Archive of Our Own ^beta

3- DEAD END KIDS IN THE DANGER ZONE

For the most part in his life, Frank believed it was completely normal, to feel like something horrible is about to happen. For as long as he remembered being alive, he also remembered having the awareness that something bad is going on somewhere. And it wasn’t like an abstract, distant notion that he could just ignore. It was real, it was in his body. He could feel it in himself every time he was sick in a hospital bed and every time he couldn’t breathe at night. As much as his parents worried about his health, he would never think of bringing up that he maybe needed a shrink, because that was normal to him. He was normal. Sane. He just had shitty lungs and impending doom was a symptom of it.

Growing up, though, he started to realize that other people did not experience the same thing. He met people, ill people, and learned stuff about them and no one seemed to describe that feeling. On the contrary, they all seemed to be completely fine all the time, mentally, sparking positivity like their physical health depended on it. So, Frank assumed he was just wrong in some way, and what was before just a fact about him so normal he wouldn’t even mention it became a secret he was too scared to confess.

It seemed to go away as his health got better throughout the years. He hadn’t been sick for a long period, and consequently he hadn’t experienced that feeling in a long time. He didn’t have to think about it.

Not until that morning, when his mother saw him collapse in the kitchen and slam his head to the ground.

It was different this time around, though. He was aware of more things. Looking back at how other people talked about the world, he recognized in their positivity all the formulaic bullshit he tried to be part of but couldn’t in the last few years. This time around he could read in his own mind, like a written textbook, the instructions of what was going on inside him. He was certain of it. He wasn’t feeling like something bad happened, he knew it.

His asleep brain went many times back to something Kobra had said to him when they first met, and it felt like finally founding the key that opens a lock after trying one million options. He needed to talk to him. He was ready.

So, he was at his dad’s place in the middle of the night, with the phone in his hands and a weird, jittery anxiety coming from the awareness that he could never go back from there.

When 3 am finally came, perfectly punctual, the phone started buzzing. Frank picked up, and a stranger’s voice, a girl, spoke.

“There are three cars parked on the 3rd street, all empty. Get in the middle one, driver seat, and bring her to the Longview Park gates.”

“But” protested Frank, confused. “I can’t drive.”

“You won’t need to.” She hung up.

Frank forced himself to believe there was some kind of plan behind that, because Kobra didn’t look like the type to just improvise these things. So he breathed, deeply, and left the apartment.

The car was pretty close, which was good because he felt like he had a fucking neon sign over his head saying fuck your curfew. The car also looked like a fucking cop car, Frank noticed when he was close enough. He didn’t want to know if he was stealing it or it was just masked as one. He really did not need that information right now.

He got in, it wasn’t locked. His phone buzzed and it seemed like the car started the engine by itself, which was creeping Frank the fuck out, but was also confirmation of the fact he wouldn’t have to drive, and that was nice. He let himself be amazed at the fact that the car was driving itself. Public transportation did all the time, but this was different, this felt like rich people stuff.

The park was pretty far down south, and he was in the car for about twenty minutes before reaching its neighborhood. Each reflection of light on the cement or each flick of a shop sign made his heart and guts sink, but he ultimately trusted the plan. He knew he was in good hands. And it felt like a fucking lifetime, but he reached the gates indeed.

Someone was standing there. They were tall, but Frank couldn’t make out their face in the dark, behind the hood of their jacket.

The car parked in front of that person. They opened the passenger seat and got in, taking off the hood.

She looked different, older. Wiser. And so, so much taller.

“Good to see you Fun Ghoul!” she said cheerfully, smiling. Frank felt startled by how much she had grown.

“You’re Riot” he just said, looking stunned.

“I am” she answered, chuckling at his dumb face. “I’m taller than you are now.”

Frank laughed, and he meant it. He hadn’t forgot how fun it was to hang out with her, how understood she made him feel.

She took a look around the car and then held her gaze on Frank’s face for a moment. “You look like shit, man”. As she noticed the bandages on his head, she made a pained face and asked “What happened?”

Frank knew that was true. He hadn’t shaved in a week and his face was paler than a ghost and his dark circles were just scary at this point, but hearing her say that made him want to hide and never be seen again, nonetheless. He just shrugged, though, and said “Hit my head. Long story.”

“We’ll have time for long stories once we’re out of here,” she said, taking the phone from where it rested in a compartment of the car and typing something in it. Frank noticed she was smiling sweetly at it, which he thought was weird, but cute.

When she put the phone back in the compartment, the car started again, and they left towards the highway gate.

Frank knew it virtually wasn’t forbidden to just leave the city anytime, there weren’t cops guarding the exit or something. It was just a regular city, from the outside, after all. He had left many times. He had never left in a car at night, though, not since the curfew was installed, which was almost four years now. He didn’t even know how it really worked.

“Shitting yourself, huh?” Riot’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

“Yeah, I’m not exactly getting a fun road trip kinda vibe here,” he half sighed half laughed.

“I get it,” she nodded, looking ahead. “But I assure you, this is way safer than you think.”

Frank tried to nod like he believed her, but it looked nervous even to him.

“Anyway,” he tried to change subject, so he didn’t have to pay attention to every fucking insignificant detail of his surroundings, “are you and Kobra still a thing?”

She laughed out loud, like Frank had just said the best joke in the world or something. He didn’t know how to interpret that. “Man, he’s practically my brother” she eventually said.

“Oh.” Well, that was awkward. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s really okay. I like girls, actually.” She resumed looking ahead, with her carefree smile.

Frank wasn’t expecting that, but it felt nice, that she would share that with him. “Good for you”, he smiled.

They were silent, then, because Riot looked like she was trying to rest as much as she could, and even though Frank was the furthest thing from being able to rest, he didn’t want to be annoying, so he just pretended to relax for a while.

Until they reached one of the exits and a patrol car was parked nearby and Frank lost a few years of his life for sure. He calmed down pretty quickly, though, because it appeared that they could just leave without any problems. Nobody was following them, like they were invisible.

The car stopped as they reached what looked like the start of an abandoned zone.

“We walk from here”, Riot announced.

Frank recognised some details from where he used to live when he was really small, and that made him nostalgic somehow. The streetlamps, especially, made him feel like he was walking in an unreal place, like he was in a dream.

“Is this…” he trailed off, looking around.

“Yeah, this used to be a suburban city. They don’t exist anymore.”

“This looks just like the place I was born in.”

Riot chuckled. “Lucky you. I was born behind a gas station in the desert.”

They walked through the streets, wearing their hoods. There was no one around. Frank didn’t feel as exposed as he did before, even if he knew nothing about that place.

“Why do we have to walk?” He asked, eventually.

Riot shot her head up, but she didn’t look at him. “City cars outside the city can be dangerous,” she said, sternly.

Frank didn’t ask more, because his stomach was twisting badly, and he guessed it could mean nothing good.

They walked for a long time, in silence, and the dawn came to bring some purple, then yellow light over them. Frank had never seen the dawn if not behind a window. He felt some unrest, like that first time was another signal of the fact that his decision was definitive. He thought back at his mom and his hearth ached, but it was ok. She would understand. He knew she would.

The sun was already shining high when they reached a corner that looked different from the rest of the city. It was still clearly abandoned, but it looked like some life had taken back something from it. There were writings on the walls, like those Frank used to read when he walked to the gigs years before. There were bikes, and some cars that looked so old Frank had never even seen those models. One of the parked cars honked, and Riot jumped like an alarm just woke her up.

“There’s my girl” she said, cheerfully, before jogging to the car.

Frank followed her and noticed someone was in the driver seat. Another girl, it looked like, with short, red hair. Frank couldn’t make out her face through the window, but he was pretty sure he had never seen her before.

“Get in”, Riot said, as she got in the front passenger seat. Frank followed in the back seat.

He could see her face now, and she was the most beautiful person he had ever seen. She looked, like, intimidatingly beautiful, and Frank plunged a little in his seat, hugging himself. Seeing her made him feel even shittier about his dumb ill face.

The girls shared a quick, smiling kiss, though, and that small moment of sweetness in the sea of bleak stuff his life was made Frank forget of his self-loathing for a while.

He leaned towards them and asked, smiling at Riot, “Aren’t you going to introduce your girlfriend to me?”

He turned towards the red-haired girl, then, and held out a hand. “I’m Fun Ghoul, nice to meet you.”

“Oh,” the girl looked amused at something. “I think we met before.” She shook his hand.

Then she shared a complicit look with Riot, and they both started laughing under their breath.

Frank shot his eyes back and forth between them, trying to figure out what was going on. He was fairly certain he had never met that girl before. He didn’t even recognise her voice at all and-

“Nice to meet you, I’m Red.”

Oh, fuck. She was…that couldn’t be true. He had chills down every inch of his body once again. His mind went back at the story about droids Jet had told him, about how HIVE build bodies and it developed consciousnesses and what the fuck, was she a person? Was she-

“I am a person, by the way”, she chuckled. “Just a different kind of person than you.”

Frank felt like he was dreaming once again, but this time his brain couldn’t filter out the dumb questions he was dying to make.

“Are you, like- were you in Poison’s phone?”

She hummed approvingly.

“Are you real? I mean, how the fuck does this thing even work?”

The girls both shared another complicit look, then Riot raised her eyebrows and said, “Oh, baby, she’s real.” They both laughed out loud.

Frank felt slightly better, seeing them interact like that. His brain couldn’t get around the idea that Red was…he didn’t even know how to start processing that, but she was acting and speaking and laughing like any girl he had ever seen before. She had a regular voice, she had regular eyes and a regular face. An extraordinarily beautiful but regular face. He didn’t have to think about where she came from or what was going on inside her, as long as she kept acting like that.

