I stood up and begin clearing the things on my working table.
"Are we leaving now, professor?" Aahmes asked.
"Yeah, we're going to Louie's place. Blessing and Mercy are all alone there right now, I'm afraid they might worry too much. I'll just put my stuff away before someone messes with them."
"Now, would you let me help?" he asked again. "My men might be able to locate your nephew."
"Haay... suit yourself, Habibi," I replied, feeling tired all of a sudden. It was then that someone tapped on the glass door.
"Professor," it was Pilar, "Dr. Gonzaga is requesting for you to go to his office."
She saw the both of us clearing the long work table and asked, "Are you planning to leave early today?"
"Yeah, there's an emergency with my nephew," I grumbled, "why does Gadxilla have to call for me now? It's already 7 PM!"
"I'm not sure, Professor, but it sounded urgent," said Pilar. "Why don't you head upstairs, let me clean up your work area for you," she offered.
"Thanks, just flush everything down the drain, then place the remaining chemicals in the cold storage," I handed her the keys to my personal storage. "Thanks for the help."
Aahmes and I went upstairs to Gadxilla's office. Turns out, he just wanted to flaunt his researchers to a group of VIP guests from Europe. We went straight to the basement parking after that and was on our way home to get changed when I got a call, from Mercy, this time.
'Tito Eric, did Dad contact you? Are you going to San Juan?'
"Nope, we're heading over there, I just need to pass by our house first, I haven't taken a bath in three days..."
"That's why I told you to take a bath this morning," mumbled Aahmes by my side.
'Okay, Tito, please hurry up, we're really worried about kuya, especially Ate Blessing..."
"Tell your sister not to be such a worry wart! We'll be there before you know it, so just sit back and relax."
"You really are a good actor, professor," said Aahmes as I turned off the phone. "You sound as if you hardly care, when all this time..." he touched my shaking hand, "You're already this nervous."
"This is all that idiot Nathan's fault. Why does he always have to get himself into trouble, all the freakin' time!"
"It seems to me like you have been dealing with this a lot, Professor."
I shake my head and sigh. "The kid wasn't that bad in the beginning, it just got worst after he got entangled in a rape case when he was in junior high..."
"A rape case?" asked Aahmes with interest.
"He witnessed an omega getting raped by a group of delinquents. He tried to help the victim after the perpetrators left, but the omega in heat attacked him instead."
"I see. Good thing they didn't get bonded?"
"Yeah, but, the omega's parents singled him out and tried to sue him for a ridiculous amount of money. They even demanded that he marry their son since the omega got pregnant. Good thing Louie intervened. We waited for the child to be born and took DNA samples to find the real father from a list of suspects. But Nathan was never the same after that. It was as if, he got jaded by the incident and started looking down on omegas and women alike. I guess the idiot made up his mind that all they were after was his money and his seeds." I sigh and shake my head sadly. "It got even worst when he became friends with a group of notorious alphas when he entered senior high. I thought it was finally over when he graduated and started college, but now..."
Aahmes squeezed my hand.
"Do not worry professor, everything will turn out right in the end."
"I sure hope so, or I swear to God, that damn Dan is gonna get it!"
I got a change of clothes when we got home, while Aahmes left some important chemicals in the lab. We were on our back out when the doorbell rang.
"What the hell is it now?" I mumbled as we made our way down to the ground floor.
We got outside and opened the side gate when low and behold! I was suddenly face to face with my idiotic nephew!
"Nathan!"
His head rose slightly. He looked so drunk that his swollen eyes could barely open to look at me!
"What the hell happened to you?!"
"Professor..." Reubert appeared behind him, keeping Nathan up on his feet. He looked so distressed with tears falling from his eyes. "Please help Nathan!"
"Get him inside, quick!"
I opened the gate wider to let them in. Aahmes stepped to a side as Reubert picked Nathan up in his arms and carried him the rest of the way inside the house.
"Nathan, can you hear us?" I asked, but he seems to have lost consciousness.
"What happened to him?" Aahmes asked Reubert.
"I found him in a nightclub," he replied, facing me once more. "They took advantage of him professor... they were doing things to him that..."
"They who?!" I shouted.
"Those monsters! Those alpha bastard! They drugged him and were having their way with him... and I couldn't help it... professor... I had no choice!"
I suddenly felt a chill crawl up my spine.
"Damn it... what did you do now?"
"I had no choice!" he kept saying.
"Reubert, put Nathan on the couch first." Aahmes called out to us, carrying a medical kit from our room. He took a syringe from inside it and approached my nephew.
"What are you doing?!" Reubert sneered at him.
I saw Aahmes grimace as Reubert sent a wave of pheromones towards him!
"Reubert!" I quickly stood between them. "Don't you dare hurt my beloved!"
Reubert looked at me, his half crazed eyes still leaking.
"This is a suppressant," Aahmes said calmly from behind me. "Your friend is suffering from a forced rut, a reaction from a drug made of concentrated omega pheromones forced upon him. And I do not think that is the only drug he has been given."
Aahmes approached Nathan once more, but Reubert was still protective of my nephew.
"Don't touch him!" he shouted, holding Nathan tightly in his arms.
"Reubert, do you want Nathan to get worst than he already is?!" I shouted back.
Finally, he placed Nathan down on the long couch, though hesitantly. Aahmes immediately gave him a shot and checked his vitals.
"How is he?" I asked as Aahmes checked his pupils and his pulse.
"I need to give him a proper check-up."
He took out a stethoscope and a sphygmomanometer to check his blood pressure. As he did, I took a proper look at my nephew and noticed that he was wearing nothing but a kind of table clothe.
I almost lost my mind when Aahmes lifted it to look at his body.
