The only Hope

Gerard’s pov:

I left her room and went downstairs. Frank and Ray were already there, waiting for dinner.

“Have you guys seen Mikey?” I asked, I wanted to talk to him about earlier.

“Nope, but have you heard my stomach?” Frank always grinned at his own jokes. But okay, this one was pretty funny.

“There are some cans of food in the back. I’m not really sure what they contain, but it’s food, so…” I walked past Frank and Ray to look out of the window, maybe Mikey was working on his motorcycle outside.

“So… You’re not hungry then?” Ray was getting up to collect some cans.

“Nah, not really. You guys eat it, we’ll get new stuff tomorrow anyway.” I didn’t see Mikey anywhere and decided to close the curtains. Maybe he was still upstairs.

“That’s true, who’s going by the way? Two of us have to stay here I guess?” Frank raised his eyebrows. “Now, since you’ve brought her here I think it’s only fair if you stay here tomorrow.”

I walked over to the stairs and sighed. He was right, I got us into this. “Fine, but then you’re staying too.” I looked over at Frank, he seemed disappointed.

“Oh come on, I wanna do something. We are here like… 90% of the time!” He threw his head back.

I smiled. I loved annoying Frank, although I was serious this time. “No, but… Frank, I’m serious. I’ll go check up on the girl tomorrow and I need you there in case she has any more wounds we overlooked or something.”

Frank looked at me from under his eyebrows. “Okay, fine! But next time I wanna go out and rob abandoned stores.” It looked like he was still thinking, but I knew that deep inside, he wanted to help here as well.

“Thanks Frank.” I walked up the stairs.

When I got there I saw Mikey leave the room where the girl was. What was he doing there?

“Mikes, talk?” Mikey turned to me.

“Depends.” He sighed and crossed his arms. “ You know what I want to hear.”

“Look…” I led him into the other room, so the girl wouldn’t hear us. “No, I can’t just make her leave. I gave her a choice though: she could change her attitude towards us or just leave herself. I promised we wouldn’t hurt her and I think she is wise enough to return the favor.”

Mikey grinned. “You actually believe that?” I got a little annoyed now.

“Hey! I don’t want us to fight just because we have an extra guest.”

“Well, that extra guest of yours tried to kill you, my own brother! She had your gun pointed at you man! You could’ve died!” Mikey’s eyes filled with tears.

“Mikey, listen…”

“No, Gerard, we always do as we are told. We keep our eyes open, we never do anything on our own, we think as a group… And you just get yourself robbed from your own gun and run after the damn girl! What were you thinking?”

I was grateful that he stopped calling her ‘bitch’, but anyway: he was right. I had acted really stupidly and I wasn’t thinking at the time it was happening. I couldn’t tell Mikey why I acted the way I did, yet, so I just dropped my eyes.

“Thought so. I saved your life and I would do it again in a heartbeat, but with this…” He pointed to the room I had brought the girl. “… I can’t help you… This is your own problem, you take care of it. And we will talk again, when this problem is solved. I want her out of here, Gerard.” Mikey turned around and walked downstairs.

“Shit.” I mumbled. My brother is mad as hell and Ray and Frank want to stay out of this… This is just great.

I decided to take a quick shower, I wasn’t hungry anyway. I walked past the room where the girl was and I watched her for a second. She was sleeping, good. I thought she would have started running by now, but I guess she was too tired and bruised.

I got to my room, which was right next to hers, gathered some clothes and not very long after that I was standing under a nice, hot shower. We only shower once every four days here, so we don’t spill too much water. We have some sort of a tank outside. I don’t really know how it works myself, but Ray is the engineer, so he knows.

All of a sudden Frank knocked on the door. “Gerard… Uhm, could you come here real quick?”

“What Frank?”

“Nope, I really think you should see this for yourself.”

“Fine, give me a minute.” I jumped out under the shower and started drying my hair and body. When I was properly dressed I opened the door. Frank, Ray and Mikey were standing outside the bathroom. All three leaning against a wall.

“What the hell is…”

“No! No…” It was her. I ran towards her room and found her… Still asleep?

“I think she’s having a pretty bad dream.” Ray sighed. “But we are definitely not getting any closer than this.”

I threw Frank, Ray and Mikey an angry look, then I kneeled next to the bed.

“Hey, it’s okay. Just wake up.” I said softly. She wasn’t responding. Her whole body was trembling, she was sweating and making weird muffled noises.

“Wake up!” I tried to wake her with my voice, but that obviously didn’t work. She kept moving and moaning.

“Hey!” I grabbed her shoulders. Didn’t work either, I now cupped her face with my hands.

“Wake up! Now!” Suddenly her eyes shot wide open. At first I thought she was looking right through me, but she was actually looking straight into my eyes. Hers were filled with pure terror. She was breathing very heavily.

“Jesus Christ, are you okay?” I heard Frank’s voice coming from behind me. The fact that she didn’t fight back this time made him somehow at ease, I think. I let go of her face, she was still trembling all over and catching her breath.

Notes