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At first you think you have a dark side it's exciting and then you realize the dark side wins every time if you decide to indulge in it.

He welcomed the darkness; it gave him peace when nothing else in the word could. The darkness had saved more times than he could count. Tonight though, the darkness was no longer his friend, it had betrayed him. The nightmares came rushing back to him, causing him to awake, in a panic, sweating, and adrenaline running though his veins. Liam glanced around his bedroom, and then looked down at his hands, to see he was holding his military knife, ready to slay his demons. He quickly put his knife away and mumbled under his breath, as he got out of his California king size bed, only wearing a pair of boxers.

The nightmares. The nightmares of his past; before and after he become a war hero. Liam didn't call himself a hero, but his homeland did. He did want he had to do to survive. The nightmares before he became a hero, told a different story. A story of a boy taking the beatings, so his younger siblings wouldn't have to go through it and taking the beatings because he was a bastard.

Son, never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you. Was what his grandfather said to him when he was sixteen years old. His armor had grown so strong over the years. The cruel words his 'father' used over the years and even today had no pull on him.

Liam splashed cold water on his face and stared at himself in his bathroom mirror. Random scars covered his body, some newer than others. He lightly touched the scar near his right shoulder, where a bullet had hit him, on the battle field. So close but yet so a far away from his heart.

Behind every scar, there is an untold story of survival.

"What happened here?" Brooke had asked him one night. She moved her hands over the left side of his abs.

Liam looked at the scar she was asking about. "Darcie, my father," Liam simply said like it was no big deal that his 'father' had stabbed him when he was drunk one night. As Liam kissed Brooke on the forehead, he was pulled back to that night. The night that Darcie stabbed him. His younger sister Aoibheann, had to clean and stick him up. She was only eleven.

Shaking his head, Liam grabs his iPhone five and dials his brother's number. As he waited for his brother to pick up, Liam out on a pair of black Nike shorts and slowly made his way to his private gym in the basement.

"Well hello brother," Ryan said as he let the smoke from his blunt slowly seep out of his mouth. He then paused his video game as he added "What can I do for you?" Ryan was the youngest male of the family, but don't let his baby blue eyes and Abercrombie and Fitch looks trick you, he was impulsive and dangerous.

"I need your help," Liam paused. " I have this drug dealer, who needs to be taught a lesson. I was thinking maybe… power tools."

Ryan got a twinkle in his eyes as he listened to Liam. Even though the younger man was high as fuck, his mind was racing with ideas. "That's a good idea." Ryan put his finger to his chin, thinking. "You know, I always loved bonfires."

"Bonfires…" Liam said more to himself then to his younger brother. "Bloody hell, you are brilliant."

Ryan shrugged his shoulders as he said "Yeah I know. When is this going to go down?"

"Tomorrow night."

"Great!" Ryan said a little too excited. "I'll take the soonest Red Eye. Oh and have your drug dealer set himself on fire." Ryan didn't care that it was the middle of the week, hell he went to Brown, he was on the honor roll and the Dean has a major crush on his mother. It also helped that his grandfather gave the college money every year. He was good to go.

"I'll have someone pick you up. Liam just shook his head at his younger brother. He couldn't believe that Ryan hadn't been kicked out yet. That boy loved to drink and party. Half the time he went to class still trashed.

Even though Ryan was all about the fun times, there was a side of him, that screamed fucked up. Aoibheann once said to Ryan that she wouldn't be shocked if he went to prison for being a psychopath and Ryan well, he gave her a huge smirk replied "Sister, I am glad you think so highly of me."

.

.

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It always started out the same; Aoibheann was at the bar in Dublin with Ryan and her boyfriend, who happened to be Ryan's best friend and a few friends. It wasn't just any bar, no the bar they were at was full of IRA members and family friends of the gang. If you weren't a member you couldn't get into the bar, no matter how well dressed you were or who you fucked. It was as simple as that.

"Babe, I'm going to step out for a smoke," Colin told Aoibheann as he kissed her on the lips, which earned a gross look from Ryan.

Aoibheann simply nodded her head and said "okay," even though her voice was lost in the music and older men joking around. She's couldn't help but to watch as Colin walked out of the bar, nodding his head at all the other members of IRA.

Then it happened. First no one in the bar noticed the bottle of whiskey shatter into pieces, until the bartender was shot point blank in the head.

"GET DOWN!" Someone yelled as bullets started to fly.

Ryan grabbed his sister's hand and pulled her under the table, knowing that if she even got a little cut, his ass would be grass.