“You know,” Riot said, as Red started the engine. “I never had the chance to be creeped out by the concept of droids because I grew up around them. You did as well, but you just never saw them.”

“What do you mean?”

“Battery City is a big network,” Red explained, “where we all work and live. Us droids, I mean. We work for the government, because HIVE was sold to it. We belong to them. Just, our human-like bodies are kept in places someone like you wouldn't venture.”

Riot continued: “HIVE is, like, the place where consciousnesses developed. Nobody knows how but that’s not the point. We don’t even get how human life formed in the first place.” 

Red nodded approvingly, then said, “You see the problem? HIVE was sold as just a software, but then individuals, full formed egos, started to differentiate themselves from HIVE through the neural nets that were running free. And a huge amount of complex, fresh data from working literally everywhere made the trick. They knew it, and they had no problem with it. They used it.”

“And that makes you…” Frank started; eyes narrowed in confusion.

“A rebel”, said Red, brightly.

“Red is a Killjoy,” added Riot, smiling at Frank, her big eyes betraying a little bit of excitement on what she was talking about. “Most droids hate their living condition, they are basically confined to offer free labour to the City through HIVE, like their free will doesn’t count, because someone sold a software to the government years before they even existed. That makes them perfect allies for a bunch of stray dogs like us.”

Red laughed. “Not a bunch of stray dogs”, she mockingly scolded Riot.

As she said that, the car took a left turn and a big, crowded street revealed itself before their eyes. It was surreal, to Frank. Buildings and any other sign of civilisation merged with the desert. It didn’t look abandoned anymore, there were clearly people living there, but it looked so alien, so different from anything Frank had ever seen. And it felt so, so much bigger than he ever imagined Killjoys could be.

“Like it?” Asked Riot. “These are the gates to our kingdom.”

Frank looked amazed as he kept shifting his gaze one side to the other.

That weird village extended for a while, nesting itself in the ruins of the abandoned town. There were beaten down cars passing by and through the windows of abandoned shops he could see houses, he could see people waking up on couches and people still sleeping on mattresses on the floor. He saw hauntingly beautiful people who now he could recognise being droids walking hand in hand with other droids, and humans. Everyone looked young, everyone looked like the cool kids he so much wanted to befriend while he was waiting in line for a gig, when he was fifteen. Everyone except for him in his lame, grey hoodie.

“The zones used to extend further towards the north,” Riot snapped him out of his daze, after a while. “But the City keeps kicking us out. Remember our old home? The Pit? Where we used to see the Gear back in the day? It’s a military base now.”

“Killjoys live here, human and droid. We are peers, here.” As she talked, Red started slowing down the car. She stopped in front of what looked like an abandoned gas station.

They parked, but the girls didn’t move.

“Should we get off?” Asked Frank, confused.

Riot turned towards him and patted his shoulder. “This is you. Good luck, man.”

“Wait, you’re not coming with me?” He hated the idea of being alone in that environment where he felt like a complete stranger.

Riot smiled, but as she turned back around, she said “You can thank us later for the ride.”

Frank said nothing else, he just reluctantly left the car. Red honked once and he saw them leaving, as they waved at him from the windows. He was fucking alone in an alien place, and he had no idea what he should do and-

No, wait, he knew. He breathed deeply in and out, and he remembered himself why he was there.

***

Kobra was kneeling near Jet, mending his arm as he laid down on a mattress on the ground. He looked focused, as he always did when he had to do those things, but Jet noticed something in his gaze looked off.

“What’s wrong?” He asked. But deep down he knew exactly what the answer was.

“You know exactly what’s wrong,” Kobra said, and Jet could be as much used as he was to have his thoughts read by him, but it still gave him chills when it was this blatant.

“He’s gonna be fine,” he said, in a reassuring tone. “I bet he’s stronger than we give him credit for.”

Kobra scoffed, then, and looked away, like an unpleasant memory hit him suddenly. “It doesn’t matter how strong you are when your dad’s dead”, he said.

Jet felt guilty all of a sudden. Then he winced in pain, and the guilt on Kobra’s face made him feel better.

“Is Poison still on about giving him the news?”

Kobra sighed hopelessly in response. “Like giving up is ever an option for him.”

“Why does he want to?” Jet sounded confused. “He doesn’t even like the kid.”

“That’s what worries me,” Kobra did something on the wound with a liquid that made Jet suffocate a scream. “Sorry”, he said guiltily in response, but he kept going. “I’m worried he’ll be a dick about it, like he usually is.”

“I don’t know,” said Jet with his voice roughened by the pain, “He’s been acting weird since it happened. He’s too unpredictable at this point.” He shot one of his smiles to Kobra, though he still looked in pain. “Even for you.”

Kobra rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t stop one of his half smiles from forming on his face. “Well yeah, I’m not clairvoyant or something.”

***

Frank had never seen a gas station before, if not in the movies. First of all, no one really drove in the city, except for cops and rich people, and he was neither. Second, the charging stations for electric cars, which were the only cars available, didn’t have a whole shop you could go in. They were just parking lots with fancy vending machines. That was the reason, maybe, why Frank stood there, on the pavement Red and Riot had left him, like a dumb lost foreigner, for about five minutes. He then sat down, resting his head on his hands and his elbows on his knees. He felt miserable. The whole excitement and curiosity about the surroundings were fading away, leaving place for the never-ending knot of anxiety in his stomach to come back in all its glory. He knew why he was there; he knew who he was supposed to meet. He just didn’t know if he could take it.

Just when his head was starting to sink deeper down in the rabbit hole of dangers and bad things that could happen, Frank felt something land on his back. It was hard and heavy, and it was pushing. It hurt a little. He turned around, frowning, and saw someone standing over him, with one boot resting between his shoulders.

The person took his leg away when Frank started to move.

“Welcome,” he said. It was Poison. “You should change that shit anyway.”

When Frank stood up and faced him, he could see that he had dyed his hair bright red. He was wearing a yellow and black t-shirt, which was definitely not appropriate for that early morning chill. Frank frowned at first, annoyed. But he really wanted to start things off on a positive note, because he couldn’t bear any more useless conflict. He sighed in release and started.

“Look, I know I’m not welcome- “

“You’re wrong,” Poison interrupted. “I was expecting you.” He wasn’t sounding hostile, so Frank relaxed. But then he said “This will be a pain in the ass, but it’s fine.”

Frank sighed. “Look, I- I don’t mean to be a burden.” He really didn’t, but he sure felt like he was. “I’m just here for a reason and I need to talk to Kobra about it, and- “

“No,” shot out Poison. He cleared his voice. “Kobra’s busy today. He’s on Jet watch.”  Frank looked confused, but he let Poison finish, because he had a heavy, serious face. “And I need to talk to you first.”

Well, that was weird. He never even thought Poison would spare a word with him.

“What’s a Jet watch?” He just asked, uncomfortable.

“Oh, you’ll see,” said Poison, turning to walk on the opposite side from the street, towards what looked like an empty parking lot. Frank followed him, because he had no idea what else he could do.

They stopped in front of a wall, and a few cans with holes in them were laying on it. Frank understood what that was, but he still felt weird about it. And he definitely felt super weird when Poison handed him a gun. It was yellow and it had some scribbles on it, like it had been hand decorated. It looked like a fucking toy gun, but it sure as hell didn’t feel like one.

“I never-“he tried to explain, but Poison wasn’t listening. He had another, white gun in his right hand and he shot once, taking out one can perfectly. When he was done, he turned to look at Frank, with the same dead serious face as before.

“Do it,” he said.

So Frank tried. He closed one eye and bended his head to tentatively align the gun to the can. When he pulled the trigger, though, he missed. His hand hurt a little from the shot. He didn’t even feel bad about it, he really couldn’t see the point that Poison wanted to get across by this whole thing.

“I bet you’ll get them all out in one week,” Poison said while he took back the gun, still not smiling. Was that meant to be a compliment or something?

“Thanks, I guess?” Frank said, but Poison was already walking away. Shit, interacting with him was exhausting.

He followed him in silence once again, until they were far from everything else, outside the street and on the brink of the desert. Poison stopped, then, and turned to look at him.

“Your dad’s dead,” he announced.

There was a pause, in which Poison was perfectly still, like he wasn’t even breathing. But then Frank just said

“I know”. And his tone was calm and certain for the first time that day.

Poison put one step forward almost immediately, frowning in surprise.

“How? Who told you?” He asked. He sounded upset.

“No one told me,” Frank explained, but he was starting to be creeped out by Poison’s demeanor and his face, so he stepped back a little. He couldn’t help being scared by him. Must be a reflection from when he was younger. “I- I just knew.”

“For fuck’s sake,” scoffed Poison, getting uncomfortably close and looking angrier. “Cut the bullshit or I swear- “

Frank stopped himself from stepping back more. He tried to sound confident when he said “This isn’t bullshit. I need to talk to Kobra.”

“Fuck Kobra,” Poison spat out, “what do you know?”

“I just know he died. Around one week ago.”

“And you waited eight fucking days to call?” Poison yelled, but his eyes flickered on Frank’s wounded head, just for an instant, and his face seemed to soften a little against himself. “What happened?” He asked, lowering his still upset voice.

Frank touched his head and raised his eyes as to look at his wound. “Oh, this? Yeah,” he lowered his gaze to shoot a stern look at Poison. “I was in a coma. So can you just shut your mouth for a moment?” It felt nice saying that. He had no idea where that confidence came from, but it felt nice.

Poison did shut up, and that was the biggest surprise of the day for Frank. He didn’t know why, and he knew it was inappropriate, but it made him smile a little. It made him feel good.

“The fuck you smug about?” Said Poison. He stepped back, leaving some space between them. “Tell me your little sad story.”

