Author's note: Hello! So, here's the first chapter of my new story.

If you haven't already, I suggest that you read the first stories in my series: Safe & Sound, Love & War, A Pocket Full Of Soul. You could probably understand this without reading the others first, but you might not.

I hope you like it. Please don't forget to favourite/follow/review so I know people like the start and are interested! :) It continues straight from the last chapter of APFOS.

10th October 2013

Another hit, this time in the stomach. Laughter around him. A punch in the face that knocked his head back against the cold and damp brick wall behind him. He slumped back to the ground, his arms held above him by the chains around his wrists. He coughed out the mouthful of blood that was the result of the punch. After three days of this, he was used to it. His body was bruised and bloody, his clothes clinging to his skin with sweat, and he had only been given one glass of water and a slice of bread each day, but he refused to break. Whatever they wanted from him, they weren't going to get it.

The two men laughed again and Xavier closed his eyes, bracing himself for the next hit and not letting himself try and think about where it would be next.

But the punch never came. After a moment of tense silence, during which Xav's heart started pounding faster and harder, he slowly opened his eyes and hoped that this wasn't some sort of trick. It hurt to open them; not only was his face covered in blood, fresh and dried, but it was swollen and he just knew without looking in a mirror that he was barely recognizable right now.

When his vision focused, he found himself staring into the mostly otherwise empty small room he had been locked up in for three days, seeing his two abusers leaving the room as another man stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Xav recognized him immediately as the dark-haired man from the church, the leader of the group. He'd ordered his men to kidnap Xav and Uriel, in a church at the funeral of their brother's soulfinder's mother of all places, and was the only man then and in the past few days that wasn't hiding his face underneath a balaclava. He was dressed all in black again and had a cruel, cold look in his eyes. Xav prayed for mercy to a God he didn't even believe in. This man was even more terrifying than the men who had been beating him up.

The man grabbed a wooden chair that was leaning against the wall near the door and dragged it across the room behind him as he slowly made his way towards Xav. He stopped a feet few away and sat down on the chair, crossing his arms across his chest and crossing his ankles. Getting comfortable, Xav thought to himself. He's not uneasy about being here at all.

"Hello, Xavier." His accent was clearly British. "I would apologize for the way my people have been treating you, but I am afraid I had to order them to do that. You see, this matter is very simple and all I want is a kind of payment for what your family did to my family. And I think achieving that would be much easier if you're weaker and want the beatings to stop." He said it all very matter-of-factly and it came to Xav that the man must do this sort of stuff regularly to get what he wanted. Those kind of men disgusted him and that thought made him less scared of the man and a little more like his usual confident self.

He chuckled, his voice croaky from thirst. "So what do you want from me? Are you going to kill me? Because if you are, I'd prefer you to just get it over with. Surely having me beaten up is a little time consuming for you?"

"Oh it certainly is," the man laughed. "But killing you isn't going to get me anywhere. At least not yet. This could all end very quickly for you and you can go home if you wish to. All I want is some simple information from you."

"Well I guess you'll just have to get your men to beat me to death because I'm not telling you anything," he spat angrily. He was furious and knew that his words were all that he had left now because he had no chance at fighting his way out of here. "I don't care what you want. You can go fuck yourself."

The man's facial expression didn't change, almost as if he had expected this from Xav. "It's very unfortunate for you that you won't co-operate. My men will just get rougher with you the longer you take to come around. I know for a fact that my daughter is just dying to get her hands on you and she can be pretty ruthless. She's even worse than I am, if you can believe that!" A smile spread across his face like he was proud that his daughter was evil too. "She's already paid your brother a visit, although she went a little soft on him. He was crying and begging to be released and she felt sorry for him. I keep telling her that her heart is going to make trouble for her."

Hearing him mention Uriel made Xav wince. Uriel was strong, but the most sensitive of the brothers. Still, he trusted that Uriel wouldn't tell them anything despite how hurt he was. "So basically you're teaching your daughter not to have any emotions?" He didn't rise to the bait and ask about his brother. He wouldn't give the man the satisfaction of that.

"I guess some people would see it that way," he shrugged. "But I see it as shaping her into the perfect young lady. She'll never get hurt by anybody and she'll never know what betrayal feels like. I'm protecting her."

