Before Killing Was Cool ➊ FRERARD

1: Frank Iero Gets His Revenge

C h a p t e r | O n e

Present Day - Frank

"I'm just saying, a baseball bat is the way to go. Knock 'em over the head, bang. If you were really worried about the mess, you wouldn't be using a Remington 870; their guts and all are gonna get all over the place."

He smokes Menthols. Menthols are light and cheap and tasteless so, in my opinion, give the impression of sucking on a dry straw. When he offers me one, I turn it down.

"You really sure about this? Hell, I never was. I can't believe I'm helping you literally murder these guys. But I gotta say, karma is something else." He waves his smoke around, hopping down from the wall and reaching to the grass of the playing field surrounding our high-school, plucking a dirty-looking flower.

He holds his open lighter over its petals which start to turn black. "Humankind are like flowers over a flame, you know. We might fray a little round the edges in the heat but we won't burn until," and suddenly it's catching fire, "we're pushed over the edge. You think this your edge, Frankie?"

He's full of such useless talk. "Shut up, Pete."

"But do you have to do it tomorrow? I mean, do you really have to murder my crush? I was gonna ask him out but I think it would be better if he didn't have his insides on the outside." Pete pockets his lighter and throws away the burning flower. I'm always struck by how short he is, or maybe that's because he's not on the wall anymore and only appears that way from a certain perspective. It doesn't suit him - Pete Wentz shouldn't be small but he always will be.

I tell Pete, my only true friend, everything - including my plan to 'take care of' a few unfortunate students in our school. I wasn't surprised when Pete didn't bat an eyelid when my groans of complaints on how harsh the bullies are to me turned into threats of how I could blow them up. Now it's the real deal - like something out of 'Bang Bang, You're Dead'. I'm going to wipe them out with a tactical shotgun.

The only thing I haven't told Pete is that I intend on using one of the shots on myself, because nobody really plans on shooting up their school and leaving the scene alive.

"So who exactly is on your list again?" Pete inquires. It's incredible how casual he is about the whole thing, and how he doesn't intend on telling a soul about it. I would blame that on true, loyal friendship, but I'm not even sure if we share that - it's more along the lines of mutual toleration, and the fact that we're both social rejects.

I stare at the names scrawled messily across my palm and arm and read them aloud, ending with Pete's fantasy boy - but Pete will get over it; the guy hasn't said more than two words at a time to him.

"You wanna come round to mine tonight? Your place creeps me out and I..." For some reason, Pete can't admit that, of course, he's worried for his friend. Maybe he hopes this idea will buy him time to convince me that, hey, maybe you shouldn't butcher the kids you grew up with.

"Sure but you're not going to talk me out of it," I warn him.

"I wouldn't try to." Pete lightly chews on his cigarette, fiddling with it with his fingers. He looks like he could be sick. "You know what happened minutes before the Columbine massacre? One of the shooters, Harris, he met this guy called Brooks outside, and he told him to go home. He said, 'Brooks, I like you now. Get out of here.' And he did. I don't think you're a psychopath, Frank. You don't have to be."