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Gerard stared up at his two visitors, blinking slowly twice, he succumbed further to the drug coursing through his veins.

“Okay, you got your revenge,” he slurred, “why are you still here?”
“No, no, no,” Ray laughed as he shook his head. “You mean your arm? That was for Frank. Just Frank.”
“Yeah,” Frank added, perching on the edge of the bed, jarring Gerard’s shoulder as he sat down. “And I’m going to return the favour and get revenge for Ray.”
“This isn’t enough?” Gerard uttered miserably. “I’m in a psychiatric hospital. They think I’m crazy.”
“You are crazy,” Ray replied with a look of puzzlement on his face. “Haven’t we been through this already?”
“I was pretending,” Gerard insisted. “To get off Death Row. I thought…”
“Let me guess,” Frank interrupted. “You thought that if they believed you were crazy, they’d take you to a hospital. Thinking there would be less security you’d miraculously escape, go after Bob and then maybe finish the job?”

Gerard tried to shrug but regretted it instantly as a dull but debilitating pain almost took his breath away.

“Can you blame me?” he replied dismissively.

Frank and Ray glanced briefly at each other in disbelief before turning back and replying in unison.

“Yes!”

Gerard frowned with what would have been anger if the Thorazine hadn’t been dulling his reactions.

“I see,” he replied with a low bitter growl to his voice. “You can blackmail me, hold me prisoner, beat me and basically treat me like dirt, but if I fight back, I deserve to suffer for the rest of my life?”

Frank narrowed his eyes as he listened to what he knew was a pack of lies. To his mind, it was bad enough that Gerard had tried to convince the jury that they had mentally and physically abused him, but to try to continue the lie with the people who knew better than anyone how he had mercilessly planned to torture and murder them all for no reason was quite simply an atrocity.

“You’re forgetting where you are, Gerard. You’re not on trial now, your lies won’t work with us,” Frank replied evenly, but with a bitter and angry undertone.
“Well,” Gerard gave a lazy laugh. “They didn’t exactly work at the trial.”
“You may be whacked up with Thorazine, but you’re still being careful with your words, aren’t you?” Ray commented.
“Sticking with your story in case there’s an appeal?” Frank asked. “You think they’re listening?”
“I know they are,” Gerard curled his lips into a crooked smirk. “And there will be an appeal, and when I’m found innocent…”
“You’ll be right back here.”
“No,” Gerard shook his head and offered an arrogant smile. “I won’t, not here.”
“You devious bastard!” Ray cried as Gerard’s plan began to make sense. “You think you can convince them you’re innocent, but crazy and they’ll send you to a regular psychiatric hospital?”
“This hospital’s for the criminally insane, I don’t belong here,” Gerard replied for the sake of the hidden microphones.
“Yes you fucking do!” Frank snapped, suddenly furious at the thought that Gerard may actually escape justice.
“I admit that I have a problem… and I need help, I know. And I admitted being guilty just to get out of that hellish prison and get the treatment I needed. I thought they’d think I was faking if I claimed innocence too. But I am innocent! Just because they never found those blackmail tapes, it doesn’t mean they don’t exist!” Gerard continued acting the part of innocent man, wrongly accused.
“They never did, you bastard! We never did anything like what you said at the trial!” Frank yelled.
“You’re acting! Just like you did at the trial!” Ray added.

Gerard cocked his head to one side and stared at them, puzzled by Frank’s last statement.

“How do you know what went on at the trial?”
“We were there,” Frank replied quietly.
“I didn’t see you,” Gerard replied dismissively.
“We weren’t there for you, we were there for Bob.”
“Oh, how sweet, the thought of you holding hands and looking after your little friend. All against me in life and in death!”
“Drop the act, Gerard! I’m sick of it!”
“You’re not as good at this revenge thing as you think you are,” Gerard laughed sleepily, “I’m upsetting you more than you are me. And you weren’t very good at looking after Bryar either, judging by the state of him during the trial!”

“Your Honour, I’d like to call the defendant, Gerard Arthur Way to the stand.”

No one could see them, not even Gerard, but they were there. Frank and Ray sat near Bob, willing him their support and strength to get through the nightmarish ordeal that lay ahead of him.

Gerard’s defence was strange to say the least. He had been certified as sane by two independent psychiatrists, leaving his last and only resort as a plea of diminished responsibility due to temporary insanity. He knew it would be a difficult case to prove. They were famous, loved by millions and he had killed them; desperation borne of years of blackmail and mistreatment would be difficult to prove, especially without the evidence of the tapes they were supposedly using against him.