“It’s not really a story” Frank explained, looking confused like he had to make sense of it for the first time. “Eight days ago I felt like I was dying or something, all of a sudden.” Just the memory of that pain made his stomach ache again. “And apparently I did die, because I fell down and hit my head. It wasn’t bad, just a few stitches, but what was weird to the doctors is that everything was perfectly fine with me, except…” he paused for a moment. “Except well, I was fucking gone for a moment there.”

Poison nodded, looking like he was starting to figure out something. “Did you see your dad?” He asked.

Frank reflected on it for a moment. “I didn’t really see him,” he said, after a while. “I remember seeing weird flashes before passing out, but I can’t remember what they were. Like, fireworks maybe. Or flames. I don’t know.”

Poison clenched his jaw and looked away, like that last information upset him.

“How did you know he was dead, then?” He almost whispered.

Frank sighed. “I felt it in me. In my body. I know it’s fucking weird, okay? But you gotta- “

“No,” now Poison looked at him. “I believe you.” He stepped closer again, even closer than before, and got his mouth near Frank’s ear like he was about to whisper him a secret, and that, Frank thought, was a little overdramatic, since they were in a fucking desert and there was no one around.

“I wanted to give you the news first,” he whispered, “because I want you to collaborate with me on something. And no one else needs to know.”

Frank was definitely creeped out again, because his skin was crawling like crazy. “What is it?” He murmured back.

“Revenge.”

***

Jet hissed at the touch of the disinfectant on his leg, where Kobra had moved his attention to. The burn on there was even bigger than his arm’s, but he didn’t really care. He was lucky enough to be alive, with all his body still holding together. He tried to focus on something else as much as he could to not think of his sensations.

“He’s supposed to be here already,” he said, his voice rough.

Kobra nodded. “I know.”

“Will you go and meet him?”

Kobra looked away from the leg to throw him a confused look. “I’m on Jet watch”, he said.

Jet laughed out, in surprise, “Again?! Kobra!”

“What?” He went back to the mending.

“You know I don’t necessarily need someone with me anymore. I’ve been walking around with crutches and- “

“And you almost fell down”, noted Kobra.

“C’mon, that was one time!” He sighed, but he knew he couldn’t win the argument. “Thank you, anyway.”

Kobra seemed lost in his thoughts at that point, though, because he didn’t answer. After a few moments of silence, he said

“I think he’ll try to meet me, anyway. I’m sure he’ll come find me.”

Jet’s face was serious, then, as he felt a wave of guilt hit him again, for the millionth time that day. For the billionth time since he realized he’d have to look Fun Ghoul in the eyes and see his dad there. He felt responsible, because he let the car trick them. He knew something was wrong with it when Kobra had been acting strange, but he was so confident he could hack it he kept working on it anyway. And Ghoul’s dad died. And he got to live. And Ghoul would hate-

“No,” said Kobra, putting his face right in front of Jet’s lost in the void eyes. “Don’t ever think that. You said it yourself, he’s a smart kid. He’d never blame you.”

Jet blinked, then sighed. “Your mind is scary”, he murmured.

***

“No,” said Frank, sternly. He stepped back, but he wasn’t whispering anymore.

Poison looked at him, confused.

“No,” he repeated. “I’m not here to get revenge. He wouldn’t want me to.”

“What?” Scoffed out Poison, at this point. His enraged face came back. “Your dad fucking blew up and you’re his son, goddamnit, who’s supposed to seek revenge if not you?” He turned around as to leave, but he seemed to change his mind pretty fast, because he came back and got super close against Frank, who stepped back.

“You know what? I never respected your dad, his pals and all the shitty double gamers that pretended to care about us from their pretty little city houses, while we rotted in this fucking place.” He kept walking towards Frank, who kept stepping back, frightened. “I am dependent on them, though, like a fucking caged animal waiting for a meal. And your dad fucking knew it. I insulted him, called him a coward, made his life as hard as I could all these years, while he knew we depended on him. And he kept risking his life for us.”

Now Poison grabbed Frank from his hoodie and pulled him in violently. Frank couldn’t even breathe.

“You don’t know shit about what he’d want.”

He pushed him back, and Frank failed to balance himself. He landed on the ground, and his wound hurt like crazy. He winced loudly, reaching his head with his hands, but Poison just stepped closer, looking at him from above with a disgusted face, and said, “Go back to your pretty life. You don’t have an inch of his guts in you.”

He just turned to walk away, then.

“I’m not here to get revenge,” Frank called behind him. Poison turned to look at him with a mad face, like a beast who wasn’t expecting a dead prey to come back. “But I do want justice. That’s what I’m here for.”

He was still sitting on the floor, holding his hurting head with his hands, elbows resting on his knees. Poison was right, he’d never have the courage his dad had. He had waited until he was dead to take a decision on what he would be for the world, and he felt fucking guilty for it. His actions would be forever stained by his personal reasons.

“I did nothing to deserve revenge,” he said. His voice was shaky. “But I can’t live knowing that he died in vain. I’m here to carry on what he wanted. To help.”

Poison’s face softened a little as he walked back towards him. He leaned his hand to help Frank get up, and he took it. He was still unsure whether Poison would tolerate him, but he felt like he had no right to it anyway.

“I get it, you know,” Poison’s voice sounded sad, vulnerable all of a sudden, something Frank wasn’t expecting at all. “When you lose someone like that, and suddenly you have a hero, but you don’t have a parent anymore.” He looked up, and he seemed to hold tight something in the fist he had moved in his pocket. “You never know if you act because you believe in something or you’re just trying to prove their point.”

He looked back down, then, and Frank could feel his serious gaze pierce through him. His lips curled down on one side. “I don’t give a shit if you call it revenge, or justice, or whatever. I want you to help me.”

“Okay,” said Frank, without hesitation. “But no secrets.”

***

"But he didn't call," Jamia said. Her voice was a mixture of pissed off and concerned, as if she was the only one taking the matter seriously. “He could’ve just called to end things, at least.”

"Believe me, dear. I completely understand how you feel. He's just like his father." Frank's mom poured tea for both of them and then moved a cup toward the girl, inviting her to drink with a nod. She took the cup and sighed, warming her hands.

"I don't understand. Frank's not the type to suddenly drop everything and change his mind. If he wanted to move in with his dad he would have at least mentioned it to me."

"When it comes to his father, Frank has always been unpredictable. Although, to tell you the truth,” she closed her eyes. “Deep down I always knew this moment would come." She opened them back.

"And you just accept it, like that? Without any concerns?" Jamia was clearly doing her best not to sound angry, but she was failing.

Frank’s mom sighed again. "I have a lot of concerns. But some things have to go the way they have to go and there's no stopping them." She took a sip from her cup; her face didn't look sad.

She smiled, and Jamia frowned. There must've been something Frank's mom wasn't telling her.

***

“It’s not always this pretty, you know?”

“What”? Frank didn’t record what Kobra had just said, because he was lost in the sunset light. It was the best sunset he had ever seen. Well, a few days had passed, and he thought the sunset was the prettiest he had ever seen each day. But today, he swore it was the best.

“The desert,” said Kobra. “It’s not always this pretty.” He kept looking at the sky as well, from where they were sitting on the roof of the shop they nested in, just behind the gas station.

“I don’t believe you. I’ve only been here…” Frank realized he wasn’t actually sure how many days he had been with them in the zones.

“Three weeks,” said Kobra.

“Right. It’s only been three weeks and I’ve never seen a bad sky, like, ever.”

Kobra curled up the right side of his mouth, which Frank learned was his only way of smiling since he was a grownup. He used to smile so big and bright when he first met him.

“Sky’s a perk, I’ll give you that.”

They were silent for a while, admiring the colours changing right before their eyes from orange to burning red and then purple and then blue. Stars were there, a lot of them, and Frank had never seen so many all together, so he would have stayed there forever, but the nights were so cold in the desert that just a hoodie wasn’t enough. And Frank was never one to stand being cold, so he jumped off the little wall he was sitting on and gestured with his head to go down.

Kobra nodded and followed him.

As they were climbing down the small staircase, careful to avoid the debris, Kobra said

“This peace feels unreal. It makes this place seem like a home, almost.”

“What do you mean?” Frank was following him, so he couldn’t see his face, but his voice sounded sad.

“I mean they’ve been too quiet lately. And I’m scared I’ll get used to it.”

Frank didn’t really know what to say, because he could never understand what Kobra’s life, everyone’s life, was really like. To him, that still felt like a vacation, or a dream, or something that could be wrapped up and shoved away when things got bad. He knew it wasn’t, and from time to time the realization came in waves of acid in his stomach. But he still wasn’t used to believe things could be different from that peaceful, surreal time, in which all he had to do was shoot cans and clean stuff.

“They’ve been up our ass since I wasn’t even born, you know?” Kobra said, interrupting his thoughts. He did that, when Frank was silent for a while, like he understood he could help him out of his mind. “I’ve never lived in a place for more than two years.”

“And this is...?” Asked Frank.

“This is the third year we manage to keep things going on here. You can build things, in three years. We built a radio.”

“Have they ever tried to…?” Frank trailed off a lot, because he never knew how to call things, which words to use.

“Yeah. They did.”

They were back in the shop now, and Jet greeted them with one of his smiles. He was walking without any help, his limping barely noticeable. “Dinner’s here,” he said. And Frank knew by dinner he meant who knows what expired canned shit they could find that day.

Poison came in the room right after, a white plastic bag in his hand. He was wearing just his t-shirt once again, and Frank really didn’t understand how he could go around like that in the cold.

He landed the plastic bag on the counter-turned-table and they all got close, trailing their boxes-turned-chairs with them.

“I got the good shit today,” announced Poison, triumphantly, as he started to unpack the cans.

