Early Sunsets Over Monroeville

The doctor was messing about with a needle in my hand – I turned away, trying not to faint like a pussy; I hated needles – when Mikey re-emerged. I was of course glad to see him (it meant he hadn’t left me) but I was embarrassed to look so pathetic in front of my younger brother – even if he was more like the eldest.

“Hey, Gee,” he greeted in a shaky voice, so I opened my eyes wide and glanced up at him. His skin was paler than ever, and his forehead was covered in a light, shiny sheen: sweat. He didn’t look hot though, so maybe he was ill? Was he feverish? Then I noticed his hands, plaiting and lacing through one another quickly and neatly – he only did that when he felt anxious. He wasn’t ill, but something else was wrong. Mikey knew something bad and I needed to know too, for both our sakes.

“Hi...What’s up?” I asked him blatantly; the doctor didn’t look up from the line she was shoving into my arm. Like a scared little girl, I winced at the next thing she did.

“I...Uh...I’ll tell you later.” This – without informing me of what was actually wrong – told me several things: first, it wasn’t something he felt comfortable sharing in front of the doctor; second, it wasn’t something he felt entirely comfortable sharing in front of anyone; third, it concerned me, or something I would get very stressed about; forth, it wasn’t good news.

I mulled these factors over for a couple of minutes before concluding, “Is it about Frank?”

Mikey looked down at me, his rabbit-like eyes terrified. Without uttering a single word, he nodded, and broke down. My entire body, on the other hand, seemed to shut down, protecting itself.

Don’t let him be dead, don’t let him be dead, don’t let him be dead, don’t let him be dead, don’t let him be dead, don’t let him be dead, don’t let him be dead, don’t let him be dead, don’t let him be dead, don’t let him be dead, don’t let him be dead, don’t let him be dead, don’t let him be dead

“Gee...” Mikey sniffed, I don’t know how long after. Five minutes, five hours? The doctor was still there.

I would have replied to him, but I couldn’t find my voice: it was lost somewhere deep inside my shell of a body. I no longer had a heart, a soul, a spirit – wherever he was, whatever had happened to him, alive or dead, Frankie had taken me with him. My body was left here, separated from my entire being. And I wanted it back. I wanted myself back. I wanted Frank back.

The doctor finished up, cleared her equipment away, nodded farewell and muttered something, though I didn’t hear what. Mikey nodded in response, and his mouth moved but no sound came out. A thought struck me: maybe I was deaf now. Or dead. I wished I was dead.

“Gee,” Mikey whispered, his soft, drawn face incredibly intense. I wanted to slap him and kiss him in the same movement. My brother. My stupid, amazing, life-saving brother. I love you, Mikey.

I flicked my dead eyes toward him, unblinking and glazed. What point was there to this when Frank wasn’t here, with me? I didn’t see a point in living without him. I’d never felt like this with Lindsey before...what was wrong with me?! I wasn’t sure if I wanted to feel this way, either. Love is an amazing thing, but it’s like a soufflé: it goes wrong so, so easily, and after that it’s useless? Who wants a flat soufflé? Who wants a love life that kills you?

“Gee, can you stand up?”

Sensing the poorly disguised tone of urgency in his wavering voice, I immediately spun myself around on the bed and stood swiftly up, cracking my knee in the process. I didn’t even wince at the noise my joint made, just steadied myself against the wall and asked “Where do we need to go?”

Mikey nodded at me, in recognition of my desperation or something. He offered his hand and I took it, still feeling dizzy. My legs didn’t seem to be able to hold me up anymore. What a wimp.

“Someone called me, Gee,” he began. “Or, someone called you. I didn’t recognise the voice...it was...gravelly, or something...” my knees began to shake. Please, oh, please...no.

“And...and they said to tell you they’d called. They...he...never said who he was, but if I told you he’d called, you’d know what I meant. He said that Frank was safe, like he’d promised...I don’t, I don’t even know. But then he said that it might change if we didn’t find him. He said we have...have 24 h-hours and then...He said for every hour we didn’t find him, something bad would happen to Frank, and then at the end of 24 hours...he’d...he’d, ah, he’d...k-kill...k-k-kill Frank...” Mikey started to cry. It took all my strength not to join in, but I insisted I must stay strong, for him, for Frank, for myself. I was going to be the oldest for once; I was going to take care of Mikey. Then I was going to save Frank. Possibly kill the gravel-voiced dickhead, too. Depended how much time I had.

So, shaking, I grabbed Mikey’s elbow and cast off the blue-and-white hospital gown, revealing my dishevelled black outfit.

“Mikes, this is gonna be okay,” I promised him, squeezing his shoulder. He collapsed onto me, and I felt this sudden surge of paternal instinct when his warm, quivering frame made contact with my cold body. I rested my hand at the small of his back and touched his face; he looked up at me with wide, scared eyes. I wondered, was that what I looked like to him sometimes? Was that how he felt when I was drunk and high and convinced I’d die alone?

“Mikey,” I said, firmly but gently – the soft, authoritative tone I’d heard him use a thousand times when he was trying to convince me of something. It was the way he’d spoken when he talked me out of suicide when he was only fourteen. For a lifetime, he’d had to put up with my depressing shit, look after me, both of us, when no one else cared. For once, I’d look after him. It wasn’t full repayment, but it was a start.

“Mikey, listen to me.” Tears brimmed in the milky brown eyes that stared up at me, hints of hazel and green glistening around his pupils, soggy from the cascade.

“This is going to be okay. We’ll be okay. We’ll rescue Frank. I...I love him. I know you might feel guilty, but this is my fault, so you shouldn’t. This will be okay. Understood?”

A second passed. Two, three, thirty, a minute. My brother sniffed, burying his head in my t-shirt. I love you, Mikes.

Finally, he nodded. “Promise?” he asked, like a frightened child again. I pulled him close to me, breathing in his smoky scent. He smelled like fear and of the outdoors: rain and fresh and flowers and industry and sunshine and fog.

I knew I couldn’t promise anything: I didn’t know how to save Frank or where to look or what we were even faced with. But Mikey needed me. After all, there’s nothing wrong with a little white lie, is there?

“I promise.”

***

It was hopeless. Of course it was. We didn’t even know that Frank was in the UK, never mind England, never mind London. If I ever kidnapped anyone (which wasn’t something I was planning on doing, to be honest) I’d take them far away from where they were originally, but this guy (for the time being, let’s call him Rob) seemed to be playing a game.

Rob knew who I was, who Frank was, that we were dating, and my phone number. Now, as minor celebrities, or whatever we were, it wasn’t that surprising that he knew who we were. It was a little unnerving that he knew my cell number, but I suppose it wouldn’t be impossible to find it. No, what disturbed me was that he knew about me and Frank. How could he have found that out? The only people who knew Frank liked me – that I knew of – were Lindsey and of course Frank and myself. But no one was present when I told Frank...wait. Those people, at the car crash. Could one have them heard me speaking to Frank? It was possible, I guessed, but still...And who would want to hurt Frank? As far as I knew, he didn’t have any enemies; he was far too kind-hearted to upset anyone, right? But there must be some explanation for all this.

“Is he even in London?” Mikey asked sceptically, reading my mind.

“I honestly don’t know. He could be in Guernsey or NJ or Paris or Warsaw or Suva or Hong Kong for all we know – or don’t know, as the case may be. But I think whoever has taken him is playing a game. He hates me or he hates Frank (or both!) and he seems pretty sick. If he really wants us to try and find them, he’s getting a kick out of the thrill of this. He doesn’t want ransom money and he doesn’t want to kill anyone – not yet, anyway. They want to play a game. We’re the pawns. But we have to try and win. I can’t just abandon Frankie.”

“I know, I know, but...Who’s to say this isn’t just a joke? How do we know Frank isn’t already...y’know...and he’s just not gonna k-k-kil-kill us when we find him. If we do find him, that is.”

I nodded. Mikey had a point. A very, very good point. But I couldn’t let that likely reality cloud my mind: I had to act as if Frank was alive and we had a hope in hell of finding him, saving him. It was the only thing stopping me from breaking completely. I needed something to work towards, and Frank was the only light I could envisage at the end of the tunnel. Or maybe it was an oncoming train.

“You’re right, Mikey. We don’t know, and we can’t know at all until it’s too late. But we just have to...we have to try to stay positive, y’know? Think that we will find him, we will be on time, he will let us go. He’s playing a game with us. I just don’t know what our chances of losing are.”

“Why...why don’t we just call the police? They could track the phone call, they’d find out who it was from, where they were at the time. It would be so easy...And safe. I bet they’d get him, Gee, the guy who has Frank. And I bet they’d find Frank, and he’d be perfectly okay. We should do that. Let’s go to the police station.”

“You think I haven’t considered that, Mikes? I called back. Loads. It didn’t even ring – a phone rings even when it’s off, right, and if it was the battery, it would go to voicemail or something. Besides, the one you answered was from a different number. Obviously, the guy’s using a disposable cell. He knows what he’s doing. He has an ounce of common sense. We can’t go to the police with so little evidence; they wouldn’t care. Besides, I don’t trust them. I’d rather find him myself. I need to see Frank.” My voice broke at the last bit, and Mikey was quiet for a moment, respecting that I didn’t want to, couldn’t clearly, speak.