Years of being on stage, projecting a different persona to the world gave Gerard the ability he needed to do something similar now. He would play the innocent, distraught party; forced into an act of desperation by constant blackmail, threats and mistreatment by his fellow band members. Sworn in, Gerard adopted a nervous and deeply unhappy expression and manner and waited patiently as the defence attorney approached the stand.

“Gerard, do you understand why you’re here?”
“Yes,” he replied shakily. “I… I do, but it’s not that straightforward. I…”
“We’re here to prove your innocence, Gerard. Just take a couple of deep breaths.”

Bob leaned across to the prosecution attorney, Stephanie Williams.

“He’s lying! And acting! What if they go for this?”
“Don’t worry, Bob. This case is cut and dried, a formality. The only real question is will he get life or death.”

Bob slumped back in his seat. As much as he wanted to glare angrily and proclaim Gerard’s lies to the court, he found himself unable even to raise his eyes from his hands. To his mind, the jury would perceive his inability to even look Gerard in the face as a sign of guilt. But as much as he wanted to prove otherwise, he couldn’t look up, he just couldn’t.

“Gerard, tell me about your life with the band.”
“What do you want to know?” Gerard asked quietly.
“Tell me about the time when you stopped drinking.”

Gerard nodded before taking a deep breath.

“The constant pressure of touring was taking its toll on me and I started drinking, but I didn’t stop. Every day to me was a drunken haze. Things were going well for the band, we were more popular than ever, so we toured more and I drank more. I had to be flamboyant on stage. I’m actually quite shy and the drinking helped.”
“But you stopped?”
“Yeah, they didn’t like me drinking.”
“They?”
“The rest of the band, they wanted me to stop. They said it would destroy the band if I continued. And I accept that they were probably right, but I was drunk then and I couldn’t see it.”
“So they took a different approach?”
“Objection! Counsel is leading the witness,” Williams interrupted.
“Sustained,” Judge Peterson replied. Mister Davies, you will rephrase your question.”
“Yes, Your Honour. Gerard, what convinced you to stop you drinking?”

Gerard looked down, as though unwilling to speak. Nodding slightly he looked up once more.

“One day after performance, I woke up in my bunk on the tour bus and I was tied up.”
“Tied up? Were you scared?”

Gerard nodded enthusiastically.

“I thought we’d been kidnapped or something. At first, I was too scared to say anything, but then I heard voices. I heard Frank…”
“That’s Frank Iero? One of your guitarists?”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “I heard him talking and laughing with Mikey, my brother. I knew from the way they talked that they weren’t in the same situation as me, so I called out. I thought it was a joke at first, I asked them to untie me, but they wouldn’t. They said they wanted me sober to see the recordings they’d made.”
“Did you see the recordings?”

Gerard nodded. “They showed someone attacking a guy and another of… attacking a woman.”
“You say ‘someone’.”
“They said it was me, I didn’t remember…”
“Did it look like you?”
Gerard shrugged and shook his head. “It was fuzzy, and in the distance, I couldn’t be sure. The video was time dated and they said they’d all swear that I wasn’t with them at the time of the attacks.”
“Who took the video?”
“I don’t know, they said, if asked, they’d say someone sent it to them so they weren’t involved. They said I’d have to sober up or they were going to the police.”
“So you sobered up?”

Gerard nodded silently.

“Did things improve?”
“No. I said I wanted to leave the band, but they wouldn’t let me. They kept me locked up in the tour bus, threatened me with the videos. They would get drunk and the four of them would beat me when they got back to the bus.”
“That’s a lie!” Bob yelled, slamming his hand down on the table as he stood. “It’s all a pack of lies! We …”
“Mister Bryar, you will sit down and remain silent.”
“But he’s lying!”
“Sit down, Mister Bryar!”
“Bob!” Stephanie Williams, his attorney gripped his arms and gently shook them to get his attention. “Bob, it’ll be over soon. Just stay calm and sit down.”
“Over? You think this’ll ever be over for me?”

Williams closed her eyes and nodded sympathetically.

“Please, Bob, just sit down. Please?”
“If you can’t control your client, he’ll be removed from the court.”
“I’m sorry, Your Honour, it won’t happen again.”

Bob flopped back into his seat allowing tears to roll unashamedly down his cheeks. Lost in a world of his own grief, it was unlikely that Bob heard the rest of Gerard’s testimony. Behind him, Frank and Ray vowed revenge.