FicWad

“How’s your head?” Mikey asked, aware that Ray was angry; he tried to appease him.
“It’s fine,” he snapped, “Don’t worry, I’m thinking well enough to know what you’re up to.”
“What do you mean?”
Ray leaned forward and pulled Mikey’s left shoulder back against the seat.
“Don’t play games with me, Way, your pretty little face doesn’t hold any sway with me.”
“It’s not what you think,” Mikey replied but stopped short of actually explaining; Ray seemed too angry to even consider listening to him.
“Back off, Ray!” Frank snapped, frowning briefly into the rear view mirror hoping to catch Ray’s eye.
“See!” Ray scowled. “It’s exactly what I thought!”

Slumping back into his seat, Ray seethed with anger. As far as he could see Mikey was playing Frank for a fool, and Frank was falling for it.

Without another word, Frank turned the key in the ignition and pulled out of the parking space. It was already starting to go dark and there was very little chance of anyone noticing that Mikey was handcuffed, nevertheless, Frank deliberately kept to quieter roads even though the journey would be longer. In complete silence, the journey seemed twice as long. For the main part, Mikey looked down or out of the window, anywhere but at Frank. The one occasion he had briefly glanced in his direction, Ray had thumped the back of his seat as a warning.

Driving into the garage at his house, Frank sighed heavily as he switched off the engine and lights. By the time he had unbuckled his seatbelt, Ray was already dragging Mikey from the car.

“Ray,” Frank pleaded, “you’ve got it wrong, listen to me.”
“We’ll discuss this inside, first I’ll deal with pretty boy, here.”

Mikey pulled out of Ray’s grip and spun on his heels only to pull up sharp as he realised the garage door was already closed and he had nowhere to run.

“Mikey, please…” Frank called, willing him to be still. Ray was furious and likely to hurt him, if only to get revenge for Gerard biting his fingers.

Now with his back to the garage door, Mikey turned his head to look at Frank, realising too late that he was trying to help him. The first blow sunk deep into his abdomen, winding him, he sank to his knees and doubled over in agony. The second came like a hammer between his shoulder blades. Mikey hit the floor slumping onto his side with his legs curled up, gasping for breath.

“I know what you’re trying to do, Way! You may have Frank fooled but not me!”
“Ray, you’ve got it all wrong,” Frank pulled at his arm.
“Have I? Ray turned to ask. “Or was he coming on to you?”
“No,” Frank shook his head. “We were just talking.”
“So how come when I got in the car, you were offering him the trigger device?”
“I told him it didn’t do anything,” Frank replied with a sigh. “But he…”
“He didn’t get chance to run, because I turned up.” Ray threw his hands in the air in frustration. “We’re not going to discuss this here.”

Reaching down, Ray pulled Mikey to his feet and dragged him through the door into the house with Frank following behind. Hearing them return, Bob was in the hallway and watched with silent curiosity as Ray stormed past him, dragging Mikey with him and headed for the cellar door.

“You can walk down or I can push you down, it’s up to you,” Ray said gruffly.

Without a word, Mikey stepped ahead of him and walked downstairs into the room that had become his prison. At the bottom of the stairs he turned to face Ray.

“Look, it’s not what you think, we were just talking.”
“You were trying to get him to let you go.”
Mikey took a deep breath. “Do I want to get out of here? Of course I fucking do! And if he’d let me go, yeah, I would have gone, but I’m not doing whatever it is you think I’m doing.”

Ray emitted a short laugh, unimpressed by Mikey’s response. “Do you really think I’m going to believe you? You just said it yourself, you want to get out and you know what? I don’t blame you. But here’s the deal, you’re not going anywhere, not now, not ever. Understand? You think you’re just gonna walk out of here? A lawyer? Knowing where Frank lives? Knowing who we are?”
“Frank said he’d never killed anyone before.”
“What the fuck!” Ray spluttered finding it hard to believe that Frank had been so honest with him. “Lie down!”

Mikey lowered himself onto the mattress as Ray reached for the handcuffs on the nearby table. Securing Mikey’s ankles, Ray stood up.
“You don’t know how lucky you are that you’re not already dead!” Ray announced with venom in his voice before turning and heading quickly back upstairs.

