Three words:

Cold.

Dirty.

Dark.

There was no other way to describe that unknown cellar in which the three heads of Icarus Rose laid, tied to old wooden chairs. Their backs colliding against each other in a perfect triangle in the centre of that humid room. The oldest of the alphas was more tense than ever, he could feel how his omega emanated despair and helplessness through his bond. He felt useless, defeated.

For his part, the boss, the most feared by all the mafias preferred not to think about what was happening at that moment, the omega inside him was full of suffering and despair thanks to the dirty memory of Edmund using his dominant alpha voice with him, the wound of that moment in which he had no choice but to completely surrender control of the words that that dirty alpha used against him, he felt dirty, used, but more than anything he felt like a coward at the memory of his steps next to Ed while his gaze remained on the floor, completely submissive.

"So..." He cleared his throat, "did you finish that show you've been watching? The Wanchister brothers or something like that." The omega asked in Niall's direction to break the deafening silence that had been created. Louis rolled his eyes and began to struggle with the bindings on his wrists.

"Winchester," Niall corrected him. "And of course I finished Supernatural, duh, the best series of all time." He began to speak with a little more emotion.

"Remember that episode we watched together? Where they're stuck on TV shows or something."

"Of course I remember! That episode confirmed Dean's bisexuality to us without saying it directly!" And they were silent again for a few seconds. "What would Sam and Dean do in this situation?"

"Oh Niall, obviously Castiel would go to rescue them." Zayn huffed, closing his eyes, Niall nodded.

"You're right," he confirmed, "and who would Cas be? Will it be Harry? Shawn, Liam? As soon as they get us out of here we'll find out..."

"Shut up Niall!" Louis yelled, suddenly cutting off the younger alpha. Niall's heart began to pound as a tightness in his chest took hold. "I'm tired, you never take anything seriously and I'm fed up, fed up!" The alpha's jaw set and his eyes glazed over. "We're kidnapped and all you're doing is joking about that stupid TV show! Do you think that's any use to us? Do you think I give a damn who the Castiel of our lives is?!"

Silent tears began to fall down the alpha's cheeks upon hearing his brother's words, breathing was difficult for him and suddenly the room had become smaller, darker.

"Lou..."

"No," he said before Zayn could say anything else. The omega lowered his gaze and felt submissive again, he felt little boy. Niall felt as if hammers were slowly breaking down each of the walls that he had formed over the years. "My daughter could be alone, who knows where, is there anything in life that interests you more than being the jester of the family? YOU'RE A DAMN ADULT, YOU'RE NOT FIFTEEN YEARS OLD! Grow up for God's sake."

Everything was filled with that deafening silence in which they were at the beginning, everything was cold, dirty and dark again. But Niall's tears turned into sobs when the feeling of helplessness made him collapse, his crying quickly filled the emptiness of the place, Zayn began to struggle with the restraints on his wrists in a desperate attempt to comfort his younger brother's sadness, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't make it. Louis for his part realised what he had said had sounded just like his father, and regret hit him hard with a train.

"Niall...don't cry...please..."

"I CAN'T CONTROL IT!" He screamed heartbreakingly, interrupting Louis, "I don't know how else I can deal with my problems, Louis!" He sobbed like never before, breaking his brothers' hearts even more. "I don't know what to do, no I have no idea what's going on most of the time and I'm scared, okay? I said it, I'm scared. I'm scared of myself, I'm scared of what might happen to my pup, I'm scared of what's going to happen to my omega, I'm afraid of what could happen to you... And..." The uncontrollable tears did not allow him to continue. Niall had been broken the whole time and no one had noticed. "What that man said to me today... I can't take it anymore, I can't stand it anymore..."

And before they could continue the conversation the door opened. Light from some other room streamed in from the ceiling and several footsteps started down the stairs. Zayn looked up and saw two of the faces he never thought he'd see together.

"The biggest mobsters in all of Europe are here!" Said Charles, feigning effusiveness. "The three heads of Icarus Rose, the three alphas that..." He looked at Zayn. "Excuse me, the two alphas and one omega that Kasper swore would be the most capable heir... if only he could see you now. Under my absolute control. Scared to death.

And if looks were embers, Charles would be nothing more than simple ashes due to the hatred that the omega's brown orbs transmitted to him. If anything bothered him the most, it was that his family was attacked right under his nose, and he would never allow them to be put down in such a vulgar and blatant way as the older Tomlinson was doing.

