is completely out of sight, he takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. He's exhausted, and not entirely sure of how much longer he can stay awake. After all, a week without Vincent home usually means a sleepless week trying to find the stupid cure without his best friend convincing him to go to bed.

But really, he just can't give up. Because it's not fair. So he won't stop. Not until he figures out how to help Vincent. He plays it off like it's okay, but J.T. knows better. After all, they've known each other their entire lives. Not even the years apart fazed their friendship. No, best friends for life. Well, brothers really. So he has to find a cure, he has to help Vincent.

He just has to.

He steps out of the shower, steam all around him, and blindly grabs a towel. After ruffling his hair with it, he wraps it around his waist and walks over to the mirror. He wipes the condensation away with his hand and then combs his still wet hair out of his face. Leaning his hands on the sink, he stares at his reflection.

He looks tired. Dark circles are visible under his eyes and a constant frown is etched onto his brow. And he really needs to trim his beard, it's getting out of control. Moving his eyes up from his chin, they almost pass it without really noticing it. Almost.

The scar.

He turns his face so that his right cheek faces the mirror and lightly traces it with the pads of his fingers. The memory of how he got it is clear in his mind. But he's not going there. Not today.

Today he focuses on the fact that he's no closer to his revenge. He's spent the last 3 years looking. And he's got nothing. Not a clue. But he will, he will find them.

Murifield. The bastards that destroyed his life in every way they could. The company that thought it would be okay to take a ten year-old boy and experiment on him until he became slightly less than a wild animal. The same company that later on, after he had escaped, would take away from him what he cherished the most.

Well, apparently he is going there after all.

Three years ago

His lungs are burning and his legs are begging him to please slow down. He speeds up. He can't stop. He should really, but he can't. He should also come up with a plan, get the upper hand. If only his brain could muster up something apart from those three words.

They've got them.

His brothers. Murifield had taken his brothers. His everything, really.

So he couldn't stop. And he wouldn't think of the smart way in. It's not like they didn't figure he was coming. After all, the smug bastards had left him a freaking note telling him they had his brothers. So really, no surprise factor whatsoever.

Sweeping his eyes around the scene, he spots the warehouse where Murifield is holding his brothers captive, and most likely waiting for him with guns blazing. With complete disregard on his own safety, he barges in, grabs the first guy with a lab coat he finds and lifts him off the ground and into the wall by the lapels.

"Where are they?" He growls. Lab coat guy is trembling and he can hear his heart skyrocketing. He shoves him harder. "ANSWER ME!"

"Now now Vincent, is that any way to treat your hosts?"

He slowly turns his head towards the voice. There he is, the son of a bitch who runs this thing. The same one that smiled creepily at him when he was a child, telling him it was going to be okay.

His brown hair is graying at the roots, and there are more wrinkles adorning his face. But he wears the same gray suit, and the same smirk that crinkles his eyes and once sent shivers down his spine. He stands tall, unafraid, and almost proud. As if seeing Vincent like this was a triumph. If only he could put a name to that face.

He feels the change through his veins, and in a moment he's roaring, his beast face out in the open.

"I wouldn't recommend that. If I'm not back there in a couple of minutes they'll kill your brothers." He says calmly. Vincent breathes hard and composes himself, undoing the change. "That's better. Now, please be a darling, put that man back on the floor and follow me." With that, he disappears down the hallway.

Letting go of the lab guy, he hears more than sees the fall to the floor and the grunt in pain. He's speed walking, or speed stomping after the bastard until he reaches a door. He opens it and is immediately held at gun point by three men.

"I'm sorry about the guns Vincent, but we all know you have a bit of a...temper, per se."

"Look, you have me. You finally got what you wanted. Now, let my brothers go." He says, a slight plea in what was meant to be a menacing statement.

"I'm afraid I can't do that." He has the guts to look like he actually cares.

"They've got nothing to do with this." He grunts, trying to hold in the anger flowing through him. Anger at them? For doing this. Or perhaps at himself? For not being able to protect his brothers.

"On the contrary, Vincent. This isn't some strategy to get you here. Well, it is, but it's not just that." He says, a sing song tone to his voice that make Vincent want to rip his throat out.

"What do you mean?"