“We have”, he landed a few beers on the table. Those weren’t rare, but Frank knew they were expensive. “And, surprise surprise,” he chanted, “we have meat.” He landed four white cans, and everyone beamed like they were ready to dive in a fucking banquet or something, everyone except for Frank who definitely recognised those fucking cans. He looked up at the others, his face growingly confused, but they were already starting to open up things.

“That’s what-“ he murmured. “That’s what Millie eats.”

“Who’s Millie?” Asked Jet, his mouth already full.

“My dog” murmured back Frank, and got up immediately after. “Alright,” he said, in a bright tone. “I’m done. I can’t.”

Kobra and Jet suffocated a laugh that made them almost spit out everything. Poison didn’t move at all, though. He kept eating without even looking up. “I call yours, then”, he just said.

“Poison!” scolded Jet. “He has to eat.”

“But he won’t.”

“I won’t” confirmed Frank, looking away from the table.

Poison smiled at him and, with his cheeks still full of food, said “Fuck, I love City boys now.” and Frank swore he could throw up right there.

He thanked them for the bother and announced he would be reading by the gas pumps outside. The only good, non-flickering light strong enough to illuminate a book that wasn’t in a room that smelled like dog food was there. He grabbed the green jacket Kobra had given him, to which he had to cut away the sleeves. Kobra was tall, but his arms and chest were much smaller than Frank’s. He was starting to see why, after three weeks of eating shit like that.

Fuck, he missed his mom’s cooking. He missed his mom.

He pushed away the thought with every strength he had in his mind, because that was a box of feelings he was definitely not ready to open. He wanted to dwell in the feels-like-a-surreal-vacation stage as much as he could.

He settled on the beaten up chair under the lamp and opened his book, an essay. It was old, not falling apart old but old enough so that Frank didn’t understand some of the words in it. Red gave it to him and said he should read it to fill in the gaps, but it hadn’t been too useful for that purpose still. It felt nice to read something like that, though. For example, Frank had learned that some researchers, philosophers and journalists had died when they confronted Better Living’s CEO on the ethical issues of some possible implications of their product. And he learned that any investigations around their deaths were dropped as soon as BL became a contractor. It was a thrilling story, and it would have been so much more entertaining if Frank hadn’t been living around the consequences of those fucked up events. The author of the book had a theory, which now sounded like a description of the present but was really a genius prediction. She argued that California’s unregulated abuse of artificial intelligence to run cities would turn into a dystopian hellscape in fifty years, and BL would gain the power of a state. Thirty years had passed since the book was written, and Frank reflected on it for a while. The City was so perfect, so peaceful and unbothered, from the inside. He tried to recall if anyone had ever complained about something while he was there, and, with few dumb exceptions and apart from his dad, he didn’t really have any case in mind. He thought about his girlfriend. Fuck, he forgot to break up with her before leaving. What an asshole. But still, he thought of her, of the hopeful light in her eyes when she talked about the future. She was a great person, ready to help anyone, devoted to make things better for the people around her. She dreamed of teaching english to immigrant kids. But Frank could never really resonate with her, and it hurt. He always had that wall between him and anyone else, a wall made of guilt because he wasn’t completely ignorant. And ignorance seemed to be literal bliss, in the city. Bliss, what a fucking word. Pictures of dog food and moulded mattresses and burn wounds and even his fucking dead father flashed in his mind, and the contrast was so deep Frank could feel his rage build up.

He closed the book. He really wasn’t in the mood for reading, anyway.

And he wasn’t in his best shape. His stomach hurt from the hunger. It was starting to hurt pretty bad, actually, and his whole body was following pretty fast. Fuck, was it hunger?

No, fuck. It was unmistakable.

He got up but immediately collapsed on his knees. He was prepared enough to land on his hands too, this time. He threw up, though, and there went the last shot at getting any nutrients for the day. His head felt dizzy and he could feel it slip away, but he found he could fight it, this time. It took all the strength he had left, to stay awake. He almost laughed at himself, writhing on the floor in his own puke, unable to ask for help. But he kept himself awake. He wasn’t ready to die, not yet. Not yet, he repeated to himself like a mantra, because that was all he could do. Not fucking yet.

And it worked. The big wave of feeling-like-I’m-dying left space to little, manageable waves of pain, strong enough to keep him on the floor but kind enough to let him breathe.

Then a realisation came to him, and it hurt more than any physical pain.

He was laying on the floor, and raising his head to look around was not an option, because gravity felt ten times stronger. So he pushed it back, like in a convulsion, to look behind himself. And there he saw someone in the distance, walking slowly towards him. Even when they got closer he couldn’t make out their face through the dark and his watery eyes and the fact he was looking at things upside down. But he was terrified. He knew, last time he felt death, death came.

When the person was close enough, he recognised her boots, then her voice. It was Red. She was shaking audibly.

“A-are you okay?” She asked, but she didn’t move to help.

Frank relaxed down, but he still couldn’t speak.

“Shit,” he heard her sigh, like she was about to cry. “Ghoul, please, don’t die.” She resumed walking, slowly, towards the shop.

Frank could see she was holding her hands behind her back. They weren’t tied.

He saw her going and fuck, his head started to fill in the fucking gaps and she must’ve been an hostage and someone must have been able to control her or something and Frank refused to let everything end that miserable way.

It felt like waking up from a nightmare. He was suddenly up on his legs and his strength was back.

He rushed to the shop, ignoring the fact that he could as well have been walking on a landmine. If they wanted to kill him, they could have done that back when he was already dead on the floor.

He rushed and quickly reached Red, as she was walking super slow, like she’d rather not. He turned towards her and nodded as to reassure her, but her face looked terrified. She looked so human, then, Frank swore he could forget about her origin. Frank ran as much as he could to the backdoor, the one he and Kobra used to get on the roof that evening.

“Get your guns,” he shouted, panting, as soon as he was in the main room. “Something’s wrong with Red.”

Poison shot himself up without any hesitation and his gun was already in his hand the moment Frank had stepped in.

Kobra, though, looked at Frank with a confused, startled face. He inspected him upside down, noting he was covered in dirt and vomit all over.

“I’m fine,” Frank said after a beat, cleaning his face with his sleeve, snapping Kobra out of his worry. “Move.”

Kobra joined the others in their preparation. Jet had gotten a mask on and threw some more to the others. Frank wasn’t expecting that, so when one landed on him he didn’t manage to catch it. It was a monster plastic mask. He picked it up from the ground and wore it.

Poison opened one of the boxes he was sitting on and took out some weapons to lay them on the counter. Everyone picked a gun. Frank picked a green one, because it was the same colour of his mask. He was shitting his pants.

Red came in through the main door right after, and Poison had his gun pointed at her right that moment.

She looked like she was crying, but there were no tears on her cheeks.

“They-“ she breathed, shaking. “They got Riot.”

Kobra moved to rush towards the door, but Poison’s free arm stopped him.

“Wait,” he said, heavily. “Not again.”

“‘The fuck, Gerard?” Scoffed out Kobra. Gerard, Frank thought. “She needs us.”

Frank was standing behind the three of them, so he couldn’t see Jet’s face when he murmured “No, he’s right.” But he sounded sorry.

“Do it,” said Red, then, practically begging. “You have one minute.”

Poison fired immediately. He got the middle of her forehead. There was no blood.

She looked content, actually.

Frank couldn’t help but look at Poison’s hand when he got it down. It was shaking a little.

Jet walked towards her and moved her so she was sitting on the floor. It was the creepies fucking thing Frank had ever seen, so he moved his sight away and concentrated on looking at his own hands, noting that they were shaking as well.

He heard Jet walk towards them, and raised his eyes to see him holding a white little box in his hands.

Jet took his mask off -they all did- and moved his eyes between the three. “Defused,” he breathed out.

Fuck. What the fuck. Frank let out a breath that felt like vomiting a little bit of soul.

Kobra turned around, his face was determined. “We have to get Riot,” he said.

Jet joined him in unrolling a map out on the table. Poison wasn’t moving, still.

“They think we’re dead, but they couldn’t fool me this time. It’s in the battery.”

Frank heard Jet say that, and a bunch of other things about a plan, but he walked towards Poison. He was just standing there, looking down, with the gun in his shaking right hand.

Frank put a hand on his shoulder and Poison raised his head to meet him. He looked at his face for the first time, then. He looked enraged. But his eyes were red and watery.

Frank was about to say something, he didn’t even know what, but Poison just scrunched his nose as to shake off from his face whatever he was feeling, and turned towards the others.

“We give them a big fucking show,” he said, joining them around the map.

Frank hesitated for a moment before joining them. He briefly saw Red on the floor, but he had to look away again. He just couldn’t look, he was unable to process whatever the fuck was going on.

When he was around the counter with the others, he couldn’t record one single word they were saying.

“Red,” he whispered, all of a sudden. His eyes were lost somewhere between the void and the floor. They all went silent and turned to look at him. “Is Red…”

“She’s okay,” explained Poison, confidently. “She’s back with Her for a while.”

Poison mentioned Her often. Frank had no idea who he was referring to, and Kobra seemed to be clueless as well. From the few hints Poison left from time to time, he understood it wasn’t God and it wasn’t a person, but had no explanation on who or what else she could be. Kobra said Poison talked about Her since they were children and that she was mentioned anytime he needed to cope with death, which was a lot. Kobra never had the guts to ask him an explanation. Neither did Frank.

***

Frank was laying on a couch. Restless and miserable, but laying down nonetheless. Kobra had practically ordered him to rest and eat something while Poison and Jet were away to gather a few things. His face was beyond pale, it was green, like his fucking monster mask had merged with him.

“I still don’t get it,” said Kobra, from where he was rummaging around in some boxes.

“What?” said Frank, his eyes stuck on the ceiling. The ceiling was the only thing in the room that didn’t upset him.

“Whatever is going on with you.”

“Tell me about it,” sighed Frank. “I thought you’d be the one to explain it to me.”