"Are you comfortable? Do you need a blanket? Hot chocolate maybe?" Asked Charles sarcastically as he walked in circles around the most powerful mobsters from around the world.

Louis swallowed the lump in his throat and continued with his attempt to loosen the knot that kept him tied to the chair, his wrists were being torn by it, but seeing his father made his blood boil and gave him the will to fight. to endure that ardour; Niall kept his gaze fixed on the ground, their lips pressed together trying desperately to stop crying, but he had come to a place he had buried under lock and key for years and stopping his suffering to pretend to be the strong alpha he always showed himself to be was impossible. .

"What the hell do they want from us?" Zayn asked as Charles stopped in front of Niall and laughed.

"What do we want from you?" He repeated as he approached Des, who since they had arrived hadn't moved from his place. "We have exactly what we want omega, you and your empire in..."

"In a dark, dirty basement?" Louis interrupted. Edmund laughed.

"I still don't believe my son chose you out of all the alphas out there." Louis snorted.

"Are you really going to tell me that you pulled this whole stunt because Harry doesn't love you anymore? Because let me tell you, Harry has hated you ever since you abandoned him and his family."

"MY FAMILY!" He interrupted him in frustration.

"Trash like you has no family, Edmund. And as for you Charles, it won't be long before you will feel the same way Edmund feels... Like a failure."

The alpha approached Louis and punched him in the face, the blue-eyed smiled knowing that he had accomplished his mission, licked the blood that was beginning to come out of his lower lip and winked at Charles, then Zayn spoke .

"So what are you going to do with us? Kill us?" Ed walked over to the omega and smirked.

"Killing you won't be as satisfying as what we plan to do." Zayn laughed, and then Louis started laughing with him.

"What's so funny about you damn aberrations?" He said furiously.

"You don't have the slightest idea what to do with us, do you?" Zayn spoke. He looked to Charles for answers, but the alpha ignored him, "there it is! You did it again."

"What makes you think we don't know what to do with you?"

"Ow, how adorable you are Edmund, you didn't look like that when we were at my house. But let me explain so you don't have to think so much, because I see that Charles is the mastermind of all this." Edmund glared at him with fury emanating from his whole body and Zayn cleared his throat to continue. "First of all, we were left here long enough for me to realise that no footsteps were heard above, which tells me there's no one watching that we don't run away; second, Edmund doesn't even know how to dress properly, his shirt is untucked at the back because he most likely had his gun there, but he no longer has it with him, obviously he has no idea what you're doing, and" he looked at Charles for him to answer, "he's too busy trying to look like a powerful and imposing alpha that he forgot to make sure..."

"Enough!" Charles said using his alpha voice. A chill ran down Zayn's entire spine and he immediately fell silent." You are the ones who are tied in these chairs! You are the unfortunate ones who just lost everything! And you are the ones who will die without knowing what happened to your families , but I assure you that I will force you to see each other until you spill the last drop of blood in your bodies and take your last breath!" He shouted, annoyed and walked to the exit with Ed following him closely.

"We're screwed, Zayn," Niall whispered.

"That's not true Ni, don't say those things." Zayn tried to get as close to Niall as he could until their shoulders brushed. "I promise to get you out of here so you can see your baby being born, even if that's the last thing I do."

☺☻☺☻

I closed the door behind me and tried to keep up with Charles. He was tense, the effect of the scent suppressants we had taken when we went to the Malik mansion had worn off and I could smell a certain nervousness in him.

We entered his office and I watched him take a seat behind his desk, his gaze fixed on a point in the room and his frown, was it my fault? Could it be that they are right and we don't know what we are doing? Have I spoiled things for us?

"Could you stop pacing please." He said with annoyance in his voice and I stopped, not even realising that I had been pacing all this time.

I walked over to one of the chairs in front of the desk and sat quietly, watching as Charles closed his eyes and massaged his forehead to ease the tension in his body, his muscles tensed from head to toe, his jugular jugular jutting out too far. pale neck.

"What do you see in me, Styles?" He asked without looking at me.

"Do you think they're right?" He looked up and his features relaxed a bit. I didn't know if he should relax me or scare me.