"You see, Vincent. You are very special. Probably the best specimen we've ever had. Your response to all the upgrades we did to you were unprecedented." 'Upgrades? I'll give you upgrades, you son of a bitch.' "So, it made us wonder. What was so different about you? Is there anything specific that makes certain men more...suitable, for these treatments? And well, who better than your own brothers to test that, right?" With an evil glint in his eyes, he turns to a mirror. Or at least it looked like a mirror. A light goes on in the other side, and suddenly he can see them.

His brothers. Tied to stretchers. There are tubes connected to them, dropping something in their bloods. He walks up to the glass and starts pounding it, screaming their names.

"WILL! DANNY!"

"No need to do that, they can see you too."

His eyes widen as they connect first with Danny's and then with Will's.

"Vincent!" Will screams, fighting against his restraints. "Vincent get out of here!"

Leave it to his brothers to be in this situation and worry more about him than themselves. He's got to do something, anything, to get them out of here. So he turns to him.

"Don't hurt them. Please. I'll stay, and you'll be able to do whatever you want to me. Just please, don't do this to them. Not this." He's pleading, and about a minute away from falling to his knees and start begging.

"Don't worry Vincent, they won't be like you. No, we've had years to perfect this mix. They'll be stronger, and faster, and completely obedient. They'll be better."

"Wh-what's that?" At hearing Danny, he turns back to the glass. "What are you doing? Stay away from me!" Danny is backing away from a woman, as much as the ties will let him.

"NO!" He screams, slamming a fist to the glass. "Stay away from them!"

"You can try as much as you want, that glass won't break. We made it specially for you."

He's tempted to snap his neck in two, but then he'll get shot and his brothers need him alive, so he doesn't. For now.

"VINCENT!" Will yells. "Vincent what's going on?! Who are these people?!" A doctor approaches his stretcher, syringe in hand. "Wait, what's in that thing? No! Don't! Get off me! VINCENT!"

He's pounding the glass again. He doesn't care how useless it is. He yells at everyone to stop, to stay away. But they don't. He watches helplessly how both his brothers are held down and injected.

"No. No no no no! NO!" He should be crying, but his entire body has shut down. 'That's it. They're like me now.' He presses his forehead to the glass, whispering apologies into it.

"His vitals are dropping!"

His head snaps back up in time to see the doctor rushing towards Will, who has started spasming on the stretcher.

"We're losing him too!" The woman is hovering over Danny's still body.

"No..." He hears the bastard whisper beside him. "Come on, react."

He doesn't know how his body starts functioning again, but he's never punched or screamed so hard in his life. He can hear everything. Every whisper, every clank of the medical equipment, every drop of sweat hitting the ground. And then, he can only hear one thing.

The endless beeping sound that says neither of his brothers has a heartbeat anymore.

"Such a shame. I had high hopes for them." The bastard sighs beside him.

And that does it.

He's changed in the blink of an eye, and turning fast throws a table at the guys with the guns. Not wasting a second, he runs up to the glass and jumps right through, smashing it completely. He starts throwing people around, getting them away from his brothers. As he's throwing the last one standing against a wall, the bastard says something.

"Outstanding." He whispers. Vincent turns around and the guys with guns start shooting at him. He ducks behind a table, growling at them. "NO! Don't kill him! He needs to be studied!"

Upon hearing that, he jumps back up ready to pounce, but they're all gone. He's already going after them when his jacket gets stuck in some of the equipment. Turning harshly to rip it free, he comes face to face with Danny's lifeless body.

His humanity kicks in like a tsunami, and he's finally crying. He removes all the tubes from the bodies and unties them. He looks at their faces, drained of color. Danny's eyes are closed, but Will's blue irises are looking back at him. With a trembling hand, he slides them closed and combs the hair away from his face. And that's when he breaks.

"I'm sorry." He's sobbing into his big brothers chest, like the lost child that found his way back home all those years back. "I'm so sorry."

He doesn't really know if he spends just one minute or thirty crying, but eventually he dries out. He stands back up and dries the few tears left on his face. 'I can't leave them here.'

He feels numb as he carries the bodies out. All he can hear is his boots hitting the pavement. Once both bodies are in the car he had driven here what seems like forever ago, he goes back in, to find something. And address, a name, a number, hell, a shoe size. Anything that will tell him who these people really are.

There's just him in the building. He walks back into that room, and starts rummaging through every drawer. And then he hears it.

A heartbeat.