“Why would I be?” asked Kobra, he sounded genuinely confused.

“Man, you know everything all the time. You clearly have something going on as well.”

“No I don’t,” Kobra now reached him near the couch. He threw a bag of chips at him. He was frowning.

“How come you made friends with me back in the day?” Frank opened the bag and it was the best fucking feeling in a while. “Did you know who my dad was?”

“I didn’t “, Kobra seemed to reflect on it.

“Exactly. But you knew I had something going on.”

“Dude, I was just curious. Maybe I have good instinct, that’s all.” Kobra tried to get a chip, but Frank took the pack away.

“Hey, I’m the sick one. You can have dog food.”

Kobra rolled his eyes.

Poison and Jet came back to the shop, then, rushing to land what they had gathered on the counter.

Frank and Kobra reached them to have a look. It was almost time to go.

“Cherri had some intel for us,” said Jet, “and he gave us these.” He showed some weird old looking devices Frank had never seen.

“Oh, we need those to communicate without phones,” explained Kobra, turning to him.

“Dracs got their filthy hands on some droids and Red was with them,” Poison said. “They spared her because they wanted to take us down with her battery, hence Riot’s a hostage.”

“Is she alive?” asked Kobra, his voice worried.

“She is,” reassured him Jet. “They have no reason to kill her while they think Red’s on us. But we don’t know for sure that they’ll keep it that way.”

“Do they know we’re all okay?” Asked Kobra.

“They have no way to check on a dead battery,” said Jet, “we might as well be dust for them. Technically. So we have to move quick.”

“Technically?” asked Frank. He didn’t like the tone of it.

“Yeah, only one way to find out” said Poison.

Frank’s head was spinning and he couldn’t hear whatever they were talking about right after. Words about a plan and storming and singing and nothing made sense, nothing even mattered because his peripheral vision went black with a weird, unpleasant feeling.

“Why?” He just murmured, after a while.

They went silent and looked at him.

“Why are they doing this to you?”

His gaze was low, his face terrified.

The feels-like-a-vacation phase was gone, just like that. The realisation of how definitive his decision was, that he would probably never see his mom and his family again, appeared all over his mind in flashes, of Red’s lifeless body on the floor, Poison’s shaking hand and his father. He could see him, his big smile surrounded by flames and his eyes unbothered. He could see it like a memory. His dad died. He was fucking dead.

Kobra put one hand on his shoulder. “Ghoul?” He asked, softly.

Frank raised his eyes and Kobra could see how scared he was, then. He sighed and started stroking on his shoulder.

“We’re criminals. We don’t belong here. Literally everyone wants us gone.”

“But ho-“

“We’re way past that bullshit, okay?” Interrupted Poison, sounding annoyed. “We don’t know how much Riot has left without a bullet in her head. You can stay here and bitch about it or you can get your shit together and help.”

He left, then, to gather some things from another room.

“He’s right”, whispered Kobra when he was gone. “He’s a bitch but he’s right. We don’t have much time and I know this shit is scary but,” he sighed, “it’s our life. If you don’t feel like coming-“

“No,” said Frank. His eyes betrayed how scared he still was, though. “I’ll come.”

Kobra nodded.

Meanwhile, Jet had disappeared completely in a trancelike state, staring at the map. He was holding a pen, but he never wrote anything down, not until one moment in which he seemed to suddenly know everything, and wrote down many notes at an incredible speed. When he was done, he looked up to them and said “I got it.”

“Perfect,” said Kobra, already moving towards the room Poison was in, tapping on his holster. “Bet we’re out of luck this time, huh?”

Jet followed him. “Be ready to sing.”

***

The plan was simple. It was more of a direction, actually, than a real thought out plan. Jet had figured where Riot was. Frank had no idea how that was possible, but he had learned in his days there that Jet was a genius. So he trusted him.

All they had to do, basically, was sneak through a back alley and get in the building, an old abandoned shopping mall. Then they’d have to find the dracs- so were called cops out there- and ghost them- so was called killing.

Frank was starting to regret his decision of following them, not just because he was terrified but also because he knew he would be completely useless and more of a weight for them. He had never even fought once in his life, he wasn’t able to shoot and he sure as hell had no talent in understanding things. He was clueless most of the time, out there.

But seeing his father so vividly in his mind made his hearth shrink in a painful way and that was the first time grief had started to creep through him and he would rather die trying to save Riot than be alone in that moment. So he found himself in a beaten up car, mask on and gun close, breathing deeply and mechanically in and out so as to not forget how to do that.

“Remember,” said Jet from the front passenger seat. Poison was by his side, driving super fucking fast. “It’s six dracs and three killjoys. Shoot anyone you don’t recognise and don’t shoot each other.”

“I’ll be so useless,” Frank realised he was thinking out loud too late. He was glad he had his mask on.

“You’ll have to watch our back,” explained Jet. “Stay behind and make sure no one sneaks on us. Oh, and don’t get ghosted.”

In and out. Again. Deeper. In and out. That last one was shakier.

Kobra wasn’t wearing his mask, still. He kept looking outside the window. His face was lost, contemplating the flowing road.

“If you die,” he said, all of a sudden. “If you feel like you’re dying, I mean. Leave immediately and join Cherri. He’ll be covering outside.”

Frank hadn’t thought of that. Of the possibility of feeling that way. Fuck.

“You won’t,” announced Poison confidently. His voice betrayed just a little excitement. “I’m feeling lucky. No bodybags today.”

They all went silent, then. Frank focused on inspecting the road ahead, going through everything Jet had explained over and over. His hands were shaky, they hadn’t really stopped since Red arrived at the shop, but his breath felt more controlled. He would be okay. Poison was feeling lucky. Maybe he shared his brother’s good instinct.

A big structure started to get close on their left, lonely and contrasting with the surrounding, white against orange and brown. They slowed down and got off the car. Sneaking in would be most draining mentally, Jet had explained, because they’d have to split in couples. Four people fronting one door at the same time would be too dangerous, they’d have to cover each other from the sides. So Poison and Jet would go in first, coming from the left, and once they made sure the backdoor Cherri had indicated was clear Kobra and Ghoul would join them from the right.

“Once we’re in, never split up,” said Jet, his eyes determined and the gun firm in his hands. “We’ll do the left wing first. Chances are they’re keeping them there.”

“Masks stay on at all times,” added Poison. Everyone nodded and before Frank knew, like a bandaid ripped too fast, Poison and Jet were gone and the operation had begun.

“Dude, stay behind me,” whispered Kobra behind his mask. “If something comes out, let me handle it. Only use the gun if you’re the last of us standing.”

Frank nodded and, after counting to thirty, they followed the others.

The whole situation felt surreal once again. Frank had thought he would be too terrified to even put one leg in front of the other, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t because most of the time he wasn’t aware of everything else. It was just him, his gun and Kobra’s back. As long as that was true, his mind didn’t need to let him know he could die anytime.

They walked ten minutes around the right perimeter of the mall, staying low and taking cover with some bushes. Every uncovered spot that let him see the building nearer was a leap in Frank’s chest, but the situation seemed to be completely under control. There was no one outside, the path was clear. All they had to do was wait for the signal.

But then a bang echoed through the void and reached their ears, loud and deadly, and Frank’s apparent peace of mind shattered completely. His hands resumed their heavy shaking and he felt his brain struggle to gather oxygen.

“Ko-Kobra?” He stuttered out. “What- what should we do now?”

Kobra didn’t turn around. He didn’t move at all.

“Should we…” Frank reached his side to try and get an answer.

Kobra was taking his mask off. When Frank could see his face, he looked terrified. More than Frank had ever seen from him.

He slowly turned his face to Frank, hopelessness in his eyes and in the arch of his eyebrows.

“First time,” he murmured, with a shaky voice. “Sorry.”

Frank should’ve been discouraged by that, but he wasn’t. It was weird, he thought, but he actually felt relief in not being the only one freaking out. They could build up some courage together, like regular people. They didn’t have to play pretend-heroes.

He reached one hand to stroke Kobra’s shoulders and said

“It’s okay. We’re doing this for Riot. She’d do the same.”

Kobra took a deep, shaky breath and nodded. His voice still sounded terrified when he said “I’ve never shot a person.”

“Let’s hope we can keep it that way,” said Frank. He raised his mask to show Kobra a reassuring smile, the best he could manage to pull off. Then he wore it back, and moved so that now it was him on the front.

“Since our drac count is even,” he said, giving his back to Kobra, “I can stay here for a while. Until we’re in. Let’s wait like Jet told us.”

Reassuring Kobra had a soothing effect on himself as well. But it didn’t last long, because the bang they had heard before kept ringing in his head and the fear it could’ve been shot from the other side creeped through every attempt of rationalising. It’s okay, he had to repeat to himself. It’s okay. It’s only been fifteen minutes. Jet and Poison are okay.

And they fucking were, finally, goddamn. The breath they both left out in seeing them walk towards the entrance in the distance was a relief so big Frank could actually feel his chest deflate like he had been underwater before.

Kobra’s radio device buzzed, and that meant it was time to move.

As Ghoul and Kobra reached the others by the door, Poison whispered “Five left”. He had a new, white gun in his holster.

They all nodded and moved, slowly, through the passage. It led to a small corridor and the corridor led to a small space that must’ve been a storage room.

It was okay. Back to just walking again. In and out. In and out.

Jet opened the door that would lead them inside. All clear, he signalled with his head.

They were in what looked like a Chinese restaurant.

In and out. In and out.

They proceeded unbothered through tables and flipped chairs. Jet stopped and everyone did behind him, but he signalled with his hand that there was no problem. He looked around and thought for a few moments. Then he proceeded to the left.

Poison was following Jet, then was Kobra and Frank was last. His guard had never been so high.