He was covered in bruises and bite marks all over.
"Fucking goddamn bastards..."
I couldn't stomach what I saw.
I had to look away.
Reubert was right.
No human could do something like this to a person.
Those animals!
Those monsters!
"Who the hell did this to him?" I asked Reubert, my voice shaking.
"I don't know who they were, but I made sure they would never do something like this ever again.
"Did you kill them?" I looked him straight in the eyes.
"No," he replied, never breaking my gaze. "Death is too easy an escape for the monsters who did this."
"They used heroin," said Aahmes. He held Nathan's arm up, showing several needle marks on the underside of his elbow.
"I don't have any opioid antagonist on hand to stop the drug's adverse effects, we would need to take him to the nearest hospital."
"To a hospital?!" Reubert looked worriedly at me. "I can't... I shouldn't be here..."
"They can't know that we're together, right?" I asked him. "Don't worry, we'll take care of my nephew. I need to call his family as well, they've been worried all day..."
"But..." Reubert grabbed my arm, his cold hand shaking. "Professor... Nathan... Nathan and I are..."
"I know, and I commend you for being a good professor." I pat his shoulder reassuringly. "Thank you for finding my nephew, you can rest assure that–"
"He means to say that Nathan and him are partners," Aahmes spoke up.
I turned to look at him and gaped at Reubert.
"Nathan?" I asked. "And you?"
Reubert nodded his blushing face.
"I love him, professor."
"There's no time for confessions now," said Aahmes who pulled at my arm. "We need to take Nathan to the hospital, immediately! I'm afraid he might be suffering from a drug overdose!"
"Take him to the car, quick!" I told Reubert who picked Nathan up once more.
We hurried to the front door, when we were suddenly face to face with a man in black, blocking the way.
"He's with me," Aahmes hurriedly said, touching Reubert's shoulder. "What do you have to report?" he asked the man.
The two of them stepped away and talked in Arabic for a while. The man then handed Aahmes some SD cards and a couple of flash drives before walking away.
"What's that?" I asked him.
"Security videos from the crime scene," replied Aahmes. He looked at Reubert and actually frowned.
"He said the place looked like a scene from hell. It was a good thing he decided to check the security cameras."
"Shouldn't we hurry and take Nathan to the hospital?" said Reubert, looking away in shame.
"Place him in our car, we'll take him to the hospital."
"But – "
I glared at Reubert.
"We both know that we shouldn't even be in contact with each other," I reminded him. "Do you want my nephew to get into deeper trouble because of you?"
Reubert looked conflicted.
"I-I'll talk to the Spider! I'll tell him everything that happened! That I never meant to contact you, or knew that Nathan was your nephew!"
"Then contact him right now and make sure he understands. That's if you want my nephew to leave the hospital on his own two feet."
Reubert noticeably turned paler.
He gets what I mean.
He knows exactly what those people can do.
"Okay, please message me soon about Nathan's condition. Please, professor?"
"Of course, now go."
Aahmes drove us to the nearest hospital while I called Blessing on my phone.
'Thank God!'
I heard her breaking down.
'Thank you Tito, now we can finally breath!' said Mercy in the background.
They had no idea that Nathan was still far from okay. But at least, they wouldn't be worrying too much, anymore.
We took Nathan straight to the emergency room.
Even the doctors were horrified by his condition.
They quickly set him up on life support and gave him an opioid antagonist to reverse the effects of the drugs he took. They were rushing him to the ICU when my phone rang."
'Eric, did you finally find Nathan?' asked their father, sounding pissed.
"Yeah, we're in the hospital right now. Come straight here at the Cardinal Santos."
'Why? What happened to Nathan?' Now he sounds worried.
"Just move your ass and meet us here!"
He arrived 30 minutes later with another gigantic woman in tow. Probably one of Blondie's bodyguards. He ran towards us, covered in sweat.
"Eric, where's Nathan?"
"He's still being observed in the intensive care unit."
"What? Why? What happened to him? Where did you find him?"
"There's no need to worry, Mr. del Mirasol, your son is already out of harm's way," Aahmes assured him.
"Why don't you take a deep breath for now?" I told him. "You look like you'd fall from stress any minute now! I don't want your kids to worry even more."
"Let us go to the lounge first, to talk," said Aahmes, leading the way.
We told Louie everything that happened.
Well, not exactly everything. We had to keep quiet about Reubert's ability, after all.
He could hardly believe any of it, and almost broke down after seeing Nathan's condition.
"Hey, are you okay?!" Thankfully, I caught him before hitting the floor!
"How could I possibly be okay? Can't you see what they did to my son?" he asked between sobs as I led him to a chair. "Those bastards! I'll make all of them pay what they did to Nathan!"
"There's a time and place for that. For now, get a hold of yourself before you end up getting confined next to your son!"
"Eric, tell me, who did this to Nathan? Where are they now?"
"They are probably still in that club they were in, but I heard that the club was in total chaos when Reubert found him."
"Damn... that's the nightclub we passed earlier!" Louie glanced at the humongous female with him. "While searching for Nathan, we saw a club being raided by cops. They said people inside were going crazy since someone used a pheromone bomb. We should have checked the place out while we were there!"
"Idiot! Thank God you didn't enter the place! You would have been one of the victims, otherwise!"
"But Nathan..."
"He was heavily drugged, so he was probably not affected. I can't say the same about the bastards who did this to him, though." I sigh and rub my temples. "For now they say he's stable, so there's no more need to worry. While you, you need to go home and tell the kids what really happened."
Louie took a deep breath and stood up.
"You're right... I need to tell Blessing and Mercy what happened... but Nathan..."
"Don't worry, I'll be staying here for now, I'll keep you informed. Now go home and get some rest!"