A minute later though, Mikey sighed and leaned his head on my shoulder; I rested my chin on his temple for a minute. “Come on,” I eventually said determinedly. “I guess we better get moving.” My hand throbbed; I could see a puncture hole from the needle earlier. Oh, whatever. How much pain might Frank be in right now? How much could be headed for him if we didn’t...No. Think positive.

“How long has it been?” I asked Mikes. He knew what I meant, of course...how long had it been since the warning in the form of a phone call? How many hours had we wasted already?

Mikey looked at his wrist, realised he wasn’t wearing a watch today, checked his cell phone and answered me specifically with “Fifty six minutes. We’ve got twenty three hours left.”

I nodded. Twenty three hours. Twenty three pains for Frank. Twenty three chances: life or death. Twenty three 50/50s...the list was endless. No time for lists though, only time for searching and praying. I’d given up on God, any kind of god, a long time ago, but I was willing to sacrifice anything to anyone to ensure Frankie’s safety. I’d sell my soul if need be. On that thought...

***

It truly was useless. Mikey informed me it’d now been five hours, and it was useless. We hadn’t even made it around half of London yet, and we were running out of time and patience and will and money. Mikey asked if we could stop and get something to eat, but I was too scared to be hungry.

“No time,” I urged, voice growing frantic with hysteria.

I continued walking, but my brother stopped dead and I turned to look at him, to thrust him over my shoulder and drag him along with me if need be. It didn’t seem necessary; he spoke.

“Gerard. Stop. It will take five minutes, and I’m hungry. You need to eat: you’re not going to be any good to anyone if you pass out again, are you? Five minutes. Eat.”

I hesitated – five minutes was a lot when you only have one day left to live, or in my case, one day to find the main reason your life is worth living – but Mikey dragged me into the store so I had no choice.

Then a thought struck me, or re-struck me, as it was. Main reason your life is worth living. What did this mean? No, but no. Surely not...The man whom had been my brother’s friend, my friend, my best friend, the one who saved my life, the one whose life I saved, who stole my fiancée, who didn’t want her, who kept his secret for so long, who I lied to for the sake of his happiness, who I gradually realised I actually did like...Was it possible? Really, truly possible? Obviously, it was. The heat and the danger and the guilt and the masochism of the moment had ensured I make one conclusion: I loved Frank Iero. I love Frank Iero. I was actually fucking in love with him.

What the hell?!

I choked on my coffee; Mikey shoved a sandwich at me and stood again, on his way. We ate and drank as we walked, ran, bought tickets, ordered taxis about hopelessly. In just one hour, we spent £138 on cabs. That’s, what, $200? More than that? Fucking hell.

What did it matter anyway? It was just a waste of money, a waste of time, a waste of effort and hopes. Living’s just a waste of death, I reckon, when your life is reduced to this shit. So what’s it matter? Might as well die now; get the whole tedious thing over with.

“Stop!” Mikey screeched, and I had no choice but to obey. His scream rattled through me like whistling wind through a decrepit tree, left me quivering in my boots like disobeying was a death wish. My brother was breathing heavily, like he was asthmatic, and shaking his head. I thought he started to cry, but I couldn’t see clearly because of his glasses. Visibly he shook himself, then continued forwards incredibly slowly, like a scared, stiff robot. His legs progressed forwards mechanically, like they needed oiling. Mikey the robot and Gerard the depressed bi-curious twat. A phenomenal combination, I’m sure you’ll agree.

“What is it?!” I demanded frantically, voice on the verge of silence because I was so afraid and so shocked. What was it, what could it possibly be, that would stir such a reaction from my usually reserved brother?

“L-look,” he said, and pointed to a cafe; I followed his finger to see the sign reading Zoe’s Kitchen, a wide window and a menu taped to the door. “The TV,” he explained when I looked back, bewildered, at him, and I looked inside to see a flat-screen fastened to the wall, where you could see it by walking past.

“W-What?” I stuttered, well and truly mindfucked, and crossed the street to look right through the window, up close to the television. “What?” I cried again when I saw clearly what I had suspected at the first sight.

On the TV, they were showing some local news programme. It showed a policeman talking about something; the subtitles were on but I wasn’t close enough to see them, and Mikey was squinting through his glasses so I figured he couldn’t tell what the guy was saying either. But I was very sure of what I could see, even if I couldn’t hear anything. There were three pictures along the bottom of the screen: the first was of a young nurse, whose uniform seemed like what they wore in the hospital Frank had been in, but I guessed they all wore similar stuff. Second was a picture of someone very familiar to me, but it was hard to recognise why they were familiar from this distance. Third made my heart pound, pulse loud and fast in my deafening ears. Frank. It was Frank.

Frank was on this local news programme, with a policeman, a nurse and someone I knew. It didn’t take long for me to put the pieces of the jigsaw together.

I knew that Frank had been taken from the hospital. And the nurse had obviously seen it happen, or been informed of it. Someone had told the police. Where did the other guy fit into this equation? Obviously, he had either been kidnapped from the hospital too – something which I very much doubted – or he was the suspect, had been seen taking Frank.

It didn’t all add up. I knew that. But I was desperate to believe any clean-cut solution. Did this man have Frank? Was it was out of spite or jealousy or hate or pure dull boredom, or was it at random? I didn’t know. Did he have Frank? Could I get him back?

“Let’s go in, ask them to rewind it,” Mikey urged, and I followed him numbly, zombiefied, into the cafe.

He found and spoke to a blonde, tall waitress, who nodded, stood on a chair and pressed a button on the side of the TV so we could watch the beginning of the report. It confirmed my suspicions in the narrow thirty seconds it was on for: a nurse had seen an American musician – confirmed by CCTV footage and an ‘acquaintance’ as Frank Iero – being taken, gagged, from the hospital. The nurse and two other present members of staff had been called into the police station and when shown more camera footage, one of them, an ‘alternative music’ fan thought the kidnapper looked like Bert McCracken. They traced a retweet he’d made on a iPhone outside the hospital where Frank was taken from. He was the main suspect, and police were working to locate the two men though there were no further traceable actions made from the iPhone and there were no guarantees it was indeed Bert. I didn’t know what to think. Bert wouldn’t do something like this, surely? Maybe he was just in the hospital. Maybe he’d had his phone stolen. It could be a look-alike. He wouldn’t do this, would he? Not to me, even if we didn’t get on. Not to Frank.

“Let’s go,” Mikey muttered, and the blonde waitress – Ramona, her nametag read – looked startled when we rushed out so suddenly but said nothing. It would’ve only fallen on deaf ears; I was distracted by Mikey’s plan.

“Where, though?” I asked incredulously. Mikey looked at his watch then back up at my anxious face, his own features drawn and more serious than ever.

“We’ve got twenty two hours. We now have a fraction of an idea of who we’re looking for. We know they must still be in the country, probably in this part of London. If it is him, I think Bert’s the kind of person who would try to hide in obviousness, win with a double bluff, rather than someone who’d whisk a captive off to some secluded inaccessible Hawaiian island. This isn’t James Bond, and the police know. We could go to them I guess, but since they’re already looking and already have a suspect, I think it’d be better to have two groups looking. We’ve got just as much chance as them – we know Frank, we know Bert –I mean, I’m assuming it’s him. I don’t know. I suggest we keep searching around here until we’ve got like, one, two hours left, and then we’ll notify the police. I think, until then, we’ve got a fighting chance if we try hard. The odds just went up in our favour.”

I nodded in agreement, soothed by his seemingly flawless plan. All of my curiosity and inquisitiveness had been massacred by this tremendous terror – all I felt now was guilt and regret and determination. Maybe even heartache, now I’d finally (too late!) realised how I felt about Frank.

“Come on, then!” Mikey cried, his voice splitting into a thousand glass shards with warm relief. I followed him keenly, glad I had a leader. I was still a state – a huge, useless, nervous one – but there was a chance Frank might survive, I might survive. How had I fallen for this man so quickly, with so little warning or incentive? What was wrong with me?

What was right with me?

***

Another three hours passed: no luck. In the back of my mind, a venomous spider rooted, crawled around, infected my brain. It hurt so much – the immense guilt, and being unable to apologise to Frank as of yet. We will find him, I chanted at myself. We will.

Won’t we?

***

Time. No Frank. No sign of him or Bert. No evidence. No anything. No nothing. Nothing at all for us to find or use or cling to. No determination or hope or dreams. Zero motivation. Fuck, he was probably already dead. How stupid had I been to imagine I could ever outsmart anyone clever enough to successfully kidnap a grown man; even if someone had seen, even if Frank was easy bait – being in a ton of pain and in hospital?

“Mikey,” I wailed tearlessly, already awful stooping morosely, “It’s no use. We’ll never find them. We might as well just give up now, before we get to think we might actually find them. It’s hopeless!”

