All That I've Got

Frank had a decision to make soon. Fate and Love and not enough time to think.

Natalie gave him even less when she grabbed his hand, threw the lock on the
door tugging the joints in Frank’s arm painfully with her strength. Frank barely had time to snatch up Mark’s hand before the three of them plunged back into the dark heartbeat of the nightclub.

Frank was tired of this beast by now. The strobes were old and the magic feeling was fading. Now when Frank looked around him, instead of open and free people, he saw drunk and desperate shells of humans. This wasn’t where he belonged, no matter the pull in his veins.

Natalie looked as panicked as Frank had ever seen her. The fact that the Jury would probably be descending on this place in minutes hadn’t fully registered with Frank. But still he made himself run, and struggle through the masses.

They were exactly in the middle of the floor when there was a sudden surge away from the stairs. Figures were descending into the room, and they obviously didn’t match here. They had their armor on in a crowd of vulnerable people, and they plowed down the stairs in the dozens. Light flashed off metal limbs and makeshift-weapons.

Frank’s stomach dropped into his feet. The spotlights played patterns across everyone’s sweaty faces, and then stretched to illuminated the Jury as they merged with the beast’s blood, reducing it to something timid compared to the vicious animal now amongst their midst.

“They’re here!” Natalie screamed, and in a half-second fear was the only thing Frank could see in her dark eyes. This must be the first time she’d encountered them.

This felt Frank’s first time, too. The way his blood dragged in his limbs, and fear became so thick in Frank’s throat that it felt like he was breathing cement.

“Move!” Mark shouted suddenly, and Frank realized they’d slowed in their terror. They began their struggling run again, as half of the room went into chaos, and the other half continued to dance, too drugged-out to notice.

They’d moved only a few feet when the lights went black again, and a new song began to pounce around the room, jolting everybody into movement. Suddenly, Mark was ripped from Frank’s hand, and Frank stopped moving immediately.

Natalie whipped her head around to look back at him. “We need to go! We’ll be cornered!” she screamed, her voice raw. She had been leading them to the emergency exit across the floor from them.

Mark was being pulled farther away every second, and then the decsion was upon Frank. Natalie or Mark. His new life or his old.

Maybe even life or death.

And as the music picked up as it always did, Frank knew he’d always had this decision made.

“I’m sorry, Nat,” Frank said, drawing her close to him in the pandemonium. He knew she understood by the way her eyes filled and she shook her head wildly.

“He’s my chance to have my old life back, as complete as it’ll ever be. But I need you to be safe. Get out of here, don’t die, especially not here,” Frank’s voice choked as it traveled past the lump in his throat.

“I love you enough to let you go, Frank. That’s always been my real talent. Letting the people I love leave,” Natalie said right near his ear, and the chaos was right at their side, and Mark was farther way than ever, but Frank suddenly didn’t want to let Natalie go, ever.

Natalie made the choice for him, though. Before Frank could say anything else to her, she’d stretched up to Frank’s mouth and kissed him. It was quick and its pain remained on Frank’s lips after Natalie had ducked through the crowd and out of Frank’s sight.

Frank whirled and violently pushed his way toward where Mark had been carried off. Suddenly, there were Jury members around Frank, holding instruments and looking pinched with hate. Since they didn’t know Frank was here, he ducked between them as they came and prayed he wouldn’t be recognized.

A woman with an obvious gun-holster bulge brushed past Frank, and Frank’s knees went weak. He was literally touching death on all sides. Before Frank could begin hyperventilating though, he caught sight of Mark.

The younger boy had just been spat off the dance floor, chewed and deposited. Now panicking club-goers were high-heel smacking by him and Frank was terrified the boy would be trampled.

That visual had Frank taking full advantage of his smallness, and without a thought he was practically crawling between searching Jury members and the dancers they shoved aside.

He caught snatches from the members’ mouths as he ducked and dashed and kneeled. They were looking for Kerry, so they’d know who to kill. They were blocking every exit, and Frank prayed Natalie had muscled her way to safety.

He reached Mark just then, and helped pull the shocked boy off the sticky ground and into his arms. Frank held him close for a moment, and felt a deep protectiveness for the boy, then they pulled apart.

“How will we get out?” Mark asked, looking at Frank with wide eyes. The jacket he’d been wearing as Gerard was too big, and it dwarfed him now. The fact that he was just a kid hit Frank again, and Frank’s heart constricted.

“I don’t know,” Frank said. Mark sensed Frank’s hopelessness and shook his head.

Then he began to take off the giant jacket, and handed it off to Frank. Every movement they made was hurried, and Frank had it on without questioning.

“Okay, then we’ll just have to wing it,” Mark said, “Pull that thing’s hood up and I’m going to change into someone else.”

Frank obliged, glad someone had stepped up, even though he knew he was supposed to be the protector.

A moment later, and Frank knew the Jury had found the hand-cuffed Kerry. They were prowling the crowd more purposefully now, somehow more violent than ever. Frank watched a man hit a dancer with the pole he held, and then continue on with his seeking eyes.

“We’ve only got seconds before they find us or kill the entire club trying.”

Frank turned his attention back to where Mark had been, but now a man he’d never seen stood in the kid’s place.

It was uncanny, knowing that inside that body was Mark. Mark seemed just fine with it, though, and he snatched Frank’s hand and they were running again.

The world blurred around them and the first screams broke the air as more people were victimized by the Jury. Fear made everything red, and suddenly people were looking at Frank and Mark as they ran, not toward the exit, but to the DJ booth.

Mark heaved himself onto the platform, which the DJ had obviously abandoned. Frank followed, and before he was even completely standing, Mark was at the controls flipping switches and pushing things blindly.

“What are you doing?!” Frank shouted.

Mark didn’t answer, continuing his frantic pressing. Frank stood motionless as the lights flickered and the music skipped and confetti shot from canons. It was like a drugged nightmare, the music sucking the screams from peoples’ mouths, gruesome weapons and Evil wielding them, all while the party continued and the spotlights pulsed colors.

Suddenly, Mark shouted “Move!” and Frank did- just as a giant flame shot upwards from a hole that had been right beneath his feet.

The nightclub’s pyromantic system.