It comes from the other side of the glass, where he killed all those doctors. Or well, almost all of them.

He jumps through the gap the glass has left and lands softly, quickly spotting the living one among the dead.

"P-please, don't hurt me." He's just a kid, barely out of high school. A poor intern that got dragged into this, who didn't choose this path.

Oh well, he didn't choose this either.

He can hear the blood inside the kid's body. Internal bleeding, malfunctioning organs. He's already dead.

"Listen kid, you're not stupid, so you know what's going inside you. And you know it'll hurt like hell up until the very last moment. Now, I can do you a favor and kill you quickly and painlessly, or I can turn back around and leave here to suffer for hours. Of course, the first option comes with a price."

"A price?"

"Quid pro quo." He really doesn't know how he's being this stoic and cold on the outside, when really, his whole world is shattering on the inside. "You give me information, I save you from the pain."

"What-" The kid winces, readjusting himself on the floor. "What information?"

"Who are these people? Who is the man in the gray suit?"

"I don't know." At Vincent's expression, the kid reaffirms. "I swear I don't! I'm just an intern. They just told me what to do and where to be. I don't know who runs this."

Deciding he believes him, he ponders his next move. He has to get something put of the kid. If they have been able to find him after all these years, he sure as hell can do the same.

Wait.

"How did they find me?" He asks. "I escaped when I was sixteen. That was nine years ago, and they never knew my full name. So how did they get to my brothers? Huh? How did they find me?"

The kid gulps. "Th-They said something about a murder. Someone killed two of their guys in some park a couple of years ago. They said only you could have done that damage."

His mind goes back to that night in the park when he saved that girl. He didn't know those guys were Murifield, he was just trying to help. 'Well, that's what I get for caring.'

"Okay kid, I believe you." He crouches in front of him. "A deal's a deal. You might wanna close your eyes."

Nodding, the kid swallows. "Thanks." He says, and then closes his eyes. Sighing, Vincent looks down before snapping the kid's neck and carefully laying the body on the floor.

He stands up and looks around. He can't leave all this proof of his existence behind. He needs to burn this place down. Thank goodness for J.T. and all the chemistry he has to endure everyday.

As he drives away from the raging fire he has started, he glances in the rear view mirror. For the first time, he notices the gash on his face, right under his right eye. He winces as he touches it. He must have cut himself when broke the glass.

Wiping away the blood from his face, he faces towards the road. He swears revenge on everyone. He grips the wheel tighter as the adrenaline and the anger run through his veins. He'll kill them all.

He'll kill him.

He shakes himself out of the trance. Looking down at his hand, he notices that he is gripping the sink way too hard and that he should probably step away if he doesn't want to deal with a pissed off J.T. about a broken sink. Which he really doesn't.

He walks out of the bathroom and puts his pyjama pants on. Maybe sleep will ease his mind a little. But then again, sleep never comes easy after he remembers that dreadful day.

There hasn't been a day in the last three years where focus hasn't been on them. The scar keeps him grounded, reminds him of what he lost for being careless and forgetting about the bull's eye on his back. He's tried everything. But he hasn't found them. And every time he gets close to someone on the inside, they get rid of them.

His thoughts wander to the night in the park. As soon as he figured out that the dead woman was connected to Murifield, he searched for her family. Maybe they'd know something, a place, a name. But they didn't. The father and the youngest girl were completely clueless, they thought it had just been a robbery.

The eldest girl though, she had been there. She had seen him. Well, him. Perhaps she knew something. But she was nowhere to be found. Her family didn't know where she was, or even if she was okay. She had just vanished.

He weighed up two options: Either she did know something and Murifield had taken her -or silenced her-, or she was overwhelmed by the death of her mother and the sight of him and had gone nuts.

Either way, pretty useless in his search for revenge.

Putting all these thoughts aside, he lays down on his bed. He'll think of all of this tomorrow, once he's rested and has a cup of coffee in his hand. Right now, he just wants some peace and quiet. Closing his eyes and putting his hands behind his head, he takes a deep breath and relaxes into the mattress. Slowly, he lets all the sleepless hours of the past week catch up to him and lure him into oblivion.

He drifts off with the faint sound of something resonating in his head. It's rhythmic.

Almost like a heartbeat.

Well, we got to know a little of Vincent here. Don't worry, there's more to come.

Don't be shy and tell me what you think! :D