Mikey turned back to glare at me with fierce fiery hazel eyes. “No!” he replied, capturing my frantic cry impeccably. “I am not giving up. We’re not giving up. We are going to find Frank, and he will be okay. We’ll get him back to hospital. You can apologise. I can apologise. It will be fine.” He sounded like he was convincing himself more than anyone else.

“What makes you so certain, when you were so dubious not long ago?” I demanded, well and truly baffled now. What the...?

“I’m certain because I need to be. I don’t have anything else to hold onto. I feel awful about what happened to Frank, I’m sure a lot of it was my fault. And I know what you’re like. I know what you’ll be like if – if we – if we don’t find him in time. I can’t lose you, Gee. You’re all I have.”

Well, that was a surprise. He knew what I planned to do without Frank? And...and...”What about Alicia?”

“Well, I love her. Of course I love her. But I...I...Y’know, this doesn’t matter right now. Let’s stick to hunting for Frank and Bert. I’ll explain later.”

“What makes you so certain they’re together?” I pondered; we’d now switched roles. Desperately, I just wanted someone to reassure me, someone to tell me everything would be okay. Like a girl insisting she was ugly just for her friends to tell her she’s beautiful. I was asking these questions to impose on myself that Mikey could answer them; that Mikey would make sure everything worked out neatly, everything was okay.

***

“Look!” Mikey screamed, louder than he had at the cafe. “LOOK!”

“What?!” I pleaded, voice scratchy like nails, like fingernails scraping along something noisily, just trying to hang onto something real.

“Look! It’s Bert’s car! Look at it! LOOK!”

I followed his vibrating finger (he was jumping up and down) to see a bust-up red Nissan. Rust sparked off it, like fireflies orbiting the moonlight.

“That could be anyone’s car!” I cried, angry at Mikey for getting my hopes up. “Bert probably doesn’t even have one like that anymore. And what if he did? Fuck, he didn’t do this? Why would he?” I looked at the number plate – it told me it had been made in 2001. Maybe it could be Bert’s after all. But it seemed like a desperate grab than actual solid evidence.

“Yes, I know, but it’s parked right next to an empty warehouse, look,” my brother emphasised, gesturing to the large disused building right next to us.

“Mikes, this isn’t Scooby Doo. That still doesn’t prove anything.”

“Well, have you got anything better? Do you see any replicas of Bert’s car parked right by a place ideal for keeping a captive? Or do you propose we walk around London aimlessly until he kills him?!”

I gasped. That hurt. A knife...in my stomach...I looked down. No knife. No bleeding abdomen. Just Mikey’s glacier words.

“I’m sorry,” he apologised almost immediately. “I shouldn’t have shouted. I’m just so desperate to find him, I’m making things up. But maybe he is in here. Can we at least look? Please?”

Still breathless – still not bleeding – I nodded my consent. “Of course. I’m sorry too. It just seems like we’ll never ever find him. And I’m scared.”

Again Mikey nodded. “I know, I know. It’s a vile feeling. But we have to keep positive, just like you said. We will find him.”

“But what if we don’t?”

Mikey changed the subject. “Do you have a flashlight?”

“A torch?” I asked, furrowing my brow. His distraction was successful. “Why would I have a torch? I don’t carry one with me at all times, y’know.”

He rolled his eyes, and I didn’t quite laugh at the gesture but my chest got looser. “I just wondered. I doubt there’ll be working electricity in there. Who’d pay for the upkeep of some disused warehouse?”

“Good point,” I nodded fairly. “But I don’t have a torch. It can’t be that dark in there, it’s broad daylight!”

“Do you see any windows in that place?” Mikey pointed out. “Cause I sure don’t. Noon or midnight, it’s gonna be dark in there without lights on. And I don’t think that there will be any lights on.”

“But if Frank was in there, he’d see us, right? Hear us?”

“He might not be conscious.” Mikey replied evenly, though his face contorted; thinking of Frank injured, my face mirrored his pain.

“I guess,” I said forlornly, and transferred my gaze to my boots. Mikey suggested we actually do something rather than talking about doing it, so I nodded, kicked flyaway grey dust onto the road and followed him across the street to the door of the warehouse. “I think it’s locked,” I told him, when I couldn’t force the door open.

“Have you tried the handle?” he asked, playfully mocking, and my eyes then went to two large steel handles on the door.

“Oh,” I muttered, and he grinned wickedly at me – though he still saw through anxious eyes – grabbed the handle somewhat viciously and pushed. It didn’t work. I was about to suggest I’d been right, but then he pulled on the door and – open sesame. It worked. Mikey nodded at me and I entered first, hearing his stubborn shoes trailing in behind me.

Inside, it was exactly like a scene from a horror movie right before the monster/murderer/giant spider jumps out. Mikey was right – it was pitch black; the only light came from our two cell phones. An ancient pipe leaked something too thick to be water. It smelled of gas in a lab, petrol and must, like an attic. The atmosphere itself, radiating around us like it was attracted to the beating hearts or life source it found there, felt damp and claustrophobic, like the air didn’t have enough fresh oxygen in it or something. My chest ached from breathing so tightly, and all I wanted to do was lie down and sleep, preferably with an oxygen tank and coffee, and wake up to find it had all been a nightmare. I pinched the back of my hand hard, looked around again, orienting myself. This was definitely not a dream.

“Can you hear anything?” whispered Mikey, his voice echoing emptily around the room, bouncing eerily off the wet walls and cold stone floor. It was like being inside the belly of a desolate, industrial cave. Radiation surely should have made it bright, but the only glow was grey.

I shook my head, then answered “No,” in case he couldn’t see me. Both of our makeshift flashlights were directed straight at the ground, so neither of us could see the other particularly well. To my eyes in this dim half-light, Mikey was simply a 5’7”-ish form dressed all in black, wearing glasses and boots. I could make out the profile of his nose and lips, and that his skin colour was white, but everything else was a mystery to me. I assumed it was the same for him to look at me.

We searched. And searched. And searched. I gave up, became certain we were wasting our time here while poor Frank rotted someplace else, but Mikey insisted we be thorough so we continued to prowl the warehouse for almost a half hour – it was pretty big, but very open: hardly any hiding places.

Finally, a noise was uttered besides our clumsy whispering, stumbling boots and rare fearless shouts. It sounded like...like...I don’t know! Like hope, maybe. The sound of something living breathing. The sound of something – someone? – moving, determining that they must be alive.

“Did you hear that?” Mikey gasped frantically, his legs wrapping around themselves as he tried to orient himself in the direction of the noise. I nodded in response, too excited to think he might not see my eager reaction. Klutz he was, he fell into me, and we both ended up in an untidy hot heap on the floor. “That’s you, isn’t it, Gee?” he asked anxiously.

“Are you referring to the unusual wetness I can feel beside me?” I wondered, my eyebrows raising, paranoid. I found myself laying both in and next to a large damp pool of something that smelled like acid but didn’t burn through anything, so it can’t have been a strong chemical. Maybe it was alkaline. Alkali burns were the most painful...as I’d found out in a Chem practical years ago.

“It’s not you, is it?” he replied dully, voice quiet and reserved. I swallowed hard. It smelled metallic, salty and acidic. It was thicker than water, and sticky. There was a lot of it. Was it...blood? Frank’s blood?

It couldn’t be much. I couldn’t finally find Frank, only to find him dead. He is alive, I chanted at myself. I will find him, and he will be alive.

“Sorry, Mikes, but it isn’t...” we were both silent. Eventually, Mikey unfolded his clumsy long legs and stood, pressing random buttons on his cell keypad until the light came on. I followed him vertically until we were both stood up; I could just about make out the shocked, startled and lost look marring his tranquil face.

“F-Frank?” I called, feeling brave, but there was no answer.

“Frank?” I tried again. No response. Mikey joined in shouting his name, our voices cracking nervously, but no one ever replied to us. As we trailed around carefully in the dull drought of light expelled by our phones, we shouted and shouted for him, but there was never a retort, not even a sound. No moan, no cry, no scream. No breathing to be heard. Whatever we’d heard before was either dead or comatose. I didn’t like the idea of Frank being in either of those conditions.

Forty seconds passed. Sixty. Three minutes. Seven. No sign of Frank. Fuck that, no sign of any life at all!

“Gee,” my brother hissed, finally. “I think I heard something. This way...” I turned and followed him, wondering absently why we were whispering. I think we were scared his kidnapper might be there, or maybe we were afraid of not being heard. If we whispered, we had a reason to go unnoticed. If we spoke, and were not heard, it could mean only one thing: Frank couldn’t hear us. And if he couldn’t hear us, either he was somewhere else and we were wasting our time, or he was...dead. And that wasn’t something I could bear to think of whilst remaining emotionally and psychologically stable; my brain would stop functioning if I actually mulled over the possibility – probability.

