The only Hope

Gerard’s pov:

“She should know.” Frank walked into my room. I was sitting on the edge of my bed, my hands folded around my face.

“About what?” I sighed.

“That someone went before her.” Frank sat down next to me.

“No, I don’t wanna talk about that. Especially not with her.”

I heard Frank’s impatience in his voice. “Gerard, what’s going on with you?”

“Nothing, I didn’t get much sleep…” Frank interrupted me.

“I know, but there’s something else. Why did you freak out when we were at that building? Why do you keep being bipolar towards her?”

“What?” I lifted my head and looked at Frank. He looked at me like I was supposed to know.

“Dude, first everything is okay and then you get all angry at her and stuff. Tell me, how many times have you stormed out of her room?”

He had a point.

“I know, but she’s ungrateful! She acts horrible towards people who mean no harm.” I had a point too now.

“Gerard, give her time, like I told you. The girl was tortured and…” He couldn’t even say the word. I felt the same way. To think that had happened to such a young and beautiful girl… God, Gerard…

“Well, treated fucking awful…” Frank finished his sentence. “She doesn’t trust anyone and I don’t blame her for that. Even her own father betrayed her.”

“I know, but…”

“No, back to my other question. What happened at that building?” Frank folded his hands and waited for my answer.

“I…” I took a deep breath. “I saw the bed on the seventh floor, with the handcuffs and the blood. I couldn’t help but think that my mom…” I cleared my throat. “Had the same treatment.”

Frank nodded. “Okay, I can understand that…”

“It’s just… I thought we had cleared out the entire building, but when I heard the noise coming from under the desk… Man.”

Frank looked at me, a bit confused.

“I thought it was a Drac, you know. One that had known that there was someone captured in that room all that time, but one that didn’t do anything as that person got beat up and tortured. It was only minutes later that I realized it wasn’t a Drac, but just a girl.”

Frank shifted a bit, nodding. “Aah, I think I get it now. According to you, Dracs are accomplices.”

“Aren’t they then?” I grinned a bit.

“You could say that.” Frank grinned back.

“I don’t know, I guess I freaked out because I knew the ‘Drac’ would have had blood on his hands too, in some way.” I stood up, Frank kept looking at me.

“And because the whole situation made you think of what happened to your mom again.” Frank dropped his eyes, I nodded. My silence said enough.

“Well…” Frank got up now too. “You shouldn’t have taken that out on her, because she’s on her own right now, gone.”

I frowned, knowing it was my fault she had left.

“I know… You think we should go look for her?” I asked Frank.

“Well, dah. I saw her wounds man, she’s not fully recovered yet. I mean, maybe the cuts from the glass are doing okay, but she has… Some old bruises too.” I knew Frank saw my fists, which were clenched now.

“What do you mean old bruises?” I tried to keep myself as calm as possible, I looked at the ground.

“She uhm… had this huge bruise on her stomach, so I think she got kicked.” Damn, hadn’t noticed that… “Also, she had a cut above her hip and I am pretty sure glass was not the cause of that. Oh and she had a lot of bruises on her legs.”

“Yeah, I saw those.” Oh shit. I looked at Frank. He was looking directly at me now.

“Gerard…”

“What?” I turned to the door. I wanted to go outside and look for her.

“What exactly happened when you were still upstairs with her this morning?” His voice was low.

“Not much, I uhm… Helped her get dressed and while doing that I noticed the bruises on her legs.” Nice save.

“Oh… Alright.” Frank didn’t believe shit of if, of course.

“Frank, we really need to go and look for her okay. I promise I’ll change my behavior towards her, but would you just… Help me now, please?” I still didn’t make eye contact, I felt too awkward.

“Yeah sure, she can’t be far right?” Frank passed me and went downstairs. I followed him.

“Don’t think so. She left like 20 minutes ago.” I grabbed my gun from the coat rack, where I had hid it under some coats.

“Okay, so what’s the plan?” Frank opened the door and then turned to me. His gun was already attached to his belt.

“The plan?” I loaded my gun.

“Yeah, you really think she’s gonna come back with us just like that. You need to apologize, man.” Frank pointed at me.

I didn’t want to apologize. I knew I had to, but she had also acted really weird. So I kind of expected an apology from her as well.

“We’ll see ‘bout that.” I walked outside, Frank followed and we started looking.

But after one full hour of searching and calling, we still hadn’t found her. The only thing we found was a destroyed dummy. Where did she go?

Notes