Page 45 of All Saints Day
While he clearly wasn’t trying to make a break for it—there is a smear of blood on the tile wall where Frank clearly gave his head a good enough strike against it to put a split in his brow. More likely than not—it was the source of the loud metallic thump that brought me down here.
He blinks up at me blearily, blood running into his right eye as it threatens to swell shut.
“Alright, that’s enough,” I snarl, placing a cigarette between my lips, pulling my gun from its holster. “Louise is trying to sleep—she needs her rest,” I growl, shoving a cigarette between Frank’s lips with one hand—pressing the cold metal muzzle of my gun to his right temple beside his bloody brow with the other.
“You and I are going to have a little chat on deck,” I bite out, brandishing the keys to his cuffs and ankle shackles on the ball chain around my neck.
Frank bobs a single nod to show he understands, holding the unlit cigarette between his lips—deadly still as I reach around the back of the toilet to unlock the shackles around his ankles. He draws his legs back, allowing me to re-attach the ankle shackles once his legs are no longer wrapped around the toilet. He does the same with his wrists—my gun pressed against his head all the while.
Once he’s re-cuffed, I help hoist him by his collar—the muzzle of my gun pressed against the back of his head—as I force him to the upper decks.
In the cool night air, the water lapping quietly against the hull—we sit beneath the stars and the moon overhead, their cool blue light casting long shadows over the deck, the glowing golden rectangle of light from the cockpit above us not reaching our faces, drawn in long dark shadows.
“I know the others are invested in keeping you around, for information—for possible leverage,” I sigh, leaning in to light Frank’s cigarette—his face momentarily illuminated by the bubble of warm firelight before I sit back and light my own. “But I’m going to need you to set a few things straight, or I’m going to put you down, Frankie, right here—right now,” I growl, my gun in a single hand grip resting on my right knee as I take a drag of my cigarette.
“I don’t know how long I have before he shows up.” Frank shakes his head, bringing his cuffed hands to his mouth to tap the feathery ash from the end of his cigarette. “Move me away from the edge. I won’t jump overboard—but I can’t promise that he won’t.”
My anger threatens to boil over. I place my cigarette between my lips and reach my newly freed hand for Frank’s bloodied collar.
“Who the fuck are you talking about,putain?” I bark, yanking him toward me and away from the edge of the boat and the dark waves breaking around the bow. “I don’t have patience for this cryptic bullshit,” I bite out, dropping him onto his knees on the deck before me.
“Tell Caz to look up Patrick Castle, Castle Security based out of Winter Hill—” Frank begins to explain—but his eyes roll back into his head, his jaw going slack, his burning cigarette dropping from between his lips as he begins convulsing; his legs turn to jelly beneath him, his dead weight nearly drags me down to the deck with him.
It’s only now—Frank’s body shuddering as the whites of his eyes glow under the moonlight, his head turning to the side as I stand over him frozen with shock and confusion—that I see thesilvery lavender feathering of scar tissue just at the top of Frank’s left ear. The most minute of breaks in the tiny arc of scars.
A bonding bite!?
Just as I’m worried that the long feathered ash from the cigarette still stuck between my lips will drop onto the struggling Frank—he goes still, eyes closed—breath slowing almost to a stop.
I let go of his lapels, his body slumping fully to the ship’s deck as he lets out a low, dry chuckle.
“What the fuck is this little nibble, eh?” I snip impatiently, pushing the toe of my boot under Frank’s shoulder—pushing him into an upright sitting position with my foot as I pull my gun from its holster.
But when Frank sits upright, I can tell that something isn’t right—hands still cuffed behind his back, his legs butterflied, the soles of his bare feet pressed together, the chained shackles at his ankles jingling slightly—as he comes to a sitting position.
“Easy, easy!” Frank groans—wincing as he rolls his neck, blinking away whatever episode he just emerged from.
“I asked you about the fucking bite on your ear,putain,” I warn him, taking a step in so that the muzzle of my gun is practically against his forehead. “I wouldn’t test your luck right now, Frankie.”
Frank just looks up at me—his dark blue eyes glittering with a cold, vacant malice.
“I thought you were supposed to be the smart one. Didn’t Frank call you his chemist?” He sneers up at me, a gleeful smile on his cruel mouth.
Something’s wrong. I know Frank. I know his shit talk, the casual violence that defines him; this is something else, not just shades of gray—but deepest, darkest, blackest night.
“You are Frank, you call me your chemist,” I growl back at him. I know from everything we’ve seen through our connection down the bond with Louise that Frank has been suffering from some kind of dissociative disorder, but I can’t bebothered with diplomacy and care for Frank’s mental health right now; matters of life and death truly are at stake.
“Not me, pal. This is the first time you and I have met.” He grins wildly, leaning forward to pull the bent, half-smoked cigarette that fell from Frank’s lips earlier from a slat in the wooden decking.
He tilts his chin up toward me, waiting for me to light him up.
“Rook? The bastard that nearly killed his fated mate for some shadowy cabal?” I snipe back, refusing to cede an inch—but Rook’s manic smile only widens.
“Ah, so you’ve heard of me then—handsome?” he speaks around the cigarette, one of his raven brows arching suggestively. It's all I can do to not put my boot through his teeth.
“So you really had no fucking clue she was your fated mate, eh? Frankie managed to keep that from you, eh?” I sneer, ashing my cigarette with one hand—tapping the muzzle against Rook’s forehead, right between the eyes.
His wild smile falters near imperceptibly—but it's unmistakable once I see it.