We walked around to a hidden corner of the warehouse, one I couldn’t believe we’d missed. Still, it was lurking in its own shadows, dying inside its own fire, so it was understandable, I supposed. “Agh!” screamed Mikey, turning right on his heel and running out the fucking door. Hesitantly, flipping frantic glances over my shoulder to see the invisible trail left by my brother’s rushed exit, I tip-toed on, leaning forwards so my face was closer to the floor. It smelled, I realised. How I had I not noticed before – was I that preoccupied by my fear for Frank?

Then I saw what it was that had made Mikey run. The source of the smell. The noise we’d heard earlier. Probably the cause of the wet icky puddle on the floor, too. The...ugh!

Rats.

A swarming, herding, writhing, squirming, wriggling, dancing, squawking, screaming, dashing, flitting, squirming, wiggling ocean of rats. Ah. Rats. Rats, rats, rats. I ran after my brother, arms out straight in front of me like a desperately terrified cartoon.

A grown man like me, afraid of mere rodents. But...ugh! Rats.

The bane of the animal kingdom. Vermin. They mean no harm, can’t help what they are, can’t help that they were born rats. But, still. Rats. Rats, rats, rats.

Momentarily, I forgot about the tragedy of my life. I forgot about Lindsey, and Frank. How I’d lied to him, how I’d realised the truth...too late. How I’d caused him to be fucking kidnapped. How all of this was my fault.

It made everything seem fucking significant. It was weird, somehow, the rat ocean. It made me realise shit.

“God, I didn’t expect that,” panted Mikey when I greeted him with an exhausted nod outside the warehouse, adding worriedly, “What next?”

I shrugged, shook my head, closed my eyes, bored my eyes into my shoes: “I don’t know. I just have no clue.”

He nodded; he had just as many ideas as I did. “I guess we should just keep looking. D’you really think we’ll find him?”

I leaned over forward, my long fringe skimming the sidewalk, put my hands on my thighs, breathed deeply and did my best not to panic/break down/cry/shout at Mikey/run into the road in a desperate act of desperate suicide. “I...I don’t know. I don’t know if we’ll find him or not. And I know that the odds aren’t in our favour. But...I think we have to find him. We don’t have a choice. We have to find him, we have to.”

“Do you really love him, Gee?”

It was not the question I’d been anticipating, granted, but Mikey always was quietly curious – though half the time he was too shy to ask anyone anything. I guess I should have been expecting it; he’d accepted my blatant statement with no explanation earlier with zero protest. Still, I wasn’t sure how to answer it, taken off-guard.

“I...Honestly, Mikey?” I asked him. He nodded, and I took another deep breath, rubbed the bridge of my nose tiredly. “Well, do you mind if I explain while we walk?” He shook his head in consent, and took a couple of steps forward so I had to jog to catch up with him again. My heart still fluttered limply yet rapidly like a mouse’s, shocked by the rats and disappointed by not finding Frank and exhausted from not sleeping enough and running round aimlessly for hours.

“Well...to tell you....Honestly. Right.” I swallowed; this was hard. Deep breath in, out, in, speak. “I didn’t...I love Lindsey, okay? With all my heart, I adore her. I want to marry her. She’s beautiful. And amazing. I love her.

“But she doesn’t love me. I don’t know if she ever did. She must have done at first, just for a little while...I don’t see how it matters. My point is, at the moment, she loves Frank. Not me. Which is terrible enough, but is made worse by Frank not loving her back. I would hate them both if they went off together, but the fact that she’s unhappy now kills me. I don’t like her anymore. I no longer want to spend my life with her...not after what she’s done. But I still love her. Which is confusing. And painful.

“To top things off impeccably, Frank loves me. That’s not even a love triangle, is it? It’s like, a pyramid. A square-based pyramid, yeah. Or a prism. Square. A pyramid, we’ll stick to: it’s triangular and weird and three dimensional. A love pyramid. And, I can’t make Lindsey happy now, Frank’s the only one who can do that. I love her, but I can’t help anymore; it’s out of my hands, was from the moment she fell for Frank. And she can’t make me happy, because I don’t want that anymore. I don’t want her. Problem is, I haven’t moved on yet. I get all the pain but without the lust, y’know? It sucks. I don’t think, right now, that anyone can make me happy.

“But other people generally can cheer me up a little, even if they can’t save me. Like...a painkiller, but not the cure. Palliative. So, Frank’s palliative. Helping other people can help me most of the time, so I figured by making him happy, at least someone comes out of this okay. And he’s my best friend. I owe happiness to him, after all the times he’s saved me. I know it seems cruel to say yes to someone you don’t love – like Lindsey did to me: she was gonna fucking marry me! – but I just so desperately needed for him to be happy, y’know?

“Now the complication comes in. The...car crash. It made me guilty. I was already responsible for his attempt at suicide, now my actions had caused an accident. Two near-death experiences in about an hour, both my fault, and it seemed someone was trying to show me how bad I was for him. But the guilt...it added to the feeling, y’know? I needed to make Frank happy, for both our sakes. It sounds selfish, but...I needed it. He needed it to, I think.

“And then he gets fucking kidnapped. It was after I had to leave him that I realised I actually like Frank: there’s a spark or something cute and cliché. I really do like him. It was just now, not long ago, that I realised...oh, fuck it. I love him, Mikey. The whole story’s true, and I promise you this now. I love him. I really, really do. It just took me too long to figure it out, with too many complications and ulterior motives and pain. I just wish I could love him with my whole heart. I wish Lindsey had never happened. I still want her to be happy; I need her to move on, and I need Frank with me – safe. It hurts.”

My voice broke on the final two words of the long-winded confession. We’d been striding hurriedly, but when I was reduced to near-tears we were crawling by at less than a snail’s pace. As my voice grew slower and softer, so did our footsteps, until they were as rare and irregular as my sparse, frightened heartbeats. My heart was certainly dying: the rhythm was painfully slow. Either that, or my brain, the universe, everything, was moving too quickly. It could have easily been either in my mind.

There was a creeping quiet that lasted until Mikey finally trudged to a halt altogether. A few moments more kept the sacred silence until he spoke, and the dark spell was broken. “We’ll find him, Gee.” Then he moved on, walked more, and I followed him, half believing we had a slice of a chance, and half resigned to the knowledge that Frank was lost or already dead. No. He can’t be. But he could. He could most easily be dead.

We walked for a long, long time. Decades? Centuries? Millenniums? Forever seemed to pass, and in a split second it was over. Mikey stopped again; we’d arrived at wherever we’d been heading, if there’d been a specific destination. Assuming there hadn’t been a planned end location, I figured Mikey had spotted somewhere he viewed as a potential place Frank might be.

He spoke. “Do you...you know what you said about Lindsey, and Frank...did you consider that maybe Lindsey has Frank? Maybe she abducted him?”

Oh. Oh. In all honesty, I couldn’t recall if the possibility had crossed my mind. I didn’t think it had, but it was hard to concentrate on anything other than the need to find Frankie.

“I don’t think I thought of that. You’ve got a point. But maybe you’re thinking too logically? I mean, I don’t think Lindsey would do this, even though it seems to most obvious explanation. She’s got the motives, the necessary information, the contacts, and the excuse. But I don’t think she’s capable of it: I don’t...I don’t think she could do this to someone she loves. She’d never take Frank against his own will, never make him unhappy deliberately. She wouldn’t.”

My brother regarded me with a long, harsh but pitiful look. “Just like she wouldn’t leave you? Like she’d never agree to marry someone she didn’t actually love anymore?”

I broke down. Right there in the street. I was torn, a player, a deceitful bastard. I loved Lindsey. And I loved Frank. Lindsey probably hated me now: I’d stolen her love’s heart without even knowing it. Frank was being held hostage somewhere, maybe dead already, and I’d lied to him. If he was dead, the last things I’d said to him would have been lies, right before I left. I told him I loved him. A lie. I left him. Wrong. Now he was being kept somewhere awful, I didn’t know where, I didn’t know with whom, and I didn’t know why. I just knew it would be disgusting and it was my fault. Again. Always my fault.

It started with a tear. So many things do. Just one pure, innocent salty raindrop, and then a tsunami, a waterfall, a cascade. Those innocent tears wouldn’t stop falling, and my breath wouldn’t stop catching painfully in my throat, and soon enough I couldn’t see or speak and I was on the floor, chin on knees and hands smacking the floor hard in frustration, hyperventilating and completely vulnerable. Frank. Lindsey. Mikey. Why did it have to be like this?

Beneath the hard wail of my lament, I heard shuffling as Mikey seated himself plaintively beside me on the cold, dusty sidewalk. He didn’t speak, didn’t apologise, didn’t shout, didn’t try to comfort me. I was glad about that; I needed this, to cry, to break down. Emotionally breaking down sometimes helps, I figured. Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

“I’m sorry.” It took me a while to realise that those words came from my mouth. They didn’t seem to fit, I didn’t understand it. Still, what did I understand? Only that all is woe.

It seemed like a long time before Mikey asked, “What are you sorry for?” His voice sounded like he’d been crying too, but I’d never heard him. Maybe my own sobbing drowned the noise out, or maybe I was just imagining things.

