FicWad

I lifted my head drowsily but my eyes wouldn’t open. I was confused and tired and confused… I think I mentioned that already.
Eventually I realised that I had been blindfolded with a long strip of cloth tied tight across my eyes. I was sitting in what felt like a straight-backed heavy wooden chair. My hands bound securely behind me and my ankles tied together and fastened to one of the chair’s horizontal supports. A further rope lashed me to the chair back. I was, as they say, pretty much helpless. Nevertheless, I still tried desperately to get loose. Pulling at the ropes, twisting and contorting my body, trying to free myself, all to no avail. He had been nothing if not thorough.

“Fuck! This can’t be good,” I finally admitted.
“No, it’s not, but you’ll live, for now.”

Despite the blindfold, I actually looked up at the words and frowned unhappily; I hadn’t realised that I wasn’t alone. I felt tired and dizzy, I actually felt drunk. Worse still, I felt the sting of another injection.
I couldn’t be one hundred percent certain, but I had a pretty shrewd idea who had attacked me. How he knew I was there was another matter entirely. I had never met Doctor Brandt, Mikey’s physician, so I had no clue what he looked or sounded like, but I would have bet good money on this being him. That said, for all our sakes, it was important that he didn’t realise that I knew about him; that any of us knew.

“Who are you? What do you want?” I asked angrily.
“I’ll ask the questions,” he replied. “And to make it all run smoothly, I’ve just dosed you with Sodium Pentothal. You may know it simply as a truth drug.”

He laughed at me as lowered my head, but it felt to me as if the laugh was on him. The corners of my mouth turned upward slightly as, once again, I spiralled into unconsciousness. Unfortunately, I hadn’t realised the nature of the drug and a mere five minutes later he was slapping my face to wake me. I felt so strange. Light, sleepy, disorientated, confused.

“I’m going to start asking you questions and you’re going to answer them. Understand?” he asked coldly.
“Yeah.”

The word was out before I even realised and he laughed again at the surprise in my expression. I screwed up my eyes as I began to feel unnaturally relaxed and dreamy. I had to resist, I had to, I fought wave after wave of nausea and the terrible feeling of complicity. My chin dropped to my chest and I knew I could fight it no longer.

“Okay, from the beginning. Name?”
I swear, I could have cried. The words were coming to my lips, giving him everything he wanted. I had no control.
“Gerard Arthur Way,” I mumbled.

You see this sort of thing in Bond movies and I sometimes wondered how true to life those scenes were. Now, here I was, bound, blindfolded and being interrogated. I would find out for myself exactly how realistic they were. I was scared, really scared of what I might tell him. Equally I was nervous of what he would do to me, or to Mikey or the others, if he discovered that we knew what he had done.

“Who knows you’re here?”
“No,” I whispered trying to withstand the effects of the drug.
“Who, Gerard? You might as well tell me now, you can’t fight it much longer!”
I replied with an incoherent jumble of sounds and half formed words.
“Who!” He screamed as he landed a punch to my abdomen.
Doubled over as far as the ropes would allow, I gasped for air and coughed out my reply.
“Fr… Frank.”
“What’s my name?” He challenged me.
I bit my lip. Was this the break I needed? I knew who I thought he was, but couldn’t hand-on-heart be certain.
“I… I don’t know,” I replied honestly
“My name!” he insisted. “Who do you think I am?”
The word was on my lips and I tensed as I tried desperately to hold it back.
“Who am I?”
It was as if there were two of me. One trying to be brave and resist the drug and the other me; the one that knew it wasn’t possible to resist. The one that signed my own death warrant.
“Brandt,” I almost spat the word as it forced it’s way through my lips; frustrated at what I saw as my weakness. Though, in truth, even I had to accept that as they say in all the best sci-fi movies - resistance is futile.
He laughed as he pulled the blindfold from my eyes.
“Well, you won’t be needing that any more.”
I stared up at him, now noticing the beads of sweat clinging to my brow and a trickle edging its way down my cheek. As the drug raced around my body, I began to feel worse and worse. I was trembling, nauseous and my breathing was clipped and erratic.

“You’ll pass out in few minutes,” he told me as my head swam, “but first, why are you here?”
I screwed up my eyes, trying hard to resist the confusion that made me want to reply.
“Why are you here, Gerard!” he shouted pulling my head back.
“The diary,” I blurted.
“Why did you come for it?”
He let go and my head lolled forward; I was slipping into unconsciousness again and I received slaps across my cheeks to bring me back to wakefulness.
“Why did you want it?” he demanded.
“I needed it.”
“Why?”
“I… I…”
Please don’t say it! I begged of myself. Don’t tell him!
“Why!” he yelled again.
“Mikey’s innocent.” The words stumbled out against my wishes.
“And who is the killer if not Mikey?” he asked with a chuckle in his voice.
“You are,” I whispered unhappily. “The diary… it proves it.”
He laughed. “It did, but now it’s mine… and so are you.”

My expression must have said it all. His laughter echoed and rang in my ears as I slumped in the chair and my mind spun away into oblivion.