My hands shake, the freezing November air making things feel like slow motion. Everything hurts. The stairs shriek and moan under our feet as we walk upon them. The spiders lurk in the corner, I can feel them. My legs itch as if the tiny creatures are swarming my skin again. My head aches, echoes of the voices pounding in my ears. The darkness slips under my skin, tearing at my flesh, gnawing at me like lions on a carcass and I want to run. Run far far away and never look back but Ray has a hold on my hand, too tight for me to slip away without a fight.

We reach the top of the stairwell and all is quiet.

Ray stops, holds a finger up to me so I won’t say anything, his mouth pressed into a hard line, breath coming evenly. I can hardly imagine how he manages to be so brave.

The dark hallway stares at us.

And then there’s a noise, a knock, something hard hitting a wall or a counter. It comes from within the bathroom, a door that sits only a few steps down the hall. I squeeze Ray’s arm, wanting to pull him away, lead him back down to the foyer. A million different things could be behind that door.

I just want away.

Ray steps forward.

And it dawns on me then how pathetic I really am. What warrior would run from battle? What person would walk away from their enemies, abandon the chance of victory? Only a meager worthless nothing, a smear on the face of the earth.

Ray pulls on my arm and I follow restlessly toward the bathroom door, our feet light on the floor boards, wanting to keep away the monsters. The door to the bathroom is slightly ajar, the white wood hauntingly bright in the dark.

Ray reaches forward to grab the handle, pushing the door open as carefully as he possibly can. He steps out of the way, one of us on either side of the wall.

For a moment we stand there, shallow breaths, listening painfully for another noise to break the silence. I squeeze my eyes shut, swallowing before looking over to meet Ray's gaze. He nods into the bathroom, asking me to look with silent words. I take a breath before turning my head just the slightest bit, stomach flipping.

The narrow, shallow room is dark, the shadows of an old bathtub, a basin, a toilet, darker against the dark. Something moves between them, like a shark in the dense waters of a bog. I can hardly make the person out, a wispy shadow against the black.

The shadow stops.

It turns just enough for me to see the glint in its eye.

I watch in horror as the shadow moves about, pulling something from around its neck and placing it on the counter. It turns back to me, lifting the shape of its hand, waving at me, boots clunking on the floor as it steps back. I blink and it sinks into the darkness, disappearing into the wall.

And everything is still again.

“What is it?” Ray breathes, his voice barely above the quiet.

I stare with wide eyes, waiting for the shadow to reemerge.

“Nothing,” I say, moving to slip into the bathroom.

Ray is close behind me, asking in a quiet voice what in the world I was doing. I don’t answer him, slipping for the counter, fumbling in the dark for the item that had been left behind. My fingers come across a piece of metal, picking it up, the smooth surface freezing beneath my palm as if it’d been in an ice box. I pick it up, weighing it in my hand, my eyes attempting to adjust to the new level of dark.

“What’s that?”

“A camera.” Left behind on the counter is a piece of paper, square and light. I pick it up, squinting in the dark, feeling the slightly sticky surface of a picture. “Give me your phone Ray.”

“Why?”

“Just do it,” I snap, really fucking tired of just everything.

Ray hands me the cell phone, wandering past me, interested in something else.

“What- there’s a hole in the wall,” Ray mumbles, mostly to himself. I dismiss him as I click the ON button on the phone, holding the lit screen over the picture.

“Say cheese!” It’s a booming voice, coming from somewhere else, echoing as if coming from the depths of hell. Or a hole in the wall.

I jump, startled, but not able to take my eyes off the photograph.

It’s me.

It’s me standing in the basement where I’d been kidnapped, eyes wide, mouth slightly open. I look like the devil himself is taking the picture.

The voice is echoing in my head, over and over, playing like a broken record. “Say cheese, say cheese, say cheese!”

Ray is halfway through the hole in the wall, chasing after the voice, before I'm falling to my knees, a cry escaping my mouth.

The last thing I hear is Ray’s shaky voice before the memories engulf me.
X X X
”Frank Iero, we have you surrounded. Come out with your hands where we can see them.”

My chest felt like it might burst, the tight muscles of my heart swelling to an abnormal size, pressing hard against my rib cage, threatening to split the hardy bones in two.

Ocean Eye’s- well Frank’s I guess, so much for not knowing his name- grip tightened on my arm and he jerked me toward the door, the shoebox still gripped tightly against his chest. But his growls weren’t bothering me anymore. He couldn’t threaten me. People were here to bring me back to my family, back to my brother. I hadn’t ever missed them more.

