After an hour later, Nick became fully conscious and his whole body slowly showed some reflexes. We were both in the office, lounging on the 2-seater sofa with his back facing me and his long legs left hanging by armrest while I messily wrapped the bandages around his upper torso and on his left shoulder.

He glanced behind at me and chuckled. "Is this how they teach you bandaging at Scouts?"

"No, I YouTubed it," I answered frankly.

"Then it explains why you're doing such a lousy job and wasted a huge amount of disinfectant and bandages," he complained.

I grunted quietly by his sinister remark. Even when he was in vulnerable state, he could still find something to grumble on. After done bandaging him, I took a step back, assessed my sloppy work and secretly concurred to his criticism.

"If you don't try to kill yourself, none of this would happen," I finally said.

"I wasn't trying to kill myself. I was just inflicting pain to my body," he objected.

"By electrocuting yourself?"

"It was a small current," he clarified.

"Yeah and knocked you out pretty bad," I retorted. "I'm calling your GP and he has to check up on you today."

He laughed at my mumbling. I reached out for his burned hand and placed a small bag of ice onto his palm, causing him to wince in pain but he allowed it.

"Nick, I'm sorry about yesterday. I shouldn't have said what I said without knowing that you're trying to make it even," I confessed. "But the least you could do is to apologise, and we could get it on, I'm cool with that."

Nick didn't respond, he was contemplating, enduring the stinging pain from the burn while being in trance.

"So, you keep some weapons at home? What are those blades I saw in your bathroom for? That doesn't look BDSM-friendly to me. Is it yours?" I mustered a question.

"Dad's, used for the tatbir ritual during Ashura," he answered quietly.

"So, your real name is Nekmat?"

"No, not really," his voice softened.

"But you just said your name is Nekmat," I raised my voice in confusion. "Your dad calls you Nekmat and there's this guy, Hayed in your email calls you Nekmat."

"That's what they wanted to call me," Nick said sarcastically. Sensing edginess in my face, he went on, "It's Ne'matullah. I was named after a legendary Hazara activist Ne'matullah Payam. Only a few called me Nekmat for short. But it's officially Nick now."

"Okay, why ditch that name?"

"Too many traumatic memories of my mother in it," he said bitterly.

"But I like Ne'matullah better. Can I call you that?" I grinned.

"No," he mouthed, mustering a painful laugh.

I moved my bum towards the floor, allowing him to lie sideways on the sofa, facing me.

"Nick, I know this isn't you," I prompted. "You showed me many ways that you're not the notorious Nick Pholadi I thought you were. Why aren't you not showing me the real you?"

Nick looked at me carefully without uttering a single word. I could tell he was exhausted from the electrocution which constricted his muscles, but he too felt the need to tell me something.

"You are wrong, Zahida," he finally spoke. "I'm my real self when I'm with you. You think I'd act this way in front of others?"

He has a point though, he cracked in my presence but not others. But I felt the urge to go deeper to understand the root cause to his problem. His past.

"What actually happened? Your mom?" I warmed up.

"What about her?" he asked back, confused.

"I know her death led you to this," I clarified.

He gave a long sigh before he began, "She was temperate, helpful and kind-hearted. I became her mould when she taught me benevolent beyond boundaries that I grew to love. Helping needy was my drug I can't never get enough of. My father was otherwise and hated that grew more to be like Mom. He said it was our weakness. Because he was already into narcotics and being kind could risk the family."

"Abs said you've known each other since Sunderland," I sought verification.

"Yeah, we were. His father's a fuckin' bastard and the reason why Mom died. He had problems with my father's business counterparts, Morales and sought salvation from us which my father refused. But he knew Mom's flaw, so he used Abs' mother to talk to Mom into sorting out his issues. When Morales found out about it, he felt betrayed. But that wasn't really it. Morales was a wicked greedy man. He had been eyeing for a bigger piece of Dad's flourished businesses. And having Abs' father was apparently beneficial for his infiltration to Dad's business plan."

He took a pause, swallowed his woes to continue, "Abs father thought he found a new friend, so he and Dad drifted apart without knowing that Morales was using him. But things got elevated and Morales reigned at our expense. He raided our homes when Dad was away, took all our possessions, took us with them, transported Mom and Abs' mother back to Afghanistan. I was 16, still weak to fight but Cane managed to save me. Dad avenged for Mom, took Morales' life. Abs and his father left Mowbray like any cowards would do. Dad was devastated, not being himself ever since. He grew vicious, consumed with hatred."

"How about you? What have you become?" I asked him.

"Empty. I'm still grieving over Mom's death," he quietly held the whimper between his sentences while tears involuntarily flowed from the corner of his eyes. "And I keep filling it... with things that repel me just to clear my grief away until I can no longer recognise myself. Either way, the pain would still come no matter how much drugs I took or how many people I hurt."

"Do you enjoy killing your victims?" I asked bravely.

"It fucking hurts to see them die even if they deserve to," he responded. He flapped open the fire blanket above him and showed me a tattoo image of an olive branch curved into U shape with a heart inside, slightly below the circle with his mom's name on his chest. "This is to remember my first kill; a vulnerable old man. Since that day, I've been living a lie pretending to be brutal just to be invincible. I can never forgive myself for every sin I made."