"Who even are you?" Xav blurted out. "Because your face doesn't look familiar to me at all."

The man's expression went hard and he sounded annoyed when he answered. "Of course you wouldn't remember my face. I bet none of your family do. You destroy the lives of that many people that I'm sure it's hard to keep track, eh? My name is Oliver Hawk, does that ring a bell?"

It did. Xav remembered the Hawk case quite clearly. Oliver Hawk had a wife called Delia and they had three children together: Evander, Ireland and Quinn. Oliver and Delia had set up a business that worked to fund anti-savant groups, whether they were savants against the net or the rarity of humans against the savant race, and help them with all financial matters if it helped take down savants. They were savants themselves which had confused the net: why would they willingly help others try and destroy their own kind? Turned out that it had probably been all down to money. The Hawk couple legally owned a number of businesses and earned a large fortune from them. But they'd got greedy; they wanted more money. Which is how their new business was created.

It had all come to an end for them at the start of 2012. They'd been financially funding a group in Sweden and they'd believed that the group really did have enough power to overthrow the Swedish branch of the savant net and had made the decision to join them. They knew that if the group succeeded, they would become famous and many people would praise them for their work. Their plan wasn't to expose savants, simply destroy those that didn't believe they were better than humans and that were on the side of the net. The couple had even enlisted their children to join the group, having trained them in the ways of their business and taking savants down since each of them was born. Together, the family – even the youngest, Quinn, whom had been just fourteen at the time – followed their orders and killed at least four other families. There were probably more, but evidence had only been found at the residences of those four families.

The authorities had been trying to track the family down for months, without much success. So in June 2012, the Benedict family did what they were famous for and collectively used their powers to figure out the location of the family's hideout. Trace and Victor had even been a part of the group that had travelled to Sweden, to the house the family were hiding in.

Something had gone wrong whilst they were. They'd planned for a simple arrest and hadn't been expecting the family to be able to fight back so well. They'd underestimated them. Delia and Quinn had been shot on sight and died, whilst Oliver and Ireland had managed to escape and hadn't been found since. Evander, the eldest child, was the only one to be arrested and he was still rotting in jail.

Xav remembered the case so well because it had become such a big deal in the savant world from the chaos it caused. He remembered that Trace and Victor had been inconsolable when they'd got home, not because of the two that got away but because of the two that had died. It was believe that one of their bullets had accidentally killed the fourteen year old and they felt terrible about it, even if they weren't getting into trouble over it.

"You want revenge." It was a statement, not a question, because Xav knew that he was right. "Revenge against my family for destroying yours."

"I do," he nodded his head. "I normally frown upon people getting revenge, it just seems a little pathetic. But I now finally know how they feel. I won't sleep properly until I avenge my wife and daughter. But before I get revenge on your family, I need information. Rumour has it that there is a weapon that has the power to destroy the savant net and control the rest of the savants. And apparently your family know what that weapon is. If you or your brother tell me, you can both leave here alive. That's all you have to do."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." It was a lie, of course. The whole family knew the truth and had been told it in the first place by his sister-in-law Georgie's dad Mark. The weapon wasn't a thing; it was a person. Georgie's cousin Persephone apparently had some sort of power capable of being used as a weapon against the net, although they didn't know what that power was. Persephone was an innocent in all of this so Xav wasn't going to willingly send a bunch of people after her, nor did he want to be the reason for somebody so evil having such power at their beck and call. "And if I did, I still wouldn't tell you."

The man let out a loud, over-exaggerated sigh and stood up. "Very well. Be that way. Hopefully I'll have better luck with your brother and if not... I'll just kill you both and kidnap another member of your family to try my luck with them. If I end up having to kill all of you, so be it. At least I'll finally have my revenge."

He started to walk away, which infuriated Xav for some reason he couldn't comprehend. "Hey, Oliver!" He called out, his voice not very loud because he was so dehydrated, but Oliver heard him. He paused and looked over his shoulder at Xav, raising his eyebrow questioningly. "Is your daughter hot?" Xav continued, a cocky grin on his face. He refused to break and show any more weakness in front of this man. "Because if she is, by all means send her in. I could do with a little eye candy to look at, and it'd make be very happy, if you know what I mean. Oh and if she gets a little rough and hurts me a little... Well, I'm always up for a bit of kink. So go on, send her in."

