Chapter 8: Cerberus.
Everyone watched as James staggered left and right, his face and hands covered in blood, leaving the building. A building that no one had ever left before.
As he stepped outside, the cold air hit his face and wounds. The numbing effect was slowly wearing off, and he began to feel the sharp, burning pain creeping in.
Fuck... why? Why me? What did I do...? His thoughts spiraled, trying to make sense of it all. How could this happen? How could something like this be real?
He had become someone out of nothing. Someone whose life was now nothing but suffering, every single moment filled with pain.
Then, out of nowhere, his legs gave out. He collapsed to his knees as the pain spread through his body.
Count... one thousand... two thousand...
Blood poured from his mouth as he vomited, and then it happened. His body gave up.
His vision blurred before fading into complete darkness. His breathing slowed as he lay on the cold asphalt.
"The fucking Heavens... what a joke..." He muttered as a white light appeared before him and got more bright and sharp at each moment.
"James!" Hurried footsteps approached. Someone was running. "James, say something! James!"
"It's just... you, Hans."
Hans dropped to his knees beside James, his breath ragged, panic flashing in his eyes.
"Shit, James! Stay with me!" His hands hovered over James's bloodied body, unsure where to even start. His suit was blood stained everywhere, there was so much blood. Too much.
James felt himself slipping—his vision blurred, his body numb, the world around him distant and fading. Hans's voice was still there, shouting his name, but it sounded muffled, like an echo from another world.
"James! Damn it, stay with me! Don't you fucking close your eyes!" Hans's voice cracked, but James couldn't respond. His lips wouldn't move. His body wouldn't listen.
His breath came in shallow, ragged gasps as darkness crept in, swallowing everything.
Is this it? Is this how it ends?
Then, suddenly, he felt weightless.
His body was being lifted. Strong hands gripped him, hauling him off the cold asphalt. His head lolled to the side, his limbs limp like a broken puppet. The sensation was strange—detached, as if he wasn't inside his own body anymore.
He wanted to speak, to ask what was happening, but the words never came. All he could do was let the darkness take him as Hans's desperate cries followed him into the darkness.
James drifted in and out of consciousness, his mind floating somewhere between reality and the abyss. Hans's voice, once sharp and desperate, began to fade—like a distant echo swallowed by the void.
"James... stay awake... don't you dare..."
The words barely reached him now. They stretched and warped, slipping through his grasp like water. His eyelids felt impossibly heavy.
"...you're gonna be fine... just hold on..."
Then, silence.
For a moment, there was nothing. No sound, no pain, no fear—just emptiness.
Until a new noise cut through the void. A steady beeping. Faint at first, then stronger.
"Where... am I?"
A dull ache throbbed through his body as he tried to move, but his limbs felt restrained, heavy, useless. The beeping continued, rhythmic and steady, tethering him to something real.
Then, a voice.
"James?"
It was weak, uncertain—but familiar.
"Hans..."
James forced his eyes open, the blinding hospital lights making him wince.
His throat was dry, his body aching in ways he couldn't describe. Slowly, he turned his head, his blurry vision settling on Hans, who sat beside the hospital bed, exhaustion etched into his face.
"You look like shit." Hans said with a smile on his face, gripping James's hand firmly.
James squinted, his head throbbing as he slowly tried to process Hans's words.
"Please tell me....that they didn't shove a tube into my dick..." James muttered, his voicelow, his mind still foggy from the pain and the anesthesia.
Hans chuckled, his hand squeezing James's. "I wanted them to, but they gave you diapers instead." He laughed more, clearly relieved but still nervous.
James blinked, the light in the room stinging his eyes.
The world around him felt like it was spinning in slow motion.
"Are Mom and Rafael safe?"
"Don't worry, they're both under heavy protection"
The relief that washed over him was immense, and for a moment, he believed he could finally rest with ease. At least, that's what he thought—but the truth was far from it.
"What time is it? I can't see shit..."
"It's 4:50 am right now. You've been here for about five hours. They stitched you up and did all that stuff. They said you don't have any internal damage, just some nasty bruises... and, well, one of your fingernails came off."
James let out a slow, exhausted breath, his body feeling like a stranger's. His mind, still trying to catch up, couldn't process the fact that he was alive, sitting here, talking.
"And my face?"
"Well, that's another story. You pretty much look like an orc."
"Fuck... I can feel some missing teeth too." James laughed a bit, then turned to Hans, even though he couldn't see his face clearly. "You're way too relaxed, my friend..."
"Well just listen to it." Hans got up from his chair and turned on the TV.
James could not see the screen but he could hear the voice of the broadcaster clearly
"I'm here at the NSBI office on Bouving Street, near Parliament, where the first explosion occurred just outside the building. Early sources report at least 45 dead and dozens injured. Authorities have yet to confirm if this attack was coordinated, with no clear link to terrorism or organized crime at this time. Stay tuned for more updates as the situation develops."
At first, his mind barely registered the news.
The deaths, the injured, the explosions—they were all just noise, another layer of the world falling apart around him. But then, a strange stillness washed over him. The realization hit him harder than he expected: he had been a part of this. His choices, his actions—they had all led to this moment.
He knew very well that with all this misunderstanding he was part of it.
He wielded this power to increase his chances of staying alive, but with it, he had destroyed lives. He had killed people—whether it was by his will or not, his hands were stained with it.
James could feel the weight of it pressing down on him, like a shadow that would never leave.
Every move he made, every step he took, led him deeper into the mess. He'd convinced himself that it was for survival—but the truth gnawed at him.
How many had died because of me?
And while he could justify his actions to himself, the guilt was always there, lurking beneath the surface, waiting to break through.
He wasn't just fighting for survival anymore—he was fighting against the man he had become.
"Who was it?"
"No clue, it wasn't us."
James let out a deep sigh, the relief washing over him like a flood. It was the best feeling he'd had in what felt like forever.
"I just got a call from an unknown number saying where you were, and then it was all over the news."
"El Diablo... I'm going to kill myself, for fuck's sake." He closed his eyes, and within seconds, he drifted off to sleep.
And Hans took his last sentence to heart.
He knew James's struggles—that he didn't sleep well, sometimes felt dizzy, and, most importantly, that he took some kind of medicine. Hans thought it was a sedative, but it was actually just multivitamins that his mother had given him.
At that moment, Hans grabbed his phone and called for Cerberus.
James had never asked for power or the complications that came with it, but through a misunderstanding, he shared blood with three others, and the Bellini family was formed adn with that The Three Heads of Security, Cerberus.
Together, they were responsible for protecting the family—whether James wanted it or not.