Frank moved across the floor, the house rushing past in a blur and it didn’t matter. I didn’t have to pay attention. Where was he going to go? Out the front door?

It seemed his fate was inevitable and I wanted to laugh in his face.

The hallway was everlasting, longer than the Nile, the floorboards pounding beneath our feet as we ran much too far of a distance.

I just wanted away, wanted out.

We approached the stairs, Frank gripping my arm so hard his knuckles turned white. But we didn’t turn down the stairwell. Instead Frank took a sharp left and dragged me into the bathroom, shoving me forward into the dark.

The hope in my chest caught fire at its edges. It hurt not knowing what we were doing, what he was trying to pull. I needed to know that he wasn’t going to do something stupid. Like try to get away from the fucking police.

The bathroom was small and stuffy, the air dirty in my nose, smelling of dust and mold. Frank got me all the way to the end of the bathroom, the back wall blank, a basin up against the right wall, an old claw foot tub to the left. We reached the end and he hit the wall with two flat hands. I couldn’t even think about running from him. He had a gun. I was too close to salvation to try and get ahead of myself.

I watched with wide eyes, making out just enough in the dark to see his hands fumble across the grimy wall, the paper an old flower pattern. His fingers found a spot on the surface, digging in. He popped the paper, a gap in the wall allowing him to drag a stripe up, splitting the flowers in two, breaking printed petals with the press of his hand. He pulled the line up and up and up until he was standing on the very tips of his toes, pulling the stripe to the left, and then down forming a box all the way to the floor. I stared blankly, the paper cut in the shape of a door.

The front door down stairs was pounded on again; hollow sounds breaking the silence that had come between us, cutting off the pounding of my heartbeat in my ears.

There was a sickening busted crack, the voices getting louder.

The door had been broken down, I assumed.

Frank stopped a moment, quiet; the only noise in the room was the winded sound of our ragged breath. He looked at me, his gaze meeting mine before turning back toward the wall, slipping his finger into the newly formed crack and pulling.

And for a split second I thought maybe that had been a tiny spark of fear in his wide ocean eyes.

I thought monsters couldn’t feel fear.

The wall came down with a pop, skidding out; clutched between his hands as he dragged it away. The scratch of the wood on the floor reminded me of the spiders.

Scrtch Scrtch Scrtch.

I squeezed my eyes shut, the hope sliding out through my feet and pooling in my shoes, squishing and squashing between my toes. Everything felt empty again.

“Get the fuck going,” Frank growled in a hushed whisper, and suddenly I was being jerked forward, his hand on my arm again. He pushed me into the newly made hole in the wall, the interior dark and dank, like the rest of the house but ten times worst.

It smelt of rotting wooden corpses.

I could hear the voices behind me, floating like the ones in my head, but these voices had bodies. Bodies dressed in blue with guns and dogs and police cars. Their footsteps pounded up the stairs, echoing in my ears, and Frank shoved me harder, screaming in a whisper to go.

The tunnel was short, shorter than I expected, and I hit the back wall with a thump.

“Goddammit,” Frank muttered, pushing me aside and ramming his shoulder into the wall. He did it again. And again. And I was wondering why in the world he thought ramming into a solid wall would work, I mean he wasn’t the incredible hulk-

“Fuck.” And a rectangular piece of wall, much like the one behind us, came free along with a loud ripping sound like wall paper being ravaged apart. It hung helplessly in its frame, bits of paper clinging to it like shreds of skin, desperately trying to keep it's hold upon the door. Frank kicked it completely free, the wood landing on the other side with a tragic lifeless thump.

Frank shoved me through.

We exited into a bathroom on the other side, tiled floors and ugly flowered wallpaper, a dusty stench slapping me in the face as we stepped over the fallen door. I wondered what had just happened, the thin room a mirror image of the one we’d just come through.

Frank pulled me through a weaving labyrinth of hallways and stairwells that felt far too cold and far too empty, and the very small part of my brain that was still possibly stuck in reality realized that the path we took was the photocopy of the one that had brought me to the closet in the first place.

As if we were going through the house again, but there wasn't any skeletal furniture or remnants of a family in sight.

Huh.

We slipped through an old looking kitchen, void of all human life, a cracking green door set at the back. The voices of policemen slipped through the paper thin walls. Frank grabbed the handle, fumbling to pull the door open, throwing me out onto a flat concrete surface, scatters of gravel cutting into my hands, weeds between the cracks under my belly.

The door shut quietly behind me, a hand on my back, and suddenly I was being yanked from the floor into an upright position.