"They don't know what they're talking about, Des, so don't worry about it right now. We have plenty of other things to talk about."

We both sat facing each other in silence, deciding what we could do with the captive men. Charles was confident that he could keep them there for a long time without being noticed; Years ago the girls wanted a movie room with a projector, so he decided to have one built for them in the basement, he secretly ordered his omega to open another room under the basement to store things there that if Lillibeth came to see, she could even sue him. .

"We should try to get the recipe for the alpha essence out of them, just like Calder wanted..." I tried to propose, but Charles slammed the desk hard.

"I don't care about that stupid essence! For me to fall for each and every one of the stupid lower castes who use it, I want the power of Icarus Rose, get rid of my bastard son to finally be at peace." The alpha bellowed Tomlinson, I nodded, not very convinced." And if you don't like my plans, Edmund, then you can leave my house, I don't need you anymore."

"Oh, of course you need me, Tomlinson." I growled, also getting up from my seat and leaning towards him, secreting strong pheromones to try to impose myself on the other alpha. "Your plan had a lot of loose ends and you know it, there are at least four people that we need to capture, among them my son, not counting of course our granddaughter and Malik's despicable children."

"Four? We're just missing your bastard. Liam Malik and Shawn Horan," said Charles with a frown, sitting back in his place, "and since when is Louis and your son's little bastard 'our granddaughter'? That girl it's just an inconvenience, something that shouldn't have been there in the first place."

"You know what I mean, asshole." I sighed and slumped back in my chair, letting my frustration out in my scent. "Barbara Alekseevna is missing."

"The maid?" Charles asked, clearly annoyed. "Why wouldn't you just kill the stupid maid?!"

"Didn't you know? She is, in fact, Zayn Malik's biological mother."

"That's even worse, you should have brought her, you fucking jerk!" He yelled, but thought about it for a couple of seconds, "Although, on second thought... We can use that to our advantage."

"What do you mean?"

"We're going to tell Zayn that his pretty mommy is dead, and we're going to tell him that you killed her before you went for him. That the blood that stained your shoes and the expensive floor of his beloved mansion was hers."

We both smile knowingly. We were finally understanding each other.

☺☻☺☻

Niall hadn't stopped crying, and that made the situation worse.

The atmosphere was of course tense, Zayn had already yelled at him a few things for having made Niall cry in such a situation, and now he wasn't speaking to him. It was even worse, because some alphas had entered just a few minutes ago to accommodate them so that now they could face each other, and it goes without saying that Louis felt devastated to see his younger brother's eyes full of tears, and that smiling face and friendly face had changed to a totally broken one.

"Niall, please forgive me, I just..." He kept trying to apologise, but Niall's eyes wouldn't even rest on him. "I'm worried about my omega, my baby, my nephews, Blair, Blake, your little boy without a name yet, for Liam, even for Shawn."

Niall didn't answer for a few moments, he kept wiping his tears with his shoulder. At this point Louis was also crying, he was afraid that his little brother, whom he tried so hard to care for and protect all these years, was hurt because of him.

"Avery..." He finally answered himself.

"What?" Louis muttered, Niall finally looking up at him.

"We decided to name our puppy Avery. I suggested to Shawn that his middle name be James, but he really didn't want our son to be named after his dad." He began to recount with a small smile, which spread to his brothers.

"Okay, we all love each other again, Niall, that's a lovely name, but we really need to plan how we're going to get out of here by sunset tomorrow or we're really going to be in..."

The door was flung open again and Charles and Edmund walked back in, smiling and looking triumphant after their long talk in Charles's office. They were accompanied by two other men, one of whom was well known to the Icarus Rose bosses.

"Shit! Aaron?" Zayn yelled as he fixed his eyes on the alpha, who seemed to have gained a bit more arrogance and self-centeredness since the last time they saw him.

"It's nice to see you again, Mr. Malik." He replied mockingly, making a ridiculous bow.

"I knew you were a fucking traitor ever since you stepped foot in my office asking for your stupid resignation, with your stupid sorry dog face, but my alpha is too dumb to notice. I should have put a bullet in your head as soon as you turned to leave and..."

"But you didn't, Malik." Spat out the alpha in a mocking tone. "And you know what? I'm going to enjoy making fun of you so much that you didn't, none of you, that Tomlinson would rather overprotect his stupid omega and let Malik do it to me." His right hand instead of him.