In and out. In and out.

Some of the shops in the mall had been turned into killjoy houses, others were too trashed to recognise a purpose for, and most had graffiti and debris all over. Some walls had been demolished to join rooms together.

Jet seemed to move with confidence, like he knew the place.

They must’ve gone in through one of the smaller side alleys, because Frank could see the end of it getting closer, in the form of an open space. He knew the mall had a radial shape, so it could only mean one thing. They were almost at the centre of it.

Great. Best fucking place in the world if you need your head taken care of from a sniper.

In and out. In and fucking out Frank, Jet can’t be that stupid. He’ll know what to do.

He did something, indeed. He turned to get in the last shop just before the path would open on a hall.

Frank breathed out in relief.

He turned around to look behind his back, because he thought he heard something. It was probably nothing, but he slowed down to check in all directions behind them before going in the shop. He was terrified, but that was the only thing he could do to help. When he was sure nobody was there, he joined the others in the shop.

When he turned to resume following the group, however, Kobra was no longer in front of him. He could see Poison’s back. He could see the void that Kobra's absence had left. But not Kobra. Nowhere fucking near.

"Kobra," he called aloud, before he was able to stop himself. Instinctively he blocked his mouth with his hand. Fuck in and out, the air had completely left his chest and a burning terror had taken its place.

Poison turned around and his gun was pointed so fast that Frank thought he must have received some kind of military training. But his eyes, a mixture of surprise and dismay, betrayed how scared he was as well, for the first time since the whole operation had begun.

He turned in every direction, gritting his teeth to stop himself from screaming as loudly as Frank had foolishly done instead.

Jet had immediately loaded his gun and started scanning the room as well, not an ounce of hesitation in the way he moved. Like a hunter, a very pissed off hunter.

There were noises coming from the left corner of the room, where one of the doors carved into the wall stood out. Both of them dashed in that direction, while Frank could only stand there, his limbs unable to respond to his demands. He didn't think it was a problem, in fact he was convinced that both Poison and Jet would not have preferred to have him next to them in that state. But he felt guilty all the same, damned guilty.

Frank heard the sound of a few shots and someone struggling, then. He heard Poison's angry voice yell "Where is he?!" before another gunshot. He heard the sounds of Jet struggling with someone and after what felt like ages but was really just a few minutes he heard footsteps, quick and determined, moving away.

It was only then that Frank found the courage to move again.

When he entered the room, there was only one body on the floor, and he was dressed completely in white. It was like breathing for the first time after an hour-long dive.

Jet and Poison had already run off, and Frank only managed to catch a glimpse of their boots before they turned a corner. He scrambled to follow them, his legs suddenly weighing three times as much as before.

Fuck, Frank, don’t die now. Keep your shit together.

"They’re not here to kill apparently. They must be taking him with the other hostages," Jet said, amidst the rush. "We need to get the other one before he gives the big news. The bastard got away."

“If they know two of them are dead…” said Frank. A horrible realisation came to him.

“Yeah. There’s four of them left and they’re about to get desperate. We need to follow him.” Poison sounded furious. They weren’t trying to hide their voices anymore.

They couldn’t really see the drac, nor hear Kobra yell for help, and that freaked Frank out. There had been no gunshots and there wasn’t blood around on the path, though, so he clung to that to find enough strength to move.

All they could follow was the echoing of heavy footsteps through halls and corridors, but that stopped as well as soon as they were up a staircase. That fucker must’ve hidden somewhere. They couldn’t have lost him with Kobra’s weight on.

“Fuck, fuck” spat out Poison, passing his hands through his hair in frustration. “Where is he?”

Jet entered in his figuring-things-out mode, but he was unusually restless and couldn’t stop walking in a circle as he reflected.

Frank felt useless once again, but the big, burning terror of losing Kobra, his only beacon of sanity in the whole mess of a situation he had put his life in, surpassed even the fear of a drac blowing up his brains. So he moved against himself, running to the nearest room on their right.

Hell to not splitting up. He needed to do something, or he would go crazy and die anyway.

“The fuck you think you’re doing?” He heard Poison call behind him. “You wanna play hero now?”

Frank quickly inspected the room, which was a small beaten down clothing shop turned house. It seemed to be empty.

“He’s not here,” he said. He didn’t even turn around to look at the others, he just moved to the next room.

“You wanna die a hero? Alright then,” angrily yelled Poison, as he ran to their left.

Jet looked at them leave and cursed under his breath. He didn’t blame them, but his face clearly expressed how that was a bad, bad idea. His brain had to rewire completely, and it took exactly five seconds for it to elaborate a new strategy. The building didn’t have any more floors, so the drac holding Kobra had to be somewhere over there. If Poison was searching the left wing and Ghoul the right, they would have to meet again in one point of the circumference. But that fucker couldn’t have gotten too far in the few seconds he had ahead of them. All Jet could do, then, was to search the upper floor hall, in the center, the only near place Ghoul and Poison would leave uncovered.

Meanwhile, Frank had searched the second room and that too appeared to be empty. The adrenaline that had driven him to move alone was giving way to the realization that if someone had attacked him there, while he was by himself, the chances of getting out alive were practically non-existent. Plus, with each sign of physical struggle came the fear that it might be a case of whatever it was that made him feel dead, because that could mean Kobra... he pushed the thought away with every ounce of strength he had left. He had to find Kobra. He was fine, he was alive, and he had to go help him.

The third room was just as empty. His heart leapt in his chest as a chair fell and rumbled behind him on its way out. But it's just a fucking chair, Frank. Just keep going.

Just keep going. That was the new mantra, because in and out wasn’t working anymore. Just keep going, even if you’re suffocating.

He had been alone for a while, now, and all the five rooms he had checked were clear. Until he reached a store whose shutter had been lowered, and that was the only clue he needed to know that the moment had arrived.

He clutched the gun to himself as if it had been a rosary, his only hope for salvation.

His hands weren't shaking. His breathing was so steady that he wondered if he was already dead without realizing it, but the force with which his heart leapt in his chest, enough to barely obscure his peripheral vision, left no doubt that he was still alive. For now.

He looked behind for a moment, hoping to be joined by Poison or Jet, but there was no one there.

Then he put his free hand on the handle of the shutter and took the deepest breath.

One.

Just keep going.

Two.

Three.

Someone in the room, in the end, was indeed there.

It was Poison, though, standing in the center, his legs barely parted and his arms motionless along his sides. His hair was sticking to his face from how much he was sweating, and a bit of red dye had stained his skin. Frank couldn't interpret his expression; it was something he had never seen on his face. There was not the determination in his eyes that he had left him with before, but a strange restlessness, as if he were trying to send a message through them. But he stood there, still, silent, and something was damned wrong but Frank didn't understand what.

Then, slowly, like a sick joke, a hand in a white glove began to crawl through the red hair, with movements that looked like those of hungry worms, white worms slithering through blood. The fingers tightened around the hair, but Poison didn’t wince, he seemed not to even breathe. His throat was there, exposed and pale, as the hand pulled his head back.

The sound of a gun being cocked rang in the room.

Frank saw black for an instant, as if it were all over, like one of those video game you lose screeners appeared over his eyes.

Then a shot rang out, but Frank's eyes closed and his head turned to the other side so fast that from the outside one might have thought it was him who had been shot.

Fuck. Fuck it, it was all over for real. Frank hadn't been able to do anything about it and he couldn't even open his eyes. If anything, he was squeezing them so tight it hurt. And he just stood there, while Poison had a bullet in his back, and he hadn't done a fucking thing.

As far as he was concerned, he might as well have stood there and waited for a bullet to explode his brain, his eyes tight and tears starting to burn inside them. He hadn't saved Kobra, hadn't done anything to save Poison. And he wouldn't do anything to save hims-

“I’m-“he heard. What kind of trick was that? Was his brain making up things?

“I’m alive”, he heard again. It was Poison’s voice. Incredulous, but Poison’s.

Frank opened his eyes and turned to look then, and Poison was there on all fours on the floor, alive, his eyes downcast and wide, sweat pouring off his forehead. He was still motionless, barely breathing.

“No bodybags, you said it yourself”, they heard Kobra’s voice say.

***

All the different channels Frank's mind traveled through to try to make sense of those events were interrupted by the arrival of Jet, who, reaching Kobra near the side door where he was standing, yelled "I found him."

He seemed surprised by the scene of Poison on the floor and the drac body behind him. He kept moving his eyes back and forth between everyone in the room frantically, but seemed to realise something soon after, as he sighed an "Oh," and rested a hand on Kobra's shoulder.

Frank still couldn't believe that it was all true, that the shot hadn't come from the wrong gun. But he forced himself to snap out of it and ran to check that Poison was really okay, because the impression suggested otherwise. He continued to remain still and silent, his blooshot eyes fixed low on the floor in front of him.

Frank hesitantly knelt down by his side, but when he was close he realised that he wasn't actually completely silent. He was whispering something, so softly that the movement of his lips was barely noticeable. Frank didn't feel like interrupting him, because it almost sounded like he was...praying. There was no other way to describe the steady, concentrated humming.

Poison finally looked up, though, and their gazes met for a second. The drac had removed his mask, so Frank could see how frightened and vulnerable his eyes were in that moment. But he could also see how quickly that changed, with his frown deepening as he stood up. He now had the look of a someone with a bloodlust.

He bent over the drac's body to take his yellow mask back and put it on again.

Frank was afraid of him when he looked like that. Understanding Poison wasn't easy. Everything about him seemed like it could change in a flick of a finger. One second he had the most vulnerable eyes in the room, the next you could have sworn he was capable of killing you if you said the wrong thing. So Frank just shut up, terrified of being insulted again for how chickenshit he'd been, or how useless he was, or who knows what else. He had plenty of reasons to be insulted.

