Crooked Halos
Chapter Seven
The note lands on my desk and I blink at it stupidly for a moment.
‘Frank is okay, he’s in solitary for breaking curfew but he’ll be out later’
I scribble ‘you know this, how?’ along the bottom and send it straight back at Davey.
He smirks and makes a small gesture towards Gerard who looks even more intimidating hunched over at the back of the classroom, his hair a mess and red eyeliner bleeding in tear tracks across his cheeks.
If I wasn’t so fucking scared of him, I would consider feeling sorry.
Then again, I do find it hard to miss Frank… not meaning any offence to Gerard or anything.
Ryan is impatient today, the constant drumming breaks my thoughts (yet again) and he breathes out loudly through his nose, amber eyes sparked with anger.
Ha, the kid’s gonna crack soon, I can’t wait to see what happens when he does.
Brendon keeps shooting him nervous glances, I don’t think anyone’s paying attention to what Ms. Smith has to say… not that that’s any different to how it is every day, but normally we try to be a bit more inconspicuous about the fact that we couldn’t care less about how Jesus sacrificed himself to save his flock of sheep or something along those lines.
Jared is more agitated than usual, his pen flashes across the paper, the little black letters being cursed and scribbled into oblivion before I even get a chance to look at them.
“Fuck.”
Yep, Jared is definitely having fun back there.
“Bollocks.”
Ah, good times.
Ryan drums his fingers again, chewing the end of his pencil into a wooden pulp. Brendon glances at him quickly, reaching over and taking the skinny boys hand with a meaningful glance.
Well, meaningful in the ‘I-want-to-fuck-your-brains-out-later’ kind of way.
Shannon seems to think I’m looking in his direction ‘cause he smiles faintly at me.
“Crap.”
Patrick is almost a statue where he’s sat, so still and so silent he’s almost invisible. His knuckles are turning white, where his hands grip the edges of his chair so tightly you would think someone was about to come up behind him and rip it out from underneath him.
After Ryans revelation last night, we’ve all been looking through different eyes.
And that’s the thing, it feels impossible to imagine someone like Brendon sadistically torturing someone to death, but for some strange reason, I can see him behind the trigger of a gun, laughing as he blows a persons brain out their skull or puts a bullet through their heart.
I guess now I know it’s there, I can see the murderer in everyone.
“Shit.”
***
I hate storms.
I really fucking hate them.
The wind’s screaming so loud, it’s impossible to sleep, and with the rain hammering down and bolts of lightening splitting the sky in half it’s even impossible to think rationally in this place.
Everyone else is asleep though.
Frank is back and curled against Gerard, literally fucking purring with contentment.
Oh, fuck it.
I stand up, stretching out and padding quietly across the room towards the window where there’s a metal jug of water and three steel cups.
“Why did you let me die?”
The cup I’d picked up falls to the floor with a resulting clang like the toll of a death knell.
Eyes wide, they flick between bunks, searching for the culprit, but they sleep like the dead.
“Why did you let me die?”
“Who’s there?”
My voice, pale and shaky by comparison to the haunting whisper.
A ghostly chuckle and somewhere in the dark, the door creaks open.
“You let me die.”
“Whatever happened to you, it wasn’t me, I swear it-”
“Will?”
My breath catches in my throat as I look up, half-wild with fear and my hands trembling where they try to retrieve the cup I dropped.
Shannon crosses the room silently, lines of concern etched into perfect features, the little light given off by the pale moon illuminating in his skin – an angel.
“Shannon.”
And without another word I found myself on the floor, sobs, half fearful, half mad rising from my throat and his arms locked around me, rocking me back and forth and calming me down, letting me know that it was okay, that he was here now….
“You watched me die, you fucking laughed…”
“No, no-”
“You fucking laughed.”
And then there are lips on mine, swallowing the words I so badly needed to say, blocking memories I so badly needed to see and you know what? Suddenly, I don’t care, because this is real, this is so very real.
My heart racing like it’s about to burst, like I’ve just run a marathon and the way Shannon’s fingers twist through my hair, securing me to him, the soft gasp that falls from slightly parted lips when I let my fingers explore the velvet skin on the back of his neck, playing with a couple of loose strands, tugging on them and holding back moans when those lips moves south to my throat and I can’t remember the last time I felt this alive, I can’t remember the last time I felt something so real.
“Why did you let me die?”
I don’t fucking know and in this moment, I don’t fucking care.