Frank held my hoodie with a tight fist, the fabric riding up my back. Something was shoved against my bare skin, cold and hard.

Click.

I trembled.

“You got it, that’s a gun,” he said quietly, breath hot on my ear. I swallowed. “You don’t make a sound, I don’t hurt you. Deal?”

Frank liked deals an awful lot.

I nodded quickly, fingers numb though the air was springtime warm.

Frank pushed against my back, guiding me toward the edge of the small side alley. He poked his head out the side of the house to get a look at the street. The siding of the building we stood next to was a sickly mint green color and it dawned on me, we’d just gone through the other side of the duplex.

Not that it really mattered at the moment, but it was nice to know that we hadn't been thrown into some warped other reality.

We stood there a long time, Frank quiet, his breath hard in his throat. I could hear the murmur of cops on the other side of the wall, but I couldn’t quite see them, Frank keeping me back. The voices of the police on the inside of the house could be heard from where we stood.

I held my breath.

After another moment, Frank turned to look at me, his eyes meeting mine with a stone sort of stare. “You are going to follow me. You will stay silent and you will do as I say. We’re going to walk down the street, you’re not going to make a sound, and I will shoot a hole straight through your middle if you do. Got it?” He spoke in a low whisper, his voice hard and demanding, the gun cutting into my spine.

I nodded, lip trembling.

“Okay,” he breathed, his grip tightening on my shirt as he pulled me toward the sidewalk.

And suddenly we were out in the open, walking down the sidewalk as if we were normal people and I wasn’t in danger of getting my guts blown out. Except I was shaking like a mad man and the boy walking next to me was a psycho murderer. It felt like a dream, looking back to see the swarm of cops there, their eyes trained at the ominous looking house, the two family home that used to be one. But obviously they didn’t know that. They hadn't realized there would be secret adjoining hallways or they would’ve been standing there at the side door, ready to blow some heads off.

I swallowed as we made it farther down the street, Frank's arm around my waist as if I were his boyfriend or something, the gun pressed hard against my back, hidden behind his arm and my hoodie. I wanted to scream, to yell, to do something, anything to get the cop's attention. But the farther we got down the pavement, the quieter their voices got and the less hope sat in my chest.

I was completely and utterly alone.

Alone with the devil’s arm around my waist.

I wanted to cry as we rounded the corner off Carolyn road, the police out of sight, that glimmer of hope gone from my grasp. There was nothing. Everything was blank now, gone. Dead.

I was dead.

Or at least I would be. Sooner rather than later.

Frank's pace picked up and we began running, the gun still clipping against my back with each step, leaving circular welts in its place. The path we took was familiar, street after street like playing a movie backwards as we retraced our steps to the house on Hope St.

Frank gripped my arm as we stumbled to a halt on the cement, the crooked building rising up in front of us. I shivered, the basement fresh in my mind, the red metal doors clinging to the side of the building making my head spin.

I swallowed as we headed for it, Frank dragging me along, opening the doors with rusty metal squeals, pulling me down into the dark.

It was so cold.

I squeezed my eyes shut, Frank's firm fingers falling from my arm at the bottom of the crumbling stone steps, the dark slipping eagerly at my skin. I tried to keep my breath even, fingers clenched. Maybe it would have been okay if I just died here, dropped away silently in the darkness, fell asleep for the rest of forever.

But there wasn't enough time for that.

The world turned red as the bulb flickered on, my eyes fluttering open, squinting against the dirty yellow light. Frank moved around the room, the chain on the light swinging.

He was quiet. I could hear his breath heavy in his throat as he got on his knees in front of the heavy black chest, his fingers slipping into the collar of his hoodie, pulling out a chain from around his neck, a black heavy key on the end. He slipped it into the lock, the lid popping open, his thick arms pressing to lift it.

He dove into the box then, scooping something up and pulling it out. A Polaroid camera.

He slipped the strap around his neck, shutting the box and locking it before pulling himself to his feet, giving me a look.

This horrible look, eyes narrowed something evil deep down inside him and I backed away, swallowing.

“Say cheese.”

Click.

A flash and I watched as he pulled the camera away from his face, his brows pulled together as he concentrated with removing the newly made picture from the front of the machine and shaking it, his wrist flicking with increased fury. He finally held it out in front of him, squinting against the yellow light.

He smiled.

A nice smile. Almost like a child, just one of those things when you can't help but smile back.

And I wondered how something with so much malice inside him could truly smile like that.

He pocketed the picture, walking forward, grabbing up my arm and dragging me up the steps.

