Before Killing Was Cool ➊ FRERARD

4: He's Got No Shirt And An Attitude Problem

C h a p t e r | F o u r

Present Day - Frank

I reminisce in not so much from my younger years, vulnerable to the kinds of harsh realities no child should wish to experience, and no adult would wish to comfort me through. The black circles I would sport under my eyes were hidden from the eyes of my parents; I worried their sometimes overbearing love and worry for their only child would make me claustrophobic. Throughout my teenage years, high-school, after the worst of the worst took place, I didn't hide them anymore. These are memories I don't exactly indulge in.

I'm sucking on a cigarette, on dry air and a cool aftertaste and whittled down chemicals. The ashes of the cigarette flake and escape when the wind blows until I'm left with a burnt-out stick which I stomp into the ground by the highway. Gerard watches me litter like I'm kicking a puppy.

We've stopped for a break at the side of the road, the middle of nowhere where I'm not worried a vehicle will pass by and recognise the number plate of the car. I'm starting to really wish I hijacked the police car because mine is running out of gas and I don't want it seen on some gas station security camera. For now, trees line the tarmac for miles in each direction and there isn't so much as a sight of a dirt track.

"Cigarettes are bad for you," Gerard argues naively like my lungs aren't already black.

"Really? I never would've guessed," I mumble, still wiggling my toe cap into the dirt to extinguish it.

"You're only seventeen, how did you get your hands on them? And the shotgun too, is it your parents'?"

"Mexico," I decide thoughtfully, ignoring his questions.

For a moment, Gerard doesn't catch on and simply glares at me. Then as realisation dawns, he splutters and protests, trying to flail his handcuffed wrists, "You can't take me to Mexico you lunatic! That's thousands of miles away, I'd never see Mikey again!"

Mexico might be more tolerant of me. Surely when we cross the border, the American cops can't touch me.

"Are you okay in the head? Thirty minutes ago, you were telling me you didn't care you've been kidnapped."

Once again, I feel his eyes burn into the back of my head when I turn away. "I'm allowed to change my mind," he seethes.

"Run, then. You've got working legs and I've got a shotgun."

"I hate you," he says, voice so void of emotion it could be a threat or just defeat.

"You'd be crazy not to," I respond, "now get in the car. I took Spanish, maybe I'll teach you if you ask nicely."

I twirl the shotgun against the dirt while I await another complaint but instead, Gerard answers by kicking rocks at my heels and sprinting away.

Before he can run twenty feet, I pick up the shotgun and fire at him with no intention of hitting him - just as a warning, something that will scare him into stopping. And it works. He yells in fright as the shot passes his ear and freezes, putting hands to his head and crouching slightly, poised to run again but his body tricking him into staying still.

It's like whenever he finds himself in a situation like this - life or death, it seems, when his opportunity to escape has been hindered but still appears slightly possible - there's only one word, one name, chanting in his head: Mikey.

Mikey, Mikey, Mikey. He can't leave him so alone in the world. How will he cope without the only person he truly cares about? What's the point of anything if he's never going to see his brother again?