Why did you let me die?"
‘Frank is okay, he’s in solitary for breaking curfew but he’ll be out later’
I scribble ‘you know this, how?’ along the bottom and send it straight back at Davey.
He smirks and makes a small gesture towards Gerard who looks even more intimidating hunched over at the back of the classroom, his hair a mess and red eyeliner bleeding in tear tracks across his cheeks.
If I wasn’t so fucking scared of him, I would consider feeling sorry.
Then again, I do find it hard to miss Frank… not meaning any offence to Gerard or anything.
Ryan is impatient today, the constant drumming breaks my thoughts (yet again) and he breathes out loudly through his nose, amber eyes sparked with anger.
Ha, the kid’s gonna crack soon, I can’t wait to see what happens when he does.
Brendon keeps shooting him nervous glances, I don’t think anyone’s paying attention to what Ms. Smith has to say… not that that’s any different to how it is every day, but normally we try to be a bit more inconspicuous about the fact that we couldn’t care less about how Jesus sacrificed himself to save his flock of sheep or something along those lines.
Jared is more agitated than usual, his pen flashes across the paper, the little black letters being cursed and scribbled into oblivion before I even get a chance to look at them.
“Fuck.”
Yep, Jared is definitely having fun back there.
“Bollocks.”
Ah, good times.
Ryan drums his fingers again, chewing the end of his pencil into a wooden pulp. Brendon glances at him quickly, reaching over and taking the skinny boys hand with a meaningful glance.
Well, meaningful in the ‘I-want-to-fuck-your-brains-out-later’ kind of way.
Shannon seems to think I’m looking in his direction ‘cause he smiles faintly at me.
“Crap.”
Patrick is almost a statue where he’s sat, so still and so silent he’s almost invisible. His knuckles are turning white, where his hands grip the edges of his chair so tightly you would think someone was about to come up behind him and rip it out from underneath him.
After Ryans revelation last night, we’ve all been looking through different eyes.
And that’s the thing, it feels impossible to imagine someone like Brendon sadistically torturing someone to death, but for some strange reason, I can see him behind the trigger of a gun, laughing as he blows a persons brain out their skull or puts a bullet through their heart.
I guess now I know it’s there, I can see the murderer in everyone.
“Shit.”
***
I hate storms.
I really fucking hate them.
The wind’s screaming so loud, it’s impossible to sleep, and with the rain hammering down and bolts of lightening splitting the sky in half it’s even impossible to think rationally in this place.
Everyone else is asleep though.
Frank is back and curled against Gerard, literally fucking purring with contentment.
Oh, fuck it.
I stand up, stretching out and padding quietly across the room towards the window where there’s a metal jug of water and three steel cups.
“Why did you let me die?”
The cup I’d picked up falls to the floor with a resulting clang like the toll of a death knell.
Eyes wide, they flick between bunks, searching for the culprit, but they sleep like the dead.
“Why did you let me die?”
“Who’s there?”
My voice, pale and shaky by comparison to the haunting whisper.
A ghostly chuckle and somewhere in the dark, the door creaks open.
“You let me die.”
“Whatever happened to you, it wasn’t me, I swear it-”
“Will?”
My breath catches in my throat as I look up, half-wild with fear and my hands trembling where they try to retrieve the cup I dropped.
Shannon crosses the room silently, lines of concern etched into perfect features, the little light given off by the pale moon illuminating in his skin – an angel.
“Shannon.”
And without another word I found myself on the floor, sobs, half fearful, half mad rising from my throat and his arms locked around me, rocking me back and forth and calming me down, letting me know that it was okay, that he was here now….
“You watched me die, you fucking laughed…”
“No, no-”
“You fucking laughed.”
And then there are lips on mine, swallowing the words I so badly needed to say, blocking memories I so badly needed to see and you know what? Suddenly, I don’t care, because this is real, this is so very real.
My heart racing like it’s about to burst, like I’ve just run a marathon and the way Shannon’s fingers twist through my hair, securing me to him, the soft gasp that falls from slightly parted lips when I let my fingers explore the velvet skin on the back of his neck, playing with a couple of loose strands, tugging on them and holding back moans when those lips moves south to my throat and I can’t remember the last time I felt this alive, I can’t remember the last time I felt something so real.
“Why did you let me die?”
I don’t fucking know and in this moment, I don’t fucking care.
Why did you let me die?"