"Oh, I hope you start praying right now, because as soon as I get out of here I'm going to kill you with my bare hands." The omega growled.

"What? Just like they did to my Sebastian? " Aaron bellowed, a little pain betraying his serious expression, Louis looked up at him with wide eyes.

"Sebastian and you...?"

"Enough," Charles ordered, grabbing Zayn's hair and pulling him back, "You know? It's a shame you're a male omega, and have such a big mouth, with those cute features of yours in a curvaceous omega... You'd be the most coveted little omega among gangsters, just like your mother was... Or wait, she wasn't really your mother."

He released him and began to walk around the bosses, hands behind their backs and shoulders back, head held high.

"Barbara Alekseevna, a poor prostitute, sold by her father at the young age of six for the satisfaction of powerful alphas, who would have thought that her ticket out of prostitution would be a miserable alpha with a useless omega and the duty of having a heir to his dirty business?

Zayn flinched at the poorly told story, of course he knew her mother's story hadn't been easy, but he never really knew it. Now he needed more than anything to get out of there to give the omega that gave him life all the love he deserved.

"And who knew she would end up dead in her son's fancy kitchen," he blurted out, shrugging. Zayn's scream was deafening. "And also that her blood would end up spilling on the path from the kitchen to your office."

"Damned son of a...!" He yelled, but couldn't finish when a piercing sob cut him off, his shoulders shaking and thick, heavy tears rolling down his cheeks.

"Edmund killed your mother, Zayn, just as he watched your father and Katherine Malik die and he dragged his blood all over the house on the bottom of his shoes."

"SHUT UP!" Louis gasped, Charles laughed.

"Oh, do you want your mother to be next?"

"You wouldn't dare," he bellowed, annoyed.

"Well if you don't stay out of this and keep quiet I'll bring her here and kill her in front of you along with your useless sisters, tied up in that stupid chair, totally useless." He spat and Louis fell silent, tears still falling down his cheeks. his cheeks. "Good boy."

He kept walking around the three Icarus Rose heads, stopping after a few minutes in front of Niall, a dark smile gracing his face.

"Least of the Maliks," he said with mock joy, Niall looked up, his watery blue eyes staring at his brother's father, his gaze fixed on him. "How does it feel to have found out the truth about your family in just a few days?"

"What are you talking about, Niall?" Zayn asked, Niall squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.

"How does it feel that your dear daddy wanted the illegitimate son of a prostitute and not you?" He asked arrogantly, Niall sobbed loudly. "That he preferred to leave you behind, to allow the Irish mob to leave you motherless, and worse still, that in all the years he had you there, spoiling you to extinguish his own guilt, he never said a word to you."

"What are you talking about, asshole?" Zayn yelled, causing the attention that had been directed at Niall to turn to him in an instant.

"Oh, doesn't the most powerful mobster in the world know that his so-called 'adopted' brother is really his biological brother?" He blurted out and Zayn's jaw dropped, Charles grinned triumphantly. "It can't be possible. Well, I'll give you the scoop little Zayn, Niall Horan is your biological brother! Or did you think that you were the only slip of daddy? That mommy was special? Of course not! And if he left Niall in the margin it was because he did not want to compromise his empire for a poor unwanted child!"

"But it doesn't make sense, Niall is an alpha, he..."

"Blah blah blah blah, sure Niall is an alpha idiot! But you were two! Who knew that the kid Kasper thought was going to be the good guy would turn out to be a flawed omega? Of course when you were already introduced It was too late to throw you out and get the good guy back."

"Don't you dare make assumptions about our father." Louis dared to speak, Charles looked at him with an amused grin. "My father loved the three of us, and he showed it to us every day until the last, without distinction of caste or blood, my father..."

"Your father, your father...You don't have a father, you unhappy bastard!" Charles yelled into his face. "You stopped having one when you stepped foot outside my house."

"And I won a better one in December of the following year," Louis mused, always holding his head high, "a real father, not one who only loves you when you do what he wants."

Charles snorted, stepping back a bit and looking at the others present, the ones who had been silent all this time. Louis then looked directly at Ed and smirked.

"And Harry would have gotten a better father too if Calder and his crew didn't kill him, right, father-in-law?" He snapped with pure venom charging his voice, Edmund turning red with fury.