I wanted to look at the picture. I wanted to know why he'd smiled like that, so genuinely. But I wouldn't dare ask to see it.

We snuck across the yard, standing out on the sidewalk, the springtime wind blowing my hair into my face. I shoved it away, trying to make out what was to come next, peering each way down the street, crossing my fingers for a cop car to come. Something, anything.

But there was nothing.

Instead Frank dragged me across the street to a dingy looking powder blue car, the wheels worn and the doors looking too beat up to even open. I watched as he pulled the lid from his box, tucking the old revolver under his arm, turning just enough so that I couldn't quite see the inside of the cardboard container. Out came the large kitchen knife.

And suddenly he savagely whipped the butt of the knife at the window, slamming into it as hard as he could.

A horrible splitting sound sparked in my ears, a spider web of cracks sprouting across the window. I jumped as the loud and incredibly annoying sound of a car alarm whirred to life, sending several birds sputtering from the trees around us. He slammed the knife again, broken glass shattering everywhere, caving in on the seating inside the car. He punched out the jagged glass teeth at the mouth of the window with the side of his fist before reaching in to pull the lock and yank the door open. He swiped the glass off the seat, slipping in and sitting down.

He kept the door open as he ducked beneath the dashboard, using his knife to unscrew something. The gun sat in his lap menacingly.

I looked around frantically then, chewing on my lip, scanning the dark windows of each house for some sort of life. But there was nothing. Every window was either barricaded with an ugly colored curtain or blank with abandonment.

I skidded like a jittery paranoid cat as something hit my legs. It was plastic, the access cover to the steering wheel on the pavement. Breath heavy, I peered into the car, watching Frank fumble to strip wires with his knife, the alarm pounding in my ears in sync with my heartbeat.

He pressed two wires together, a spark, and suddenly the car was growling to life, like a zombie being pulled from the grave, the alarm cutting off, dead. The car sputtered, Frank slamming his foot on the gas, his hand on the stick shift, revving the engine. And the car hummed idly, steady and ready to go.

"Get in the car," Frank urged, pulling himself out from under the steering wheel.

I looked down at him, eyes wide.

"Get in the goddamed car, Gerard!"

My breath caught in my throat as I skidded around the front of the car to the passenger seat, Frank leaning across the armrest to unlock the door for me. I pulled it open, catching sight of the revolver in Frank's lap as I went to slip into the car.

Caw.

The biggest bird I've ever seen flew from the cherry tree that hung over my head, the jolt of its massive black body sending a cloud of cherry blossoms down from the sky like snowflakes.

I didn't know ravens inhabited New Jersey.

"Gerard!"

I sunk into the car, Frank's loud threatening voice rattling my bones and flipping my stomach. I slammed the door behind me, pulling my legs to my chest and sinking down into the seat, leaning my head against the window as we pulled away from the curb.

Something moved out on the sidewalk and I peered out the window to see a middle aged man in his underwear standing on the porch of the house we were pulling away from. The owner of the car.

He had a cell phone pressed to his ear, frantically yelling into it.

I smiled just a little, not saying a word. The cops would know what car we were in. And Frank had no idea; he thought we were safe.

The raven came down from the cherry tree, landing on the railing of the porch, sleek wings folding about his thick body, cherry blossoms stuck in his feathers. He cocked his head and I could have sworn there was a smile in his big black eyes.

The wind whistled in my ears as we drove, the permanently gaping window doing nothing to keep the Jersey stench out. The cardboard box sat ominously on the dash, the gun in Frank's lap, the barrel coincidentally pointing straight at me. I huddled in the corner of my seat, sunk down low, holding my knees up against my chest. I thought about opening the door and rolling out of the car but by the time we made it to the highway it was too late.

Then again, maybe killing myself on the freeway like a runaway dog would be better than getting brutally murdered by a crazy teenager.

The ride was half an hour, maybe more, maybe less. It’s hard to pay attention to time when there’s a gun pointed at your face.

We pulled into familiar territory, passing through toll booths. Frank pulled change out of the glove compartment to pay the bearded man in the box on the road. The Washington Bridge was suddenly under the wheels of our car and I could see the massive sparkling city of New York. Home sweet home.

It was a long time swerving through the side streets of Manhattan. Frank seemed to know his way around, avoiding most traffic. We somehow ended up in the Bronx. The south side in particular, the place that seemed to be having a hard time pulling itself out of the 70’s, the buildings in shambles, cop sirens in the distance.

Frank was quiet when we finally stopped, the car rumbling and grumbling before shutting down, dying right there on the side of the road.