I shook my head, looked up, the sky blinding me again. “For this,” I elaborated, gesturing to the mess around me. “I’m sorry,” I echoed myself.

Mikey mirrored me, shaking his head as I spoke. “No. Don’t be sorry. It was my fault. It is my fault.”

“Everything’s always your fault?” It wasn’t an accusation, it was a question. I suspected it was how he felt, but I needed confirmation. Confirmation that I wasn’t the only one.

“Yes.” One short word: hard and simple and lifeless. Not entirely dead, but definitely lifeless.

“You’re not alone in that.”

Mikey regarded me: my swollen, red eyes, my pale, drawn face, my grey, unhealthy complexion, my tight, frowning mouth. And he laughed. A startled yet perfectly comfortable, wholly humourless chuckle. It surprised me, but I was numb so I showed no emotion other than the dismay, empathy and hopelessness I was always radiating.

He didn’t speak, and neither did I. We just waited in heavy, companionable silence until one of us stood. I wasn’t sure who moved first, but we pulled each other upright and continued walking, teary halt forgotten, bloodshot eyes irrelevant.

“Here,” Mikey said, after a mere two minutes. We’d walked around a building, through a dismal alleyway to find ourselves at the back entrance, guarded by graffiti and wrought iron railings wrapping around itself like a rusty boa constrictor.

This place looked like I always pictured a Victorian workhouse to be. Majestic in shape but ugly close up. Kinda like the Empire State Building. From a long way off, or from inside, it looked beautiful. Walking past it...it was actually kinda hideous. This building was the same: the old red bricks starting to crack and some oily black thing crawling up the walls. It was pretty vile, really. I looked along the street: on both sides there were suburban houses lining it, all constructed and aging in a similar style. I was glad I didn’t live there, it was grotty.

“How likely do you think it is that we’ll find him?” asked Mikey. My eyes looked dully from the building to the floor, where they slowly worked their way up my brother’s frame until they reached his own sapphire-amber eyes, which bored right in to mine, just as lifeless, like a sick mirror.

“Not very. He could be anywhere in the world. We’ve got, what, eleven hours to find him? The odds...I don’t even want to think about it. But we have to find him, like I said. We can’t not find him.”

“What if we don’t?”

I blanched, paused, swallowed hard, blinked and kept my eyes closed until I was half-ready as I’d ever be to face reality again. “We will.”

Mikey didn’t protest against my inexistent logic. He just nodded as if what I said was the biblical truth and jogged limply up the steps. I followed him hesitantly and he nodded at the door, directing me. “After you.” I got the feeling it was more of a precaution, using me as a human shield, than actual courtesy. Maybe he was scared of a repeat of the rat incident.

The door was locked, but Mikey and I charged at it with the heaviest thing we could find – a half-empty trash can – six times, like in the movies, and even under our not-quite-phenomenal strength, it budged a little, leaving enough space for us to get in. Inside, it was just as damp and foul-smelling as I expected. I breathed in, choked. The stench of moss and damp and something like a corpse filled the entire building, and we left the door open so we didn’t choke. Damp ate away at the rafters and the cold stone floor was coated in some kind of sticky residue. I wanted to leave. But Frank could be in here.

All the windows were on the second floor, and the staircase didn’t look stable, so we agreed to stay downstairs in relative darkness. Again, we used our cells as flashlights. At a first glance, we detected – saw and heard – nothing, so we set about calling for Frank again, just like we’d done before.

“Frank! Frank! FRANK!” Nothing. No reply. Desperate shouts fall on deaf ears; no ears. It was useless. He wasn’t there.

“Frank!”

“Frank!”

“For fuck’s sake, where the fucking fuck is he?” I turned, shocked, to see Mikey cursing and kicking at the floor. There were tears pouring relentlessly down his cheeks, though he contained his sobbing, hiding it behind his swearing. “FUCK!”

It hit me then. I mean, I’d thought of it briefly before, but I’d been too consumed in my own remorse and regret to notice how much Mikey was hurting. I knew he’d feel guilty for being such a bitch – on my behalf, of course – to Frank before, but I never really thought of how he’d genuinely miss him as a friend. Frank was Mikey’s closest friend, and they told each other everything – the stuff Mikey wouldn’t always tell me because I was stoned or pissed, or ‘cause he didn’t want to upset me, being his brother and all. And now Frank was just...gone. It must have hurt. Fuck, it must have killed. I wasn’t the only one in pain. It shocked me, a little, realising this universe was bigger than one surrounding only me, only Frank at its centre, its core. I wasn’t alone in my grief. And I never even imagined it’d be like that.

We’d switched roles again; this keept alternating. “We will find him. Don’t worry.”

“What do you mean, don’t fucking worry?! He’s fucking missing! He’s been fucking kidnapped! It’s your fucking fault! You bastard! You know, I hope we don’t find him! You don’t deserve him, you fucking lying bastard!”

That hit a nerve. I could have broken down like before, and Mikey would have immediately felt like shit for being mean and cried himself. We’d have cried together and everything would have been fine. But I didn’t want to surrender this time. I wanted a fight.

“Me? My fault?! You’re the one who fucking kicked him out! You’re the one who drove him to suicide! We’d still be on a fucking aeroplane home if it wasn’t for you! You’re just as bad as everyone else! I hate you!”

“Well, I hate you too, you git! You keep shouting, but how’s that going to help! You’re leading us about everywhere, on a fucking wild goose chase, but we’re never going to fucking find him! You won’t let us go to the fucking police! You won’t let me do anything! We carry on like this, he’ll just die! And it will be your fucking fault!”

“Ah! It was your idea to come in here, you fucking imbecile! I should just leave you alone, and you can find your own fucking way around! Go to the fucking police, get us all arrested, get Frank killed! See if I give a shit! I’ll just leave you to it!”

“Agh! No, no. Not if I leave you first. Fuck you, Gerard Way. You’re a pathetic excuse for a brother! I’m always the one looking after you, never the other way around! This is your fucking boyfriend we’re looking for now, not mine! You bastard! I’m leaving!” His voice broke, hysterical.

“Fine! Fuck off, then! See if I care!”

And he did.

His trembling frame – we were both crying anyway by now – ran right back out of the door, and I threw my cell phone to the floor in frustration when he slammed the massive door that had taken so much effort to open. It smashed.

Frank wasn’t here. Frank wasn’t anywhere. He was probably already dead. And what did it matter? I may as well just go and die too. We’re all dying anyway, every second we get closer. Why not just speed up the process?

From nowhere yet echoing everywhere, there was a sudden, unjustified bang. I snapped my head up, though it was useless: my makeshift flashlight broken, I was all but blind in the dim excuse for light.

“Gee-Gee?” something called from in the darkness. I jumped, eyes wide, gulped, breath sticking hard in my throat like a tight, solid mass. “Gee-Gee? Oh, Gerard Way...Is that you?”

It hit me, then, the grim reality. The voice was soft, mocking, unfittingly, sickly joking...but, at the same time, gravelly. Was it...yes. He called the sick nickname again, and I knew it was him. I didn’t know how or why he was there, how he’d found me, how he’d appeared from apparently nowhere. I didn’t care. He had Frank. Frank must be near here...right?

Frank!

Frank!

Fuck, come here. Where was he?

“Frank? Frank, where are you? Are you with...um, him? Frank?”

“Guess again, Gee-Gee,” advised the gravelly voice, and footsteps followed. One, two, three, four...echoing around the desolate building like a solo soprano in an abandoned hovel.

“Who...who are–?” My sentence was abruptly cut off by three sudden events which happened so quickly they may have been simultaneous. One, there was a shout of “GERARD!” from a weak yet passionate voice that did not belong to either the mystery or Mikey. Two, there was another cry, from the gravelly voice, of “Shit!” Third, my heart stopped beating. Why? Only because I worked out whose voice was crying my name. The voice I’d recognise anywhere, anytime, in any situation. Frank.

“Frank! Frank! Where are you?! Frank!” I cried desperately into the darkness, voice hoarse from murdered hope mounting again and from screaming too much. “Frank!”

“Right...” a wheeze, a gasp, a tight, raspy, soul-shattering breath, whatever. “Right over...here!” He sounded so tired; his voice was so choked and weak. I wondered if he injured, and about those other wounds from the car accident. Were they infected? How much further had he been harmed? How many...nasties...had befallen him? Surely, not that many. It couldn’t be; his pain would hurt us both too much to be real, anything other than a sick worry or fantasy. Yet how many hours had it been? How many nasties?

“But...I can’t see you!” My voice carried hopeless and incredulous: of course I was blind, it was near enough utter blackness! Like the depths of outer space, and I’d thrust my only light away, into the belly of the black. It was my own fault, really.

“I’m...Oh! OH!” Something shifted in the room. A cold presence like silence lingered, as though a phantom had appeared and filled the place with its icy existence, turning the decrepit building to desolate winter. A noise, like the pulling of a Christmas cracker, or the exploding of a bomb. A...something metal; I could almost taste the salt-rust texture like it was melting on my tongue. A gun, I knew it. There was a gun.