"Don't talk to me like that, kid."

"I'm not talking to you in any way, Edmund, I'm just giving you the information. Do you know that as soon as my father Kasper found out about Harry he began to love him like a son? His people, my people protected him from the people at you swore allegiance, you filthy alphas sent by Calder to take possession of a poor six-year-old so he could sell him, did you know our people were the ones who forced them away from Jane and her children when they were found stalking Harry outside the school? Were you going to do that, sell your own son whom you say you love?"

"I left him to protect him!" He yelled, rushing over to Louis. "You're to blame, YOU PUT HIM INTO THE MOUTH OF THE WOLF WHEN MY HAZZIE HAD TO STAY AWAY!"

The silence was much louder than the heart-rending screams and sobs from a moment ago, Louis was still smiling arrogantly, as if he wasn't the one tied to a totally vulnerable chair, as if he was on top, on a throne of snakes.

"I'm not to blame for anything, Edmund. Here the bad father and alpha is you, because my omega and daughter, as far as I know, since they began to be under my care they always had everything they wanted with just the snap of their fingers."

And the slap that Edmund gave Louis resounded throughout the house, and still the lesser alpha didn't take that arrogant smile off his face.

"I curse you, Louis Tomlinson, for taking my family from me," Edmund spat hatefully, Louis grinning wider.

"Wait a minute," Niall muttered with his remaining strength, all attention returning to him, "I sold you weapons once."

"You didn't remember me, little Malik? That was the bait to kidnap you, but you decided to let them take my son instead of you."

"Harry's not your son," Niall snapped, red with anger as he remembered what had been done to Harry. "You lost your family the day you left them, and guess what, Des? We gave them what you didn't, we gave them a home, a family, we helped them get ahead, the one you think is your daughter, Stella? Today she's Ronan's right-hand man, supervisor of the labs and Jane's fiancé, and thanks to her we are going to earn millions more, her invention, an omega essence, and do you know whose side she is on? On the side of the mafia that you wanted to destroy. You turned your back on them, we extended our hand and helped them to overcome"

Even the youngest alpha didn't know where he found the strength to say all this to his best friend's father despite all the pain in his heart, but he was proud of that burst of bravery when Edmund stormed out of the basement fuming. ears, followed by Charles and the other two idiots.

Suddenly, the outburst of anger that Niall had had subsided, returning to his state of total sadness, the tears that stopped flowing momentarily continued their way down his wet cheeks. Zayn was staring at him, hoping to see something that would tell him that all the information they had just received was a lie.

"Niall..."

"What?" He replied defensively, Zayn cringing in his place and the lesser alpha instantly regretting it, "Sorry...it's too much for me."

"And when were you going to tell us what they told you? Who told you?"

"Richards told me when they entered the house." He confessed quietly, Zayn shook his head.

"That can't be true, dad wouldn't have left you, he loved us, he loved the kids and..."

"But it's true, Zee." Louis intervened, the omega looked closely at both of them.

Then he lingered on Niall for a few moments, finally finding the similarities between them, that slightly reddish birthmark on their necks that they both shared with their father, the same knitted eyebrows and even the shape of their lips almost identical to his, of course. Niall must have looked more like his mother than his father, but he easily identified the similarities between the two that he had overlooked all these years.

"Shit!" He sighed and began to cry, sobbing and his body shaking violently, the rope that tied him to that old chair had begun to hurt him." I'm so sorry Ni, if I had known..."

"It's not your fault, Zee, none of us knew." Niall tried to calm him down, looking at his two brothers, noticing a bit of guilt in Louis's eyes. "Lou?"

"I... I already knew, for a few months," He admitted crestfallen, his brothers looked at him surprised, "I'm sorry..."

"How did you know?!" Zayn yelled, Louis winced.

"Sebastian mentioned something about an illegitimate son of our father, stressing that it wasn't you because Barbara hadn't been the only one, and that night I... I walked into his office," his eyes filled with tears as he remembered everything he read that night, "I thought there was another one out there we didn't know about, but after reading what I read...I knew it was Niall."

"And why didn't you tell me?" Niall asked barely in a whisper, trying to take in everything he was hearing.

"That's not my place, Ni, it wasn't up to me to tell you, those things I found were things that you should find, that you should read about dad, not about me."