“Out,” He said, moving to slip out of his side of the car, the shoe box under his arm, the gun tucked into the front pocket of his hoodie. I followed, slipping out onto the cracked sidewalk, taking in the deep city stank of New York.

“Alright kid, we’re gonna go up to the apartments across the street. You’re not gonna say a word, got it? Nothin’, keep your goddamned mouth shut.”

I gave a shallow nod.

“Okay, let’s go meet some people.” He said and grabbed me by the arm, dragging me across the crooked street that seemed to be basked in shadow despite the fact that it was mid-afternoon.

The apartment building we walked up to was made of old brick, graffiti splattered across the exterior, several windows splintered with cracks. The wrought iron gates outside were rusting, the grass in scrappy patches. Frank opened up the heavy white door, pressing me inside and up the musky stairwell lit with flickering yellow lights, lined with stained walls, and smelling of cat pee and cigarettes. The door we headed up to was an ugly green labeled with the shadows of lost brass numbers.

Apartment 9.

Frank knocked and I shrank back behind him, the hallway so small that I was pressed against the door of apartment 8 behind us.

Apartment 9 opened.

I wasn't sure exactly what I was expecting; monsters with mouths full of daggers, shadows with spindly hands, mangled bodies dripping blood in puddles on the floor. But there was only a girl, tall and curvy, her hair curly and thick, a golden brown color. She wore a short pleated skirt and a skimpy cut off Smiths shirt, her pudgy little belly sparkling with a belly button ring. Caught between her fingers was a cigarette, which she brought to her red painted lips every now and again.

She squinted, leaning up in the doorway, taking a drag of her cigarette.

"Who the hell a' you?" She mumbled in a thick New York accent, speaking out of the corner of her mouth.

I watched as Frank just smiled, shrugging his shoulders and pushing his hair out of his face. "Long time no see, huh Savvy?"

The girls mouth dropped, her hand falling to her side, taking the cigarette with it. "Frankie?"

Frank winked.

I had to step out of the way as the girl tackled him, throwing her arms around him, squeezing him as hard as she could before grabbing his face between her hands and kissing him all over, leaving shadows of lipstick all over his cheeks. "You mother asshole! I should fuckin' kill you!" She shrieked, but she sounded happy. Really happy.

Frank had friends.

Frank had friends.

Frank just laughed, righting his balance, squeezing her back and I just wanted to scream in her face that she was hugging a murderer.

"Jesus, how long's it been, years Frankie? Years. God I've missed you so much; there's so much you've missed!" She pulled away, holding him by the shoulders, the biggest smile on her face.

"Where's Cee?"

"Oh, inside- Charlie! Charlie guess who just turned up!" She hollered into the flat.

I blinked. Charlie.

The guy who'd given Frank the poetry book.

I could hardly wrap my head around anything right then.

Out from around the corner came a short, thin person, their hair cropped, the same pretty color as Savvy's but short and spiked. They wore ripped acid wash jeans, a System of a Down t-shirt, a green plaid button up and Doc Martins as if they'd just wandered out of the nineties.

And she was a girl.

Charlie was a girl.

She frowned, the freckles across her nose like pepper on her milky pale skin. Her eyes were wide. "Frank?"

Frank shoved his hands in his pockets. "Hey."

"Get out. Go the fuck away."

"Oh, Cee, don't be so-"

"Shut up Savannah. I told him to get the fuck out so he better [i]get the fuck out[/i]." Her face was red, and maybe she had tears in her eyes.

"Charlie, just- will you listen to me? Please? I just wanna talk to you," Frank said, raising his hands in surrender.

Charlie swallowed, placing a hand on the apartment wall, her fingers splayed next to a picture frame, her brow furrowing. "No Frank. You left once, you can fucking leave again. Get. Out."

Frank passed Savannah and walked into the apartment as if he owned it. Charlie swallowed, jaw clenching as she shoved her sleeves up to her elbows and marched forward, the two of them colliding in the hallway, her freckled arms shoving at his chest. Frank locked his jaw, shoving her against the wall, knocking the picture frame, their faces close. The scorpion tattoo on Frank’s neck danced as he growled something at her, too quiet for me to hear.

I watched as a tear slid down Charlie’s cheek, her teeth digging into her bottom lip, face cherry red as she nodded.

And then she slumped forward, wrapping her thin arms around him, burying her head in his neck.

“Fuck, I love you Frankie.” Her voice was choked, but loud enough to be heard in the hallway.

“Love you, too.” Frank murmured, his lips soft on her hair.