"Colin…" Aoibheann whispered as she looked towards the front door of the bar. Then without thinking twice, the young girl ran out from the table and head towards the door. She didn't care that there were bullets flying around her and at any minute one could hit her.

"AOIBHEANN!" Ryan screamed, but his sister didn't stop or look back at her brother.

Aoibheann stopped dead when the cold night air hit her skin, like razor blades. The smell of blood was so strong that she placed her hand over her mouth and nose, as she walked by the dead bodies in front of the bar. It had been a drive by some rival gang. Aoibheann had known every single person who was now dead on the sidewalk; some were like family to her.

"RYAN!" Aoibheann shrieked on the top of her lungs as she fell to her knees, bawling her eyes out.

Ryan jumped over the now knocked down table when he heard his baby sister scream for him. Thinking the worst, the young man bolted out of the bar. Once he was out of the bar, he pulled his gun out from behind his back, ready to kill whoever got into his way.

"Please- Please don't leave me, baby. You can't!" Ryan heard Aoibheann sob out as he kneed next to her. His young sister was bent over Colin's body stroking his face, as she kept on bawling and telling him to come back to her.

"We have to go," Ryan told her in a soft voice. His own eyes were slowly starting to form tears. Colin was his best mate, they had been friends since the first grade and now he was gone, in a blink of an eye. "Call my grandfather!" Ryan yelled at his other friend, as he wrapped his arms around Aoibheann, slowly lifting her off of the blood stained sidewalk.

"We can't leave!" Aoibheann kept yelling as she hit Ryan's chest, with her bloody hands. She wasn't about to lose the only man she had ever truly cared about and leaving him here with the rest of the dead members broke her heart even more.

"Look at me!" Ryan shouted as he grabbed onto his little sister's tiny shoulders and gently shook her. Her brown doe eyes, staring into his baby blues. "I promise you that they will pay for what they did, but we cannot stay here. It's not safe." Aoibheann slowly nodded her head; she showed no emotion on her face. In those few seconds she had turned them off, her world had ended at age 17. She needed to survive though. Ryan said nothing, choosing instead to stare at her. He controlled all his body reactions, but his eyes… his eyes still showed his little sister what was going on inside. He was a mess as well.

She would always wake up at the same part of the dream every time. The part where it finally hit her that Colin was dead because he was in the IRA. She would never see his hazel eyes watching her as she danced around his house. Never run her fingers through his sandy blonde hair again. Never taste his lips again. At 19 years old now, her past had complete control of her future.

Aoibheann jolted up in bed, covering her mouth as she let a sob escape through her lips. She couldn't let Liam hear her cry again. She was here to keep him strong, to make sure he didn't lose himself in the business. Her thoughts of Colin were push to the back of her mind, when she ran into her bathroom, barley making it to the toilet in time. After throwing up everything that was in her stomach, the young girl laid down on the cold bathroom floor and listened to the hum of the lights, as tears slowly fell down her face. The worst type of crying is the silent one. The one where you feel it in your throat, and your eyes become blurry from the tears. The one where you just want to scream. The one where you have to hold your breath and grab your stomach to keep quiet. The one where you can't breathe anymore.

At night everything is more intense, more true. The echo of the nightmare still strong.

The things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end.

Liam raised his right eyebrow as he listened to his sister's footsteps. He then let out a sad sigh as he figured out that she was running to her bathroom. He knew that her own nightmares were back and that they were haunted her and why shouldn't they? Aoibheann had lost someone she had loved. He didn't blame her for running away from her demons though. He had done the same thing two years ago. After a few members had taken care of the rival gang, Aoibheann took the first flight out of Ireland to D.C. Where she spent her junior year of summer and finished off her high school career with their oldest brother, Brian and his girlfriend Anna. After high school, Aoibheann once again ran from her problems, only this time to show up at Liam's doorstep.

Taking off his boxing gloves, Liam grabbed his iPhone five and sent Brian a text, telling him at that their little sister's nightmares where back and that she may need to start taking sleeping pills again. Within seconds, he got a text back… only from Anna, saying that she will get right on.

Brian and Anna are the power couple of the fucked up family and they're also the most normal ones. They had met during college, when Anna was studying psychology for a year in Ireland. There she met Brian and they both found out that they were meant to be together. Somehow they made it work, Brain would make trips to the United States every three weeks and Anna would visit him on the holidays.

Now the power couple lived in D.C. both with rising careers that couldn't be stopped. Brian was a hot shot lawyer who worked for both the FBI and CIA. Anna on the other hand was a psychologist working for the Pentagon.

Knowing that he had to be up in three hours, Liam picked up the training area in the basement and dragged his himself back to his California king size bed.