"And who was supposed to tell me? Kasper from the grave?" He snapped followed by a laugh filled with nothing but hate.

"Niall... you have to understand that it wasn't my place to say anything to you, these things are not spoken like that, you needed..." Louis continued, but the look in Niall's eyes was no longer the friendly and bright one that everyone remembered, he had darkened.

His hands moved in a circular fashion on the rope, irritating the skin on his wrists until they began to bleed.

And then he looked up at his brother and a smile played on his lips.

"I'm going to kill you, Louis Tomlinson." And just after saying that threat to his brother, Niall got rid of the rope that tied him with a strong movement and jumped up to his brother, knocking over the chair in which he was tied.

Pieces of wood flew everywhere and a loud moan came from Louis's mouth. Niall grabbed his brother's collar and looked directly into his eyes, reflecting how betrayed he felt through them, betrayed by his brother, by the person who had always looked out for him, the person who had sworn to protect him from any danger.

"DO YOU THINK THAT'S FAIR?!" He yelled with tears streaming down her cheeks, "do you think you can just keep information on how it is because you don't feel like it's your responsibility to tell me? Please, Louis!"

"Niall..."

"Shut the fuck up!" He said before hitting him just below the cheekbone. "You don't understand Louis... You can't get into that huge head the simple idea that I've never had anyone, NOBODY! Absolutely! Nobody!" The older man looked at him silently with his conscience full of remorse. "Since my parents died I felt like I would be alone forever, I was a damn orphan, there was no one who wanted to take care of me, and then Kasper let me in at his house and now I find out that he was actually my father... AND YOU ALREADY KNEW!" He hit him again.

Zayn cried for his brothers, he felt useless; he wanted to reassure Niall that everything would be alright, he wanted to hug him, but he couldn't.

"You have your mom and your sisters! Zayn has Barbara! Harry has his mom and his sister! Shawn has his whole family! EVERYONE LOUIS! What about me?" He laughed, "I'm the stupid Irishman who makes everyone laugh, the family jester, who everyone pities..."

"That is not true..."

"SHUT THE FUCKING MOUTH!" He yelled as he hit him again. Both on the ground and covered in blood, dust and sweat. "Did you ever think that I don't want to be like this? Has it ever entered your head that I never wanted to be like that? Louis...I'm not okay...and I never have been... I've always needed someone to take care of me, someone to love me... And Kasper did... Kasper gave me that feeling of love and happiness that I've always needed and when he died..." The tears had started to fall again at that memory so painful, but his words came out with so much hate that Louis didn't even fight, Louis did nothing but feel sorry for his little brother.

"...Louis, I lost my parents twice, I went back to being a fucking orphan after I got a second chance...a second family...AND YOU KNEW ZAYN WAS MY BROTHER AND YOU DIDNT HAVE THE BALLS TO TELL ME! DID YOU NOT? IT WASN'T YOUR PLACE BUT IT WAS FROM THE DAMN GANGMAN WHO KILLED MY FIRST PARENTS?! IS THAT WHAT YOU MEAN?!"

"I'm sorry..." Louis said on a sob.

And the blows began.

BAM!

BAM!

BAM!

Blood was dripping all over Louis's face, his eyes were closed and the same phrase came out of his lips over and over again...

"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry."

He wouldn't even hit him back, he would never dare hit his little brother. Zayn's desperate cries for Niall to let go is all he could hear, and it kept him from realising the door was flung open, until he felt Niall's weight leave his body.

Edmund threw the younger alpha into the wall, pinning him against it while someone else lifted Louis off the ground and re-tied him properly.

"Let go of me, you son of a bitch! I'll kill you too!" Niall yelled until he nearly ripped his vocal chords.

"HOW DID YOU LET GO?! WHO LET GO OF YOU, YOU BASTARD?!" Blow after blow was what Niall received, already too weak to respond.

He felt like garbage, no one was going to want him after that tantrum he had just thrown, and he sincerely understood it. Who would want a thankless man like him? His fears would come true, he was going to be left completely alone at last.

And from there Niall lost consciousness, the only thing he could recognize were shapes and smells, the disgusting smell of Edmund moving away so that another shape would take his place and keep hitting him until he was knocked unconscious.

All under the watchful eye of his brothers, who did not fit in their own sadness and frustration at not being able to do anything.