Frank was sitting at the table with his chin resting in his hand as Ray entered the room, not even bothering to look up, he sighed as he heard the door slam.

“So, what’s going on, Frank?”
“Ease up, Ray,” Bob cut in, “Frank’s just been telling me what’s been going on. You’re overreacting.”
“Am I? Really?” Ray frowned. “So what did he tell you? Did he say he was on the verge of letting him go? Did he say that he told him that we’ve never killed anyone before?”
Bob’s eyes widened at Ray’s response. “Er… Frank? Did you leave anything else out?”
“No,” Frank finally looked up. “But there are things you don’t know too…”
“Look, Frank,” Ray interrupted. “I noticed yesterday, but I said nothing, but you’ve gone too far. I know you find him attractive and I’m sure he’s adorable, but don’t put our lives at risk just because you want to get into his pants!”

Frank rose slowly from the table and turned to face Ray, his fists clenched as he tried, unsuccessfully, to hold in his anger.
“Fuck you, Ray! You’ve made up your mind and you won’t even listen to what I have to say.”
“I can’t think of one single thing that would make me see this any differently,” Ray snapped as he glared back at Frank’s outburst.
“Well, for one thing, that whole rescue of Bob’s smart mouthed associate would never have worked without him!”
“We forced him to do that!” Ray yelled, still unimpressed by what he heard.
“Nobody forced him to do what he did in the car after we left,” Frank replied secure in the knowledge that it may well shut Ray up.

Ray paused and stared thoughtfully at Frank. This was something Frank had kept to himself until now. Was it really because he hadn’t given him chance to speak? Ray thought back over his handling of the situation; certainly he thought he knew everything he needed to know and whilst Frank had said nothing to the contrary, he hadn’t, if he were entirely honest, given him the chance to say anything.

“What happened in the car?” he asked quietly.

Frank felt some of the tension slip away from him as he was finally getting the chance to explain, but even he knew that it could plausibly turn out to be a ‘you-had-to-be-there’ moment. It was up to him to explain it well.

“When we got to the gatehouse, there was a hold up, it turned out to be a mix up over the names in the day’s visitor book, but we didn’t know. Clarke was about to make a run for it and Mikey stopped him. I’d said we wouldn’t leave you if it had gone wrong and Clarke was only interested in himself. Mikey threatened him, he forced him to stay put and shut up. You should have seen him; he was really impressive. After we ditched Clarke, he helped remove the plates and when we got to the rendezvous point, we started talking. He said he thought Clarke was a low-life, but not us. What we’re doing might be wrong, but we have a lot of qualities that he admired in us. Ray, he saved our necks. He didn’t have to. In fact, it would have been better for him if he hadn’t. I don’t know why he did it, but he did. He wasn’t trying to escape, even when I gave him the perfect opportunity he didn’t go.”

Ray looked down as he took in Frank’s final words. Mikey had saved his life, all of their lives and had been yelled at and beaten up for his trouble. Looking up once more, Ray tried to get to grips with what Frank had just told them.

“So, what are you saying?” he asked, even more confused. “He likes you?”
“I don’t think so, he’s pretty certain about that.” Frank shrugged. “I think it’s something else.”
“What?” Ray asked stunned at the reply.
“I honestly don’t know. He helped us, Ray, that’s all I know.”
“I should go back and apologise?” Ray asked, uncertain over how they should now treat their hostage.

Frank glanced between Ray and Bob looking for guidance. He was confused and uncertain over what to do. He knew he could plan all he liked, but they had introduced two new and unknown people into the mix and it was throwing them all severely off balance.

“Ray, I’ve never done this before, none of us have. I said yesterday that I was just playing it by ear but despite my complete inexperience in this, I’m pretty sure this isn’t supposed to happen!”

The trio stared at each other, baffled by the situation. Mikey had crossed a line with them and they were ill-prepared to know how to deal with it. It was almost as if he had enjoyed the thrill of breaking the law. Was it possible?

“Look,” Frank nodded to himself. “Let’s just carry on as if everything is normal and get ready for tonight. We have enough to think about without this.”

Ray and Bob took Frank’s lead and gave slight nod’s.

“Okay,” Frank sighed with a little relief. Even though nothing was resolved, they had at least agreed their next steps. “We’ll meet back here at seven-thirty.”