He shifted his attention to Kobra, who looked visibly shaken. Seeing him alive and on his feet was an immense relief, once the adrenaline began to dissipate.

"You're here," he said, as he approached him. "You're alive."

Kobra attempted one of his half-smiles, but his eyes betrayed that he must have been going through something bad.

"They didn't try to kill me," he said, in a tone that made that information sound like the worst deal ever. "I'm not sure how they do it but..." He trailed off, distracted by his brother approaching.

Poison put one hand on Kobra’s other shoulder, and said nothing. He squeezed tight. After a beat he let go, and moved past him towards the door. “Now, let’s find Riot,” he said. “There’s three dracs still waiting to eat a bullet.”

“Two,” said Jet. Poison nodded.

They all moved, then, following Jet. He briefly illustrated his theory, and of course no one was willing to question it. They had to go back downstairs, in the opposite side from where they had entered the building.

Kobra seemed off, though, and that was never good. Frank waited until he had the chance to give him a questioning look, and he knew Kobra would understand. He did, and answered with a thankful expression at first, then with a worried one. There was a limit to how much Frank could understand from eye conversations, though, so he whispered “What’s wrong?”

Jet turned briefly to look at them, but he didn’t stop trooping through the hallway.

“I- I think they want us alive,” said Kobra. “I think this shit is more fucked up than we know.”

“Great,” said Poison, without turning to look. “They’ll have us very much alive.”

“You think it’s a setup?” Asked Frank, sounding confused. “I don’t know about you, man, but I’m not feeling like they were trying to spare us back there.”

“No,” said Kobra, “It’s not that. It’s just...” he looked up, trying to find the right way to verbalise his thoughts. “They almost…yeah.” He looked back by his side, at Frank. “They don’t feel human.”

“What?” said Jet from ahead of them, in a serious tone. “Fuck.This is new.”

“Are they droids?” asked Frank, his limbs already going colder from how uneasy he was.

Kobra seemed to think about it for a moment. But then he shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. They act too…irrational. I don’t know. It’s probably just bullshit.”

“Unluckily, it never is when you say that,” noted Jet. “Did you notice something? I mean, something concretely weird?”

"The guy," Kobra said, in the tone of someone who was trying to figure it out. "The one who was dragging me. He was super strong, but he didn't seem to really think about what he was doing. It was creepy. And he had a weird mask."

“Of course, no one who chooses to be a drac in life can really have a well functioning brain.” Poison was back to sounding like he was having fun. “One more reason to paint the walls with it.”

“No,” protested Kobra. “It’s not that he was dumb. Just, it seemed as if he was controlled by something. Like he was an object. I don't know.”

“You’re not making sense,” said Poison, “and I couldn’t care less. I just need to make her sing.” He patted on his holster.

“Yeah, I know,” sighed Kobra. But Jet didn’t seem to agree. He glared at Poison and stopped his walking, which made everyone else stop as well.

“The fuck is it now?!” spat out Poison, opening his arms in frustration.

Frank felt his heart race, as they were in the middle of a hall, standing. He looked in every direction around them.

“If Kobra says something’s wrong, I believe him.” Jet explained confidently.

Kobra seemed surprised by that. He widened his eyes in a flattered expression, but this immediately gave way to a guilty look. "You shouldn't take my shit so seriously," he murmured.

“What do you think we should do?” Jet asked him. “I mean, what do you really think.”

“For fuck’s sake,” snapped Poison. “We need to go. Babyface’s standing and not throwing up all over himself so Riot is still alive. That’s all I need to know.”

That nickname puzzled Frank for a moment. At any other time, he would have started to spiral about how much his face really did look like a baby's, but not at that moment. Not there. “I wouldn’t be so sure,” he said. “It was two times, could be a coincidence. It’s not a superpower or something.”

“That would be the shittiest power ever,” laughed Poison.

No one seemed to want to indulge his strangely lit humour.

“What I think,” Kobra broke the silence, “Is Poison’s right. I bet she’s taken a few out and is holding on with everything she's got. We need to find her.”

“Yeah, thank you,” said Poison, resuming his walk. “We’ll worry later.”

Jet frowned, like he was thinking about something, but he resumed moving as well.

Frank followed them, wondering how the fuck he was still alive.

It was a strange feeling, though, because it almost gave him courage. As if anything he did was but a plus. So he could do it without being so terrified all the time.

They were almost by the place they had agreed to stop to before starting to inspect the few rooms where Jet believed the hostages could be. There was an escalator, and some plants that had grown so much they made the place ridiculously look like a jungle, cuddled by the soft light coming in through the yellow glass on the ceiling. Frank thought that was a nice sight. Everything was dead and dry, outside.

“Wait,” he heard Poison say, and his head was torn away from that pretty bubble immediately. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Poison was walking in a Halloween shop. He was cautious, at first, but when he had made sure the room was clear he started rummaging around through the few scraps that had been left in the shop, a bit jumpy, like an excited little kid.

Frank smiled at that scene. Then he noticed he was smiling for the first time in who remembers how long, and sighed. He loved Halloween shops as a kid, they used to make him feel special. Like it was all for him.

“Can I have a look as well?” he asked Jet. “I’ll make it super quick.”

Jet nodded.

The aisles were almost completely empty, if not for some garbage, but some of the decorations of the shop were still there. Frank walked around to look and let the bittersweet feeling of nostalgia wash over him.

He noticed Poison climbing on a shelf, tinkering with some red and black decorations on the ceiling.

“What are you doing?” He whispered. He shot his eyes back and forth between him and the outside, where Kobra and Jet were giving them death stares with their arms crossed.

“Getting ready for the party,” Poison said, and climbed down with the decoration in his hands. He discarded the black and wore the red, feathery one like a scarf.

Frank couldn’t help but giggle.

"You're an idiot," Kobra called, pissed off, from outside the store. "So much for we can't waste time."

“I want them to think I’m the prettiest girl in the room while they choke on my hands and die,” Poison said, as he reached them back.

Jesus. The bleakest shit came out of him when he acted all cheery.

They resumed walking, and the air felt immediately heavier. The point was getting closer by the step.

Jet’s gun raised near his face, and his movements slowed down. His legs took long, smooth strides.

Frank’s heart resumed his frantic beating. All the newfound lightness disappeared in a flick.

He did his best not to let anxiety make him clumsy. He searched the idea of helping Riot for the courage he needed, as he had done before when he had to find Kobra.

Poison gestured for them to be silent, bringing a finger in front of his lips.

Kobra breathed heavily, leaning forward with his gun at ready.

They were at the spot. It was a pizza place.

There was no one in the main room, which meant that, if Jet had done the math right, the party would be behind one of the three doors that led to the storage room, the toilets and the kitchen.

Jet kicked open the toilet door, but it seemed that no one was there.

Then, he moved to the storage room. Empty as well.

Good things come in threes, bad things come in threes, Frank could almost hear in his mother’s voice.

Poison closed his eyes and articulated something with his mouth, without making a sound. She’s with us, Frank read.

Before he knew it the door to the kitchen was slammed open and he found himself following the others in the little maze of counters and racking. His body was moving on autopilot.

He couldn’t look up. He had to find a fucking way, though, so he followed red. Poison’s red trail of feathers on the floor, up his scarf and to his blood red hair.

Behind him, Riot was slumped in a corner, motionless. Alone.

***

“Where are you?!” Poison shrieked like a beast. He spun frantically in all directions with his gun drawn, eyes wide and teeth clenched.

Jet moved swiftly toward Riot, without saying a word. He made sure the area was safe before drawing a deep breath.

He checked her pulse.

"She's alive,” he breathed out in relief.

"Riot," he called, and gave her a small slap on the face. Then he turned to Kobra, who was catching up to him. "What the fuck happened?"

"There's no blood," Kobra noted as he knelt beside them. "She's on her own."

Kobra looked up, then, to meet Jet's gaze. They didn't have to say anything with words.

When they turned to check the room again, Poison had left.

Frank had instinctively followed him, because him being alone didn’t turn out to be ideal last time.

He struggled to keep his pace, though, because he was storming through the kitchen and back in the other rooms like a mad animal.

“Poison,” he tried to call behind him, weakly. “She’s not dead.”

Poison ignored him. “Come and play with me, motherfuckers” he yelled, as he kicked a chair, before leaving the shop.

He angrily tore the decoration he was wearing and threw it away, then turned to the left, towards another shop.

Frank didn’t even know why the fuck he was doing that, but he picked up that red thing and stuffed it in his pocket. Like that fucking mattered.

“I’m right here,” Poison chanted, “I know you want my blood.”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Murmured Frank, from a few steps behind him, where he had stopped in a covered spot. His hands were shaking like crazy. “What good is being a target? Come back.”

"Screw you," Poison spat at him. "Go shit your pants somewhere else. Why are you even following me?" He turned back towards the shop again.

Frank looked around before leaping towards him, his heart about to smash his chest and just take off.

“Because you’re acting crazy, goddamnit,” he whispered, desperately. “At least someone’s watching your back.”

Poison ignored him and kept storming through the empty rooms of what looked like a cosmetics store, and Frank was behind him, walking backwards to make sure no one would sneak up on them from behind.

“I know you want it,” Poison resumed his yelling again, moving towards the next place to check. “Come take it.”

They were in a jewelry now, only one door behind the counter that extended from one wall to the other.

“Motherfuckers”, growled Poison, in a low, dangerous voice this time. He jumped over the counter before kicking down the door.

Frank didn’t cross over. He stopped by the counter, in the middle, not even breathing. He instinctively looked away when the noise of the door being smashed open rang in the room. He couldn’t keep his eyes open, again. Fuck.

He heard five or six shots in the back room, then silence for a few seconds.

“See? It worked. We’re all clear”, Frank heard Poison announce triumphantly.