Oliver's expression went stony again and he glared at Xav before storming out of the room. Clearly Oliver didn't like to hear someone talk about his daughter in a degrading way and Xav had hit a nerve. It probably wasn't the best thing to wind up his kidnapper but Xav was still happy with himself. No, he wasn't going to go down easily and without a fight. He'd stay his arrogant, strong self until the very end.

When the door creaked opened a moment later and two men in balaclavas came in again, Xav thought that he must have really pissed Oliver off with his talk about his daughter.

The men approached him and the beatings started again.

"That was great," Noel said as he collapsed on the bed next to Ireland. "Thanks."

"Yeah. Whatever," Ireland replied, wondering what kind of idiot actually thanked somebody for sex as if she were some sort of prostitute. Which she wasn't. She'd been bored and wanted some fun and she knew that Noel would drop whatever it was he was doing for her father just to get into bed with her. He always did. "Listen, I gotta go."

She got out of the bed and quickly pulled her underwear back on and slid her short red dress on top. As she left the room, Noel didn't complain. All he wanted her for was sex, he wasn't bothered about cuddling afterwards- which Ireland was glad for. She'd never found a guy that she wanted to cuddle with afterwards and didn't see herself ever being that soppy and sentimental. Sex and relationships meant nothing to her and that was the way she liked it.

She went straight to the elevator and pressed the button for the ground floor. She lived in a hotel owned by her father that was occupied by all of his cronies and was always 'fully booked' if someone actually tried getting a room here. It would be just too dangerous for normal people to stay here, considering the amount of inner fights that went on amongst the group and the torture chambers in the hotel basement. The last thing they needed was somebody reporting them to the authorities.

When the doors of the lift slid open again, she walked into the lobby and smiled a hello at the fake receptionist, a red-haired girl called Roberta, Robbie for short. Robbie looked like the perfect receptionist, all girly and prim and proper. But behind that appearance, she was a twenty-odd year old with a filthy mouth and had a better aim with a gun than anyone in this place. Her actual job title was head of security and she had been working for Oliver for a few years now. She was the closest thing to a friend that Ireland had, what with her not trying to make friends with anyone else. What was the point of having friends? They were just a nuisance, that's the way she saw it.

"Hey Robbie," she said, leaning over the front desk. "You seen my dad anywhere?"

"Last I saw he was heading downstairs," Robbie said with a shrug, occupying herself by painting her nails a dark blue colour. "Mostly likely seeing what he can squeeze out of those fucking Benedict boys. I saw them this morning, they're a complete mess. It's a shame, they were gorgeous bastards."

Ireland laughed. "I had a go with the eldest one earlier. Gave him a few cuts on his chest with my dagger, that's all. He was a bit pathetic to be honest, so weak already. I reckon he'll be the first one to crack."

"Probably," Robbie nodded her head in agreement. The second elevator dinged as the doors opened. "Your dad's here."

Ireland turned around and walked in her father's direction, meeting him in the middle of the lobby. "Anything?" She asked.

"Not yet," he said in a gruff voice. Ireland knew her dad well enough to know that look on his face: somebody had pissed him off and somebody would most likely get killed if they got on his nerves in the next hour. "And before you ask, you're not going down to the other one."

"But daddy-"

"Don't complain, Ireland," he snapped before she had a chance to ask him why. She was desperate to get her hands on the second Benedict they had. The other one had been too easy and she'd heard from the guards that the second one had a bit more fight in him and would be a bigger challenge, which she loved when she was torturing somebody. It made it so much more fun. "I don't want you anywhere near him, the guards are taking care of it. We need that information about the weapon."

"Dad, I thought this was about getting revenge! They killed mum and Quinn, they put Evander in prison!" She reminded him angrily. "They broke our family apart and it's not fair that their family gets to live happily ever after. They deserve to hurt for what they did."

"And they will," he said softly, putting a hand on her shoulder and squeezing it. "Trust me, we will make them pay for what they did. When we find out what this weapon is, it may even help us with our revenge. But for now, there's something I need you to do. I have a contact who hasn't paid a debt and you know I never let anybody get away with that."

Ireland grinned.

A hint about the next chapter: Xav and Ireland meet for the first time.