Now, I didn’t have a gun. Mikey didn’t have a gun either, and he wasn’t even here anyway. Frank sounded like he was having difficulty speaking, never mind arming himself in preparation for such a fatal fight. No, there was only one possibility. The gravelly-voiced guy, he was the one with the gun. He was going to shoot us.

Well, fuck.

Heart racing, biting down so hard on my poor lips that blood was drawn to the surface, enthralled, I took a hesitant but determined step forwards, then two back, in anxious retreat. I wanted to save Frank. I didn’t want to risk my life unnecessarily. What if...should I wait here, to see who he went for, or should I charge, risking both of our lives? Oh, shit. Shitty shit shit. Why did everything have to be so hard? Where was Mikey when I needed him most? And how the fuck had this psychotic dude got his hands on a gun?

“Gee-Gee,” he called, voice flowing enchantingly like a sick lullaby. “Frankie...Do you want to play a game with me?”

Something clicked, right then. The way he pronounced a certain word, maybe, or the sound of his foot clomping on the drafty stone floor. “B-Bert?” I bellowed into the building, my sudden courage bouncing off the walls like a dead echo. “Bert?” I shouted bravely, not knowing where the will came from. “Is that you? Bert?!”

“Gee-Gee! Gerard Way! The penny dropped, did it? I’m so happy for you. A total little Sherlock we have here, right? You should be a detective. You’re ingenious. Shame you couldn’t be so clever when we were playing with poor Frankie here,” his voice turned mockingly remorseful toward the end, and I shuddered at the thought of him hurting my Frank.

It had been Bert all along. I should have known, but I just didn’t want to think he could do something like this. Yeah, there was a ton of shit between us. But why do this to Frank? Was all this really just to get back at me? Fuck. Fuck him, and his fucking warped mind. Swearing at us, yeah, I’d expect it. Being a bitch about me, writing a song about me...I could deal with that. But kidnapping my fucking boyfriend and murdering us both? I hadn’t expected anything like this, ever. Still, who would?

I turned to glance at Frank, though I saw nothing but a male’s form – it could have been any short guy, really – and quickly looked (well, squinted) back at Bert. “You bastard,” I croaked at him, its limpness half its meaning, not knowing what urged me to say it or where the words came from in the first place. Oops. Rule one of gunfights: you don’t insult the one with the gun.

“Oh, dear. Oh, deary dear. You really shouldn’t have said that.” His voice was angrier now, yet quieter, like the calm before the storm. This fury-tinted hush was nothing to compared with the torrent on its way.

“You shouldn’t have said that,” he repeated. “Should he, Frankie?” There was no response, so he bellowed: “Should he, Frankie!?” at the top of his voice, making me cringe and doing God knows what to the poor Frank, still on the floor, apparently virtually immobile.

“N-n-no,” he stuttered quietly, then fell back to his safe, comfortable silence. It was the best thing to do in this situation: not speak. In which case...why was I speaking?

“I’m gonna call the cops,” I threatened him, and I meant it, only it wasn’t a true threat because there was: a) no phone signal, b) no chance of them getting here on time anyway, c) Bert would shoot me on the phone and d) I didn’t know where we were. Oh, and I’d smashed my cell phone, too. It was really rather useless, and Bert laughed aloud at my proposal.

“Go ahead, Mr Way. As you can tell, I’m terrified.” He waited thirty seconds, but I didn’t make a sound or even attempt to move – not even to breathe out – so continued, “By the way, where is your brother this fine afternoon? I was rather under the impression he’d be joining us. It’s such a disappointment to not see him.”

“Do we really have to go through all this? Can’t you just fucking shoot us already?” What compelled me to say those words? Oh, hell, I didn’t even want to know.

“I could, but I’m not allowed to skip to the end. That would be cheating, and nobody likes a cheat...” There was an unpleasant scratching sound in the dark, like he was running his fingernails along the gun.

“Cheating? Not fucking allowed? Who’s telling you this? Who says it’s cheating, who makes up the fucking rules!?”

Bert was quiet for a moment, and it was almost peaceful, in our three separate yet tangible seclusions. But there was the fact that Frank was dying, I was hyperventilating, and Bert was waving a fucking gun at us to consider, and everything didn’t seem quite so peaceful.

“I do, myself,” he answered almost shyly, then louder, “I make up the rules. I say it’s cheating. It’s my own game, and I refuse to cheat at it. I have to win fair and square. No cheating. No skipping to the end.”

“Please,” I begged weakly. I wasn’t really searching for a quick, merciful death, I was trying to find a fucking way out of this. But my constantly changing tactics seemed to keep Bert occupied.

But what was the point in finding a way out? Mikey hated me. Frank was dying. God knows what Bob and Ray were doing, what they thought was happening, where they were. Lindsey hated us both. I hated her. I had no wedding, a half-dead boyfriend, and...shit. The other Lindsey, who we saw in the street. The fans. What did they think was happening? How much had been leaked onto the internet? Had the other guys put out a proper statement? Did the world know about me and Frank? Fuck, Frerard was real. It sounded so weird, the thought in my head. I didn’t like to think of it like that. All their fanfiction...it was coming true. Fuck, I thought I’d never see the day. The fanfiction. The fanfiction! Would it be better or worse now that we were an actual couple?

Fuck, did it matter? We were dying, and all I could think of was teenage girls sitting alone in their rooms writing about graphic scenes between myself and my band’s guitarist. Who was now my boyfriend. And half-dead on the fucking floor.

This last thought snapped me back into reality, and I began scouting in the dark for any means of causing a distraction enough so that I could get Frank and find us a way out.

In the dark, focused so hard, I heard a squeak. One lonely, innocent, little squeak. And another. And another. Two, three, four squeaks. Why hadn’t I heard this before? I looked up, curious, and saw a mass of writhing dark shapes attempting the deathly staircase. Oh. They’d been upstairs. We’d been too loud to hear, but at the same time, we’d disturbed them. They were coming to complain now – in force.

Wait. Could this be it? Was this enough to distract him for however long it took? Fuck, please let it be. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Come on!

What should I do? Just wait for them to come to us? What if Bert had already seen them? What if they didn’t come all the way to us? What if it didn’t fucking work?

It had to work. It just had to. There was no other option, no possibility of anything else, ever.

I needed to get them over here, to us. How? What would attract them? Food. They liked food. Did I have any?

Fishing about in my pockets, I found keys, a hotel key, a pass from a show, several receipts, my flight ticket (bit late for that now), a couple of cards, twenty dollars and thirty pounds. No food...wait. In my other pocket: a note, I wasn’t sure which currency, a pack of gum, and...the sandwich wrapper, from earlier. It was kinda gross. When I unscrewed it from its tight ball, there were bits of mayonnaise and cucumber and God knows what had been in it, stuck to the label. Was it enough? Hell, it would have to be.

Frank moaned, and I turned my back on the gun to look at him. “Frank?” I asked softly. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay. I’ll get us out of here, I promise.” Probably not the wisest thing to say in front of the actual captor, but he didn’t know about my plan.

“Ha.” Bert said humourlessly, not even mocking anymore. Maybe his game was growing tedious. Perhaps I did want a merciful death. It was better than being tortured for hours for the sake of his entertainment.

With that as my motive, I took a deep breath and simply chucked the wrapper so it landed about a foot from Bert. He heard its gentle crash, but didn’t seem to care much. Probably thought I’d aimed at him and missed.

Nothing happened. None of them moved any faster, or even in the direction of the packet. In fact, they seemed to stand still. They were probably just about to turn around and find somewhere to sleep. Maybe they’d eat our corpses, if Bert decided to leave us here. Or was finding a dumping ground, a burial site, part of the game too, even more fun for him? For the first time, I was glad Mikey had left. It meant he’d got out alive. That small victory in itself was enough to keep me going for a few seconds, prolonging the half-sane anguish.

In those few seconds, Bert condemned himself. “Are you having fun?” he called cockily to us. They heard him. They were attracted to the sound, or the smell of the food, or the smell of us, or something, because they ran at speed – a writhing grey body: one, total – toward us.

“Fuck!” I cried. “FUCK!” This had to be a good thing. A thought struck me, though. What if the rats came for us, too? We wouldn’t be able to get out!

No, I’d thought of this. Whether it was Bert or I who drew the rats towards us, it had been my intention all along, and I had to use this to my advantage. To our advantage: Frank and I would get out of this alive. Even if we died outside, it would at least not be at the hands of this bastard.

“Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck! Frank! Oh, fuck...” They moved closer, nipped around my feet as I cried. “Frank! I’m getting us out of here!”

I ran to him, then, and knelt by his side, glad to be away from the rats for a second. “Frank,” I muttered grimly, not even sure in the dark if he was conscious. Maybe he could still hear me, even if he wasn’t awake. “Frank, I’m gonna get you out of here. You’re gonna be okay. I promise.” No response. “Frank? Frank, can you hear me?”