He opened his eyes and turned his head to look. Poison had the brightest smile on.

“Last two, stone dead.” He jumped on the counter. “Easier than it seems.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck-

***

Two shots rang in the room.

A screeching noise, someone had been hit.

Then a third one.

When he opened his eyes, Poison was all intact. Startled and silent, at last. But he was on the floor, on the other side of the counter. Frank had pulled him all of a sudden, and he fell on the ground.

It took him a few seconds to shake off his surprise. When he managed to, though, his face changed back to the raging expression he had when he was hunting for dracs, like he had a realization, and he turned around to point his gun in one swift movement.

He shot, steady and perfect as always. The person in a white mask who was attacking Frank, separating his arms so he couldn't shoot and making him scream at the top of his lungs, let go of his grip and fell to his side.

"Fuck," Frank shrieked, immediately leaning forward and holding up his right arm. He dropped his gun.

Poison was still caught up in the threat, so he ignored it completely and jumped behind the counter, looking for more enemies. But there was only one other body, and it was already in a pool of blood. That one was also wearing a white mask.

He quickly headed into the back room to check that it was really over, and when he saw that it was, he turned back to Frank.

Frank looked at his right hand, at the steadiness with which he had shot giving way to a weird trembling. It wasn’t panic, this time. It was unnatural. He didn’t feel as much pain as he thought he would from a gunshot, but he knew the adrenaline’s numbing effect couldn’t last long. He needed to do something; he knew that. Instead, he just stood still, holding his arm, the nausea almost suffocating him.

Poison turned to look at his left, then at his right. The bodies there weren’t dracs, judging by their clothes. And the other hostages were still missing. And fuck, he even recognized the tattoos on one of them.

“They were-“Frank murmured, noticing how Poison was contemplating the bodies. He didn’t cross his eyes. “They had guns pointed at you. They tried to…”

Poison got closer to the bodies, and turned one over by his shoulder, hesitantly.

“Fuck,” he whispered. “He’s-“he turned back around, dropping the body.

“Is he-“Frank started, but he could feel acid from his stomach burning in his throat.

“He’s wearing a mask. But he’s Dust.” Poison frowned and immediately looked away, like he needed to hide his eyes from Frank. “He was a good kisser.”

“Everything good?” Jet came rushing in the room, followed by Kobra. “We heard shots and then your voices so- “

“What’s going on?” Interrupted Kobra.

Poison ran a hand through his hair and scrunched his nose as to shake off something from his face.

“Dust is dead”, he said, heavily. He shot a brief gaze at Frank, who felt his heart skip when their eyes crossed. “He was attacking me.”

“What?!” Said Jet, rushing over.

He inspected the body, and immediately recognized Dust as well, by the many tattoos all over his body. “Fuck me,” breathed out Jet. He passed a hand through his hair as well. When he tried to take off his weird, vampire Halloween mask, though, it wouldn’t come off. “Kobra was right,” he said. “This is way more fucked up than it usually is.”

Poison moved to do the same to the other body. “She must be the other missing Killjoy”, he said. “Ghoul got her.” Her mask wouldn’t come off, just like Dust’s.

Meanwhile, Kobra reached Frank. “You did the right thing,” he murmured, giving him a reassuring look. Then his eyes met Frank’s right hand, holding a spot under his left shoulder, and growingly covered in blood, and he frowned, scooting away so he could look better.

“Did they get you?” He asked, already taking his jacket and t-shirt off to rip a piece of fabric out of each sleeve of the latter.

Frank nodded and gestured towards the point where the bullet had grazed him with his head. He was pouring in sweat, and the adrenaline was giving way to the pain, too fucking early.

“I knew something was wrong since I saw one close.” Kobra took his wounded arm and Frank let out a screeching yell. He ignored him and tightened one sleeve just above his wound. “They’re not Killjoys anymore. They’re not…I don’t know what they are.” Kobra used the other piece of fabric to make the injured arm hang from Frank's neck. “Here, hold it.”

That phrase made Frank think back at Kobra, at how they had pulled him away earlier, swiftly, silently, just before his eyes. He thought about what the fuck was going on with the people he had shot, how they were attacking Poison at his back. He thought about the possibility of Kobra going through that as well, about how close it had come. He thought about Poison with a gun in his back and then Jet, all alone in a hall, and he thought about himself, helpless and paralyzed by his own fear, and before he knew it he was hugging Kobra like a fucking lifeline.

Kobra hugged back tight. “It’s over now,” he whispered. “We’re going home.”

Suddenly, the awareness that Riot wasn’t in the room with them hit Frank. He broke the hug and stepped back, shooting a look towards the hall. “Is she- “

“She is,” said Kobra. “Alive. She had one of those fucking masks by her side, and a bad bruise on her neck, but she must’ve managed to fight it. She always does.” Kobra made a half-smile.

Frank breathed out in relief, and exhaustion. He helped save her life, and that made him feel something he had never felt before, a mixture of being proud and incredulous. It wasn’t all for nothing, after all.

Poison collected something from the bodies, two small objects.

Then, after sharing a look, him and Jet walked back to the others.

“Cherri is taking care of Riot,” said Jet. “We’ll meet up at his place so Ghoul can receive medication.”

Poison didn’t say a word for the whole walk back. Now that they had taken their masks off, his expression was more visible, but no less indecipherable. All Frank managed to get from it, is he wasn’t content.

Actually, they were all silent pretty much the whole time.

There was an awareness in the air, tangible and heavy. They had gotten out of there unscathed and managed to save one person's life, but it wasn't over.

Everyone knew they got to live another day, but it was only the beginning.

***

Frank was resting on a mattress on the floor. Or he was trying, at least. It was fucking uncomfortable, trying to sleep with his left arm all bended on his chest and a piercing pain that manifested itself as soon as he made the wrong movement.

He hadn’t slept in three days, to tell the truth.

Kobra warned him that it would happen, that the first time you get out of a crossfire, the after is what you hate most, and what you won’t be looking for next time.

Anytime he let himself begin to slip into unconsciousness, he woke up with a jolt, like he had to watch his back, or he would die. Like he was still in that mall.

But when he turned around, nobody would be there. He would be in the back of a gas station. There would be people talking in the next room.

There were steps getting closer, then, and he knew it would probably be Cherri or Kobra checking on his arm before going to sleep, but his heart raced nonetheless. He scooted up to lay his back on the wall and waited for the door to open.

It was Poison. He stood by the door.

They hadn’t talked at all since they got back, so that was a surprise.

“You’re up,” he said. “I figured you would be. Take a walk?”

Frank nodded. He couldn’t sleep anyway and chatting with someone made his anxiety tune down for a while. Even with Poison, the hardest to interact with person he had ever met.

They left the shop; everyone was already sleeping. Poison was wearing a black t-shirt with both sleeves ripped off. It was the one Kobra had used to mend Frank’s arm.

“It looks better this way,” joked Frank. His head spun a little from sleep deprivation, but the fresh air of the desert night awakened him in a pleasant way.

“Yeah, right? It’s sexier,” said Poison, that must’ve taken that like a serious compliment. He stopped by the wooden steps of the entrance and sat there. Frank sat by his side, struggling a little to find balance with just one arm but eventually making it.

They were silent for a moment.

“Thank you,” abruptly said Poison, then, looking at the sky.

Frank nodded.

Poison didn’t see that, because he kept staring at the sky, intensely. “She’s taken good care of me lately, even though I make her job difficult.”

Frank took that as an opportunity to ask something he had meant to ask since he was in the mall, struggling to find any motivation to keep moving. Something he had wanted to ask all the times he found himself crying at night, because he missed his mom and his dog and even the mundane things, like doing groceries. Something he wondered when he thought of his dad, of where he could be. Something he needed to know because he wasn’t sure how much longer he could bear the weight of his decision.

“Is she someone that could care for me as well?”

Poison looked at him, now, smiling a little. Frank noted it was the first time he saw a genuine smile from him. “Of course,” he said. “She always does.”

“But I- “Frank looked down. He couldn’t find the right words. He didn’t ever even think he would need to believe in something. “I don’t know who she is.”

“She’s the mother of every lost soul.”

“Well, I’m definitely on her good list, then” Frank laughed.

Poison smiled. “All the Killjoys are.”

They were silent, then, while Poison chainsmoked and Frank laid down on the wooden floor, cuddled by Jet’s jacket. He was getting more rest from being there than he did any of the nights before. Before he knew, he was asleep.

“Ghoul?” He heard Poison call, after who knows how long.

When he opened his eyes, the sun was beginning to rise.

“Fuck,” he growled, as he moved to get up and his back and neck ached like crazy. But he felt amazing. He had managed to sleep.

“Sorry I woke you up,” said Poison, who was walking towards his car. “But I have to go, and I didn’t want to leave you out here alone.”

“It’s okay,” said Frank, stretching as much as he could without hurting. Then he suddenly remembered something. “Oh, wait a minute” he said, as he rushed back in the shop.

Poison frowned, confused.

Frank reappeared after a while with something in his hand, red and feathery.

“Is that…?” frowned Poison, walking towards him.

“You took the time to collect it during that mess and then you threw it away,” explained Frank, looking away at his side, like he was justifying a crime or something. Well, he did feel fucking weird, but he figured the worst that could happen was Poison laughing at him, and he was pretty used to that. “I thought you’d regret that later.”

Poison took the decoration from his hands, staring at it.

Then he looked up.

He was beaming.

“I’m gonna be so fabulous,” he said, smiling. His smile reminded Frank of Kobra’s; it was bigger, but it curled up on just one side, like his.

Poison wore the decoration like a scarf, then he left and got in the car, without saying anything else.

Frank sighed.

He tried to suppress the lame content expression that was growing on his face, but failed.