Death Wish

Chapter 2

I know you flipped to the next page to see what mess Frank and I are about to make, but hold on a second.

There's a reason Frank knows more than me.

He basically had the longest sleepover of his life in Death after getting into an accident when he was thirteen.

~ ~ ~

Frank pants quietly, arms wrapped firmly around a paper bag of groceries. His hand-me-down, soleless sneakers pat into puddles as he speed walks across Jersey's pitch black streets.

He shouldn't have offered to get groceries right before dark. He should've known it was going to be nighttime by the time he walked home. Now it's dangerous and he has to keep his eyes and ears open.

Since the start of the walk, all he can hear is the noise he's making. It seems nobody is around - there might be a small possibility of him being safe and sound on this dark walk. With hope of being alone, he looks back for extra assurance.

His heart sinks. To his dismay, the reason he can only hear himself is because of  a nearby heathen's stealth. Goosebumps rise the instant he sees these heathens - the Romans - coming his way. They're a local gang, they'll steal anything from anybody.

They have been stealing anything. Anything Frank's holding, anyways.

"Hey five-foot!" One of them calls out. He's the biggest of them all; Morgan. "Hey, you gots somethin' for us?"

Frank turns back around and quickens his pace. Morgan struts ahead of the Romans; he takes five big steps before he's already caught up to Frank.

Morgan stops the small teenager from going on by shoving his meaty hands into his shoulders and abruptly rerouting him into a wall.

"Augh!" Frank's head collides with the brick and he drops the groceries. Off-brand cereal and canned fruit litter the pavement. Morgan's buddies don't hesitate to snatch it, remorseless of their blatant thievery.

Frank rubs his throbbing head where he lays. He's almost dizzy from how hard he hit the brick wall - everything feels close to cracking open. He lifts his head and feels something warm trickle down his lips. His nose is bleeding. He grimaces, wipes the blood and turns to witness the Romans. They stow away his groceries right before him. His jaw would have dropped if he wasn't afraid of it popping.

It took his grandfather weeks to earn that lousy bag of food! Frank balls his fists.

"Hey!" He goes to stop them before Morgan shoves him back.

Morgan folds his arms, "Your dumbass parents ever teach you manners, five-foot?" He spits.

"Your dumbass parents ever regret not getting an abortion?" Frank barks, "Give it back!"

Morgan raises his brows, barely impressed, and sneers. "You think you're tough?"

Frank stands there for a moment, green eyes skipping over the man's crooked features. His impulses beg him to grab a hold of Morgan's bent nose and rip it further to the left.

Frank launches himself at him, putting all of his weight into the attack and taking him down to the sidewalk.

It is a blur in that moment - Frank isn't sure if the blood is coming from his nose or Morgan's face. Red is everywhere, and for some reason Frank feels compelled to make more of it. His knuckles are pulsing and his heart is beating up his throat, but he barely feels it with the adrenaline pumping through him. Unstoppable, he pulls his aching fists back and forth like rapid fire.

Honestly it feels really good to finally beat the crap out of Morgan. He feels the best he's had in years. He's finally winning at something.

Frank pulls his fist back for another hit, but something hits him in the back of the head first.

The last thing he remembers is hearing the crack of a brick and going limp.

~ ~ ~

They didn't find Frank until the morning after. The Romans had simply beat his head a few more times with a brick, taken the groceries, and vanished down the street.

While he was rushed to the hospital, he didn't wake up there. He woke up in Death.

No, no, he wasn't dead; he was slammed headfirst in a coma. Yet anybody in a coma is sent to Death as a ghost until they're conscious again. Most would brush it off as a dream, but it was difficult for Frank to see it as that. Nobody dreams for two years.

Frank was trapped in Death as a ghost for such a long time, once he was dragged back to reality he was still able to go back. All that time spent in the Death Realm screwed with the placement of his soul. He became bicompatible with both realms. 

It was a freak accident on nature's part, but he didn't mind it at all. Who would mind a new talent? It works great, and it's easy to bring me along with a blood bond.

Damnit, you don't know what a blood bond is.

I'll show you later.

~ ~ ~

Frank and I walk down Death's streets, still talking. We approach a cluster of houses all lined up and down the steep, hilly road.

"So this guy, Ray . . . he's great, really the first guy I met when I got here, but . . . don't bring up anything about the house." Frank says.

That's random. We step up to the door. I frown, "Why is that so important - -"

Frank traces circles around the doorknob with his index finger, "Perturbatio."

The doorknob dents and rattles and something inside clicks. Frank smirks to himself proudly and swings open the door, leaving my question unanswered.

We both go inside, and the second we do I know what Frank was talking about a minute ago. The home looks like it's been torn down and attempted to be put back together a million times.

"The hell happened to this place?"

"Aye. What'd I say?" Frank strolls in further, "Ray, you in here?"

A tall man with a fro and oven mitts pokes his head in. His hands are full with a cupcake tray, but he quickly discards it at the sight of Frank. "Oh, hey dude!" He says, taking the mitts off.

Frank leaves me behind to go to Ray. "Aye. We need your knowledge for a sec." He says before looking to me. "Wanna tell 'em?"

Ray turns to me. I stand a few feet away, awkward and shifty. I move my weight from foot to foot, uncertain what to say. "Um. I kind of lost something of mine."

~ ~ ~

We're seated in the messy living room later with a completed explanation and an empty cupcake tray.

Ray pops in the last bite of his cupcake. "So you don't know if he's actually damned."

I lift a shoulder, "I wouldn't be able to ask Mikey himself about it."

Ray nods. "Good point." He gets up, dropping the cupcake wrapper to the coffee table. "If he's damned, then it's probably to Death." He says.

I nod, "So how do we find him?" I ask, trying not to be impatient.

"We look both here and there." Ray says. "One of us looks in Death, one of us looks in Life."

"You mean split up." I say.

"That's exactly what I mean."