“No point talking to him!” cackled Bert, though he was kicking at the rats surrounding him, trying to find an escape route. There was no way of escaping, though. “He can’t hear you! He’s dead! Dying, dying, dead...He’ll be dead soon enough, just like I promised. 24 hours can change a lot. It can change everything.” Then he was silent again, except for squealing, while he attempted to not drown in all the rats, which had now somehow worked their way up around his knees. They were still heading towards Frank and me, too.

“Frank, you’ll be okay, I promise. I love you.” It was the first time I’d said the words with such emotion and devotion, the first time they’d been so meaningful and clear. It felt as though ten thousand tonnes had been removed from my shoulders. They were heavy words, but I meant every one of them.

“Gee...” Oh, thank God. Flying fucks and rainbow sparkles, and fuck and God and...my thoughts weren’t clear, I was completely delirious now, but that didn’t matter because Frank was alive, and he was responding. Sure, his voice was weak and drained as fuck, but he was using it. So he was conscious. And alive. His heart was still beating.

“We’ll be okay. Give me two minutes, and we’ll be fucking okay. I swear.”

No response, again. Still, no time. The time I spent waiting for a reply, I could be getting us the fuck out of there. And in the long run, I knew which would be more beneficial for us.

Inhaling deeply, trying to conjure some courage through breathing. It didn’t work; I was scared shitless that Bert would shoot me or Frank would...die...or my plan would fail awfully. What did it matter? If I stayed there and just waited to be shot – after Bert was bored of his game – what would be the point? I’d be useless, remaining there like a sitting duck. At least this way I was trying; at least I knew we had a millionth of a fraction of a hope in hell.

I stood, ran two sweaty nervous hands through my greasy hair and pleaded to whoever was up there – if anyone – that we’d be okay. I tried to run to the exit, but my limbs were lead so it was too hard to move quickly, if at all. I needed to check if the exit was clear, if the door was easy enough to open and to actually get out of if I was carrying Frank.

Stepping forwards catiously, like there were more monsters outside than in here, I outstretched my damp hand to the door and tugged. Nothing happened. Again, braver this time, stronger, I pulled at the broken wooden handle. Nope. Zilch. No result. I may as well not be doing anything; may as well be laid out dead, on the floor with Frank. No, I thought to myself. I have to keep trying. At least they can say I didn’t surrender quite so easily. I was entirely certain I was going to fail – going to die – but I couldn’t in my mind actually imagine a world without Frank in it. It was easy enough to picture, to hear the words ‘Frank’s dead’ in my head, but to actually go in depth and wonder how it would feel...how would the world function without him?

But...he was going to die one day anyway. We all were. Was this really necessary? Life can be so painful...surely it would be easier to just go back there and allow him to shoot us both? In the long run, it would save both Frank and I from tremendous amounts of agony.

But no, I decided, thought conflicting again. All life is diverse, and diversity is a beautiful thing. Life is beautiful. I was not going to let us die, wasn’t going to give in, not so quickly, so easily. I was going to fight. Probably fail, but I wasn’t going down with my hands above my head. I’d fight it to the end, for both of us.

Why did I always have such interesting discussions with myself at key moments? Here I was, trying to save our lives, and all I could think of was diversity and beauty and if a life is worth saving when the person will eventually die anyway. Of course, I decided, side tracked again. Of course it’s worth saving.

It was at that point that I heard Bert scream, and I turned to see a rat lunge for his face. Why were they so vicious? Too violent to be tame, yet too daring to be feral. They were a strange bunch. I dragged my attention away from him, away from Frank’s limp semiconscious slump, and back to the door. It would open. I’d do it telepathically if I had to. The door would fucking open.

Both slippy hands insecurely on the handle, I pulled again. The door budged: by about half and eighth of a fraction of an inch. Finally, I thought triumphantly, unnecessarily over excited in my glee. I pulled this way again, and managed another tiny move. The third time I pulled, something amazing happened.

I was on the floor when I realised it. The door was...open. The door was fucking open! Finally! But...how?

There was a voice. The door was open. I wandered helplessly with my hands, and found I was on the floor. Of course I already knew that, but I hadn’t really digested the information.

What...?

Something pulled me to my feet. Something had put me down there in the first place. Something had opened the door, I realised. The face that greeted me when I blinked, shocked, caused even more confusion. No...no, this couldn’t be possible. He wasn’t here. He couldn’t be here. He wouldn’t just come back like this, would he? Fuck, he was in danger now! But he was here...he could help...

No, I realised, with a jolt of remorse and a deep feeling of disappointment in the pit of my stomach. He wasn’t here really, I was just delusional again. Perhaps I was already dead, and I was seeing what I wanted to. This wasn’t quite a parade, but it was a half-reassuring, certainly unexpected, scene. What was I when my own dreams surprised and confused me? Hmm?! Who was I?

“Move the fuck out the way!” the dream said. His hand was still entwined with mine after pulling me up from the ground. Could it be...no, no, no. He was not real. Couldn’t be.

“Mikey?” was all I could choke out simply, in a small, scared voice like a child. I wanted proof that he was real. I knew he wasn’t. This was impossible.

“Yes, and you’re fucking lucky, too. Now, where’s Frank? Who had him? Were we right? Was it Bert? I bet it was!”

I nodded, motioning that he’d been correct, but whispered hoarsely, still timid, “He’s got a gun!”

We were distracted then, because I’d missed out another important facts. There are rats, like before...I’d never mentioned that, had I? Oops. Mikey squealed like a girl, causing me to do the same, as they came for us. He headed for the door – the quickest way away from them – but I dragged him back into the place with me, giving them a wide berth. When we rushed back to Frank, we saw he was still semi-conscious, still breathing, eyes half-open, and Bert was on the floor now, had obviously tripped earlier, and he couldn’t get up due to rodents rushing across his body. I went for Frank, muttering that it would be alright, I promised, while my brother headed towards the incapacitated captor.

I think he called him something pretty harsh (though definitely not undeserved) when he snatched the gun from where it lay, next to his frame writhing on the floor. Bert screamed as one of the rats ran over his face, and its tail briefly entered his wide open mouth. He was silent then, eyes fixed wide open on the rafters. For a moment, I felt an ocean of pity try to drown me, but then I recalled the fact that this man had tried to kill my Frank – and Mikey and me. He deserved every little fucking thing he got.

“Did you call 911?” Mikey asked me, and I shook my head. So my brother pulled out his functioning, wholly intact cell and did it himself, terribly better prepared than me – he even knew the address (obviously, he’d looked on his way out or back in). This resulted in me wondering where he’d been, but I just shrugged. We had more important things to worry about at the moment; I’d ask later. Why was I so easily distracted at such crucial moments?

“Gee?” I had to strain to here the mutter; it must have been Frank calling. Immediately, I turned back to him and moved his fringe off his damp face. He looked like shit. I’d kill Bert...I’d kill him, I would...

No. I had to focus. Mikey had called an ambulance, and he was with Bert now. I threw a quick, daring glance over my shoulder, and saw him kneeling by Bert as I was positioned around Frank, only the look on his face wasn’t quite so affectionate. Frank’s eyes were closed still, but I wondered if he was conscious, because he’d definitely spoken earlier. His short breath ripped into rags, face contorted in pain for just a second before he opened his mouth again.

“Gee...” This was less like a call, more like a prolonged whine, than the last time Frank had uttered my name. I squeezed his hand tightly (as hard as I dared to touch him, without breaking it off) and Frank’s eyes rolled open and focused on mine. “It hurts,” was all he said, and he closed them again. I didn’t blame him, frankly (please, do ignore the pun). If I had a choice between lying on the floor in agony or slipping into unconsciousness, I knew which one I would pick, no matter what the circumstances.

“Shh,” I murmured. “Listen to me, Frank. It’s okay. I know it hurts right now, but it will stop soon, I promise. Mikey – he’s here, if you didn’t hear him earlier – just called for an ambulance, and they’ll be here real quick. You don’t have to worry about anything anymore – Bert is...being dealt with,” another glare over my shoulder at the rats, and a moaning captor captured, “and you’ll soon be in a hospital, so it won’t hurt for much longer at all. And I’m not going to leave you ever again, I swear. I’m so, so, so sorry about what happened...I’d do anything to take it back, to stay with you. But I was confused, I didn’t know what was going on, and I was only trying to help you, believe me, it’s true. I never meant for anything as awful as this to happen to either of us. I won’t keep secrets from you anymore, if this is how it turns out. And...I love you, Frank. I love you. Thank you for showing me that.”

In return for my heart-felt speech, I received only a crooked but beautiful half-smile and a groan, but it was more than enough – it proved he was still responsive, if only a very little bit. I swallowed hard, and heard Bert scream when – it appeared, as I spun around to look – something else, something bigger, went in his mouth. A rat foot? Do they even have feet? A claw, paw, God knows what. Anyway, whatever it was, I don’t think it tasted so great, because he had a kind of fit afterwards.

