The Nemesis

“Ok”, Gerard began. “I feel like it’s safe to say that Frank wasn’t part of the other crew.”

Mikey raised his eyebrow at Gerard, waiting for him to elaborate.

“He’s just a kid! No way would Ellie take a kid on her crew, especially someone as small as him. I don’t see him being any use to her”, Gerard explained.

Mikey did agree with him about Frank in relation to the crew. What he wasn’t sure about, was what to do with the kid now. They couldn’t keep him as a prisoner, they didn’t have the space or really any need to. From what Frank said, trying to ransom him would be useless, so dropping him off at the next planet seemed like the best choice to Mikey. Gerard did not agree with Mikey.

“You want us to dump him?!” Gerard yelled. “How can you say that Mikey he’s a kid!”

“Fine”, Mikey sighed. “We can take him back to the planet they took him from”, he suggested.

“But what if Ellie and her guys go after him again? He’s not exactly capable of fighting them off, that’s probably how he landed their in the first place.”

Mikey watched his brother carefully as he went on and on about Frank and how worried he was about him. Mikey narrowed his eyes at his brother as he realised something.

“You like him”, Mikey said, interrupting Gerard’s rant. “You have an actual teenage crush on the kid that’s currently your prisoner”, he deadpanned.

Gerard started open mouthed at his younger brother before launching in what Mikey supposed was meant to be some kind of denial speech, but ended up mainly consisting of scoffs and ‘um’s and looking anywhere but Mikey. His little brother watched in amusement as Gerard stuttered into silence.

“So what do you suppose we do with him then? The next planet isn’t for a week and we have a job to do there. So he either stays till the planet after or we dump him when we go for the job”, Mikey said.

Gerard thought for a minute. They didn’t have anyone as young as Frank on their crew, the closest was Mikey and Patrick who were both eighteen. Maybe new blood would be good, he could put Ray in charge of Frank and Gerard would be able to keep a close eye on him….. For safety reasons of course. He voiced his decision to Mikey who rolled his eyes fondly at Gerard.

“So are you going to ask him his opinion or tell him what’s going to happen? And while you’re at it you can tell the kid 5 years younger than you that you’re in love with him”, Mikey said with a smirk.

Mikey cackled as he walked down the corridor, leaving Gerard yelling insults at his back.

**********

Frank opened his eyes to the darkness of the basement, at least he wasn’t tied down this time. He rolled his head to the side and his head swam with the movement. So that’s why he wasn’t tied, he wouldn’t be able to stand while he was in this much pain. He closed his eyes, trying to feel where the pain was coming from this time and found it was mainly in his neck and spine. He wanted to groan in frustration and pain but knew that would only alert someone to the fact he was awake and ready for more pain.

He didn’t know why he was always brought into the basement. All that his five year old mind could figure out was that they would poke him with needles and other things, then roll him onto his back and do even more painful things to his back. If they were feeling merciful, the men would knock him out before they did too much or he would black out quickly if he was lucky. Last night had been a lucky night but now Frank had no idea what they had done, they didn’t usually touch his neck which made him nervous.

He lay still for what he thought was a few minutes (but he passed out from moving a few times) before he heard the groaning of the door from the top of the stairs. The light from upstairs spilt over the floor, allowing Frank to watch the silhouette descend the staircase. He shook with fear as he met the eyes of his father, but Frank hadn’t thought of him that way for years. The man did not look pleased as he hurried over to a table near the wall where he picked up a long needle.

Frank tried to squirm away as he walked over and grabbed Frank’s arm. Frank cried out in pain but the man merely sunk the needle into the skin of the boy’s arm. Frank whimpered at the fuzzy feeling spreading through his body making the man smile.

“Now now Frankie”, he cooed. “Don’t be any trouble. We can’t have them finding you, can we?”

He lifted Frank from the table and carried him upstairs. Frank was lowered into a waiting crate where he was strapped down like he usually is against the table.

“Load him onto the ship and take him to the next location. We can’t let the authorities take him from us before he is finished”, Frank heard his father say.

Frank passed out as he felt the crate being lifted.

~~~~~

Frank woke up to the sounds of lasers and yelling. He tried to move but then remembered that he couldn’t so he stayed as quiet as he could be while crying. Could you really blame him for being scared? He was only six! He was even more scared when all the shooting stopped, making his sniffling obvious to anyone in the same room as him.

“Hey! Mark!” an unfamiliar voice called.

“What Brian?” Replied another.

“Do you hear that?” The first one said accompanied by footsteps drawing closer to Frank.

Frank had managed to calm his breathing but not made any progress in stopping his tears. His breathing picked up again as the footsteps stopped beside his crate. There was a crunch as the lid was torn off and Frank screamed. This seemed to surprise the two people looking down at him as one frantically tried to calm him down while the other simply aimed his laser at Frank. Naturally, this just made Frank scream louder so a hand was clamped over his mouth.

“Seriously?! I think a kid was the last thing I was expecting to find on this ship Mark”, said the one with the hand over Frank’s mouth.

“Well, this is the only crate on the ship. So I guess we can tell what their cargo was Brian”, said Mark.

“Either way, we can’t leave him alone on this ship. We’re gonna have to drop him off somewhere”, Brian said. “We could drop him on Hadron? There’s tonnes of orphanages there and no way do we want a kid on our ship with us.”

Mark nodded in agreement before removing his hand from Frank’s mouth slowly, waiting for him to start screaming again. When he didn’t, Mark and Brian pulled him out of the crate and carried him back to their own ship. Both were sure to leave no trace of themselves before setting Frank’s old ship on course to its intended destination, and then their own ship was on course to Hadron.

Notes

so I was supposed to update my demon story, but I had inspiration for this one. I've started a spy story as well so I've been writing that instead of updating :/