My brother obviously felt sympathetic, or was just as grossed out as Bert and I, because he started trying to brush the rats away from and off Bert, cringing and squealing himself as he did so. If it wasn’t so grim, it would have been hilarious.

The ambulance arrived right then, and two paramedics – a short man and unnaturally tall woman – came in with a ton of shit between them. I probably shouldn’t call it that, it saved lives. But it looked like shit.

Mikey stood to talk to them, and I remained kinda dazed and disorientated throughout this conversation. They took Bert first, and a different two paramedics – both women this time – came for Frank. Reluctantly, I shifted out their way, but I didn’t let go of Frank’s hand for one second. They said that there was only room for one other person in the ambulance, but Mikey and I both got in with Frank anyway. Surprisingly, they didn’t protest. Maybe they were as tired as we were.

Speaking of which, the fact that I hadn’t slept in God knows how long suddenly dawned on me. I was exhausted, and all of that crashed like a ton of bricks, down fast and hard on my head. With a yawn, I leaned on my brother, and I think I must have fallen asleep, because I remember nothing after that.

***

When I woke up, I heard a familiar sound, though it took a while – at least, I think it was a while, but it could have easily been a millisecond – for me to recognise exactly what it was. The beeping of a machine in a hospital. My eyes opened to a fresh, clinical off-white colour blanketing the entire room; I’d even been dressed in a white hospital gown, like a guinea pig Barbie. When my eyes focused, I gazed around the blur of grey and noted a gangly, looming figure in the background. A moment later, my eyes fully adjusted, and I saw the motorcycle boots, black skinny jeans, Joy Division t-shirt and awesome glasses. My brother.

“Mikes?” I asked, and my voice cracked. He looked different; fresher and cleaner, like he’d got the chance to sleep and shower. I didn’t feel quite so exhausted, either.

“Right here. How do you feel?”

“Um...pretty good, actually. You? You look a hell of a lot better.” It was pretty true. I mean, Frank was alive, my brother was alive, I’d slept, and my head felt clearer than it had in ages, even if I did have headache.

“I’m...yeah. Better. Frank is, too. He’s gonna be in here ages, probably, but he’s stable, apparently. I’ve not been up there to see him yet. We should go, later. Both of us.”

“Is he awake?” I questioned, half eager and half reserved. I wanted to apologise. I didn’t know how to say the words, though.

“No.” Mikey’s answer was flat and bland. Speaking of apologies...

“Mikes...” I paused once I regained his whole attention. “I...I’m sorry, y’know. I...” I sighed, then just let the floodgates down. “I’m sorry. I really, truly mean that. Everything I said before...I take it back. I was angry, but I took it out on you for no reason. You saved all our lives. If you hadn’t come back...well, I dread to think. Frank and I would probably both be dead. So, thank you. And...I’m sorry. I mean that. I really, really do.”

His face remained black, but when I stopped talking, changed from emotionless to curious to angry to sad to enlightened. He had half an apologetic smile on his face when he replied, “Yeah...me too. I didn’t mean what I said. And I didn’t really have a choice about coming back. I had to save you, or at least try. Even if you just got out of there and...died afterwards...I had to do it. I couldn’t give up. Couldn’t desert you.”

“Well, thank you, Mikes.” I echoed myself. “You saved our lives.”

He shrugged, like it was nothing. “You’d have done the same.” I liked how he had that faith, such huge trust in me. The way he invested himself in me made me feel better about...well, being alive. Like there was something worth living for, no matter if everything else abandoned me. Also, I liked to think he was right. I would have done the same...wouldn’t I?

The doctor came in then, interrupting my train of thought. The dressing on my hand was new, and there were more bandages and needles that I’d only just noticed. Ah...needles. One sticking right in my hand, right under my very nose, connecting me to a drip. Needles. Needles! My breath caught ragged in my throat, and Mikey stepped forwards from his corner to put a hand on my shoulder, non-verbally telling me to calm the fuck down. It was only a needle. It couldn’t hurt me, right? Could it?!

“Afternoon, Mr Way,” greeted Dr...Dr Hattersley, his nametag said, in a sharp British accent, with a slow, cautious nod. This was not what I expected to hear. Afternoon? Already? What day was it? “How are you feeling?” He strode over and glanced at my charts, positioned wryly at the end of the hard iron bed, and scribbled something down. Mikey tried to peek over his shoulder, but didn’t seem to see anything interesting or significant.

“Just fine, thanks. Better than...well, better than before. I have headache, that’s it.” I was surprised at how easily this was to admit.

“Right, well, we’ll see what we can do about that. If you so wish, I’m sure you can discharge yourself a little later. I’m aware that the two of you,” he regarded Mikey, “are travelling with Mr Iero upstairs, but you’ll arrange something, I’m certain. He shouldn’t be in for too long now.” As he spoke, he felt at my wrist and neck, as though trying to affirm the noisy machine’s authenticity, and looked into my eyes and mouth with a light. “Okay,” he softly murmured to himself.

“Yes, you can to leave whenever you want to. You’ll be able to find out the visiting hours for Mr Iero from one of the nurses, or at reception. I’ll get someone to bring you the forms, if you want to leave anytime soon?” He looked at me for approval, and I nodded, then turned to my brother as the doctor disappeared into the corridor.

“What’s the date, how long have you been here, and were you, like, in a bed too?” I asked him quickly, words rushing all into one giant slur of a sentence. He seemed to understand me, after a few seconds of analysis.

“It’s the twenty-third; we’ve been here three days. So have I, obviously. Yeah, I was a patient, but I was discharged yesterday, at around this time. I saw Dr Hattersley too, for the most part. Like I said, I’ve not visited Frank yet, but we can go up once you’re all sorted. I know which ward he’s on, and how to get there. I fucking chickened out a couple of hours ago,” he admitted sheepishly, and I smiled at him.

My smile turned into a straight-edged knife-like frown as I wondered, biting my lip, “How badly is he hurt?” I braced myself, not consciously, against the lumpy pillow.

“Well, he obviously has the same injuries as before: broken arm, couple of broken ribs, and a super deep cut in his leg. And now he’s lost a ton of blood from his head, like four pints or something, and he had to have a transfusion. Concussion, more fractured ribs, dehydration, sprained ankle...actually, they’re both sprained. We think...well, I spoke to them, and the police, and they think that Bert might have done that.” His face contorted when he said it.

I gasped, gagged drily. I’d kill him, I’d kill him, I’d kill him! Mikey sensed my feelings towards the fucking imbecile.

“Bert, on the other hand, I don’t know what happened to him exactly because I, like, wasn’t in the same ambulance as him. He’s out now, like me, the only thing that he was suffering from was shock. The police have him. They’re investigating it, and waiting for yours and Frank’s statement. Obviously, Frank’s is most important, but it’s gonna take the longest. He has to be awake and have had some test with a psychiatrist before the hospital’ll let him speak.”

I nodded, more satisfied with that. “But...will he be on trial or whatever here, or at home?”

“Dual heritage, isn’t he? He lives here at the moment, apparently, don’t ask when that happened. And he’s dating some Scottish actor, poor guy...can’t see that lasting much longer, to be honest. I think he must have done this out of jealousy: either he wanted you or he wanted Frank. Either way, he can’t touch you now. Neither of you. The cop, the nicest one that I spoke to, said he’d probably end up getting near a life sentence if they – the CPS, I think – did it right. Like, for abduction, and threatening shit, and attempted murder, and illegal possession of a gun, and he stole a car, and he trespassed. They said he might not get so long in prison for what he did to Frank, which sucks majorly, but that they’d get him for other things.”

I felt only a little better. At least Bert would go to jail. He wouldn’t hurt any of us again. And Mikey was perfectly fine, Bob and Ray were in the loop and were taking care of everything for us, Frank was getting better. He’d survive. He had already survived. Frank was going to be okay!

That only left Lindsey, I remembered. How was she? What was she doing, where was she doing it? Who was she with, if anyone? I asked my brother.

“I don’t know. I called her, and texted her, but she didn’t pick up her cell or reply. I expect she’s still pissed...I mean, it’s only natural. I thought Frank could have a go, I mean, when he’s better and stuff, but that might be worse; I don’t really know. Something’ll work out. It’ll be okay, eventually. Just give her some time to work shit out.” That sounded pleasingly logical.

Someone did bring the consent forms around, and some paracetamol. Within the next hour, my headache faded into a dull, numb grey nothing, I was discharged, and I put on some human clothes Mikey had got for me. While I dressed, he told me about Ray and Bob, who’d flown back to LA, and how they were, what they knew, and what they were doing. They were both fine, knew almost the whole story, and had released a statement about Frank’s disappearance and a more recent one, saying we were all fine and Frank was in the ICU in London, still. They’d said nothing about my engagement (I wondered if Lindsey had), Frank’s suicide attempt, or our relationship, and I preferred it that way for now. If we got really serious – which I wanted to do – we’d have to say something, surely. But I didn’t want my private life being released, piece by piece. I was happy for it to stay as it was, at least for now.