Havoc: Mayhem Series #4

by Jamie Shaw

  “I am so sorry,” I grovel on Thursday, but Luke is unfazed by my pleading.

  “That makes two,” he counts. “Two times you’ve forgotten about me.”

  “I haven’t forgotten about you,” I assure him as I unwrap a chickenless chicken wrap in the parking lot of the Mickey D’s closest to the shelter. When faced with eating in the parking lot, making my bedroom smell like French fries, or having to talk to Danica while I eat my dinner, I’ll choose parking lot every time. “I’ve just been busy,” I continue. “But I miss you.” I pause with the wrap an inch from my mouth. “Like crazy.”

  Ever the pragmatist, Luke asks, “How do you have time to miss me if you’re that busy?”

  I’m chewing a mouthful of thousand-calorie goodness when I answer, “I’m going to show you how much I miss you when I squish you in front of all your friends.”

  He snorts. “What friends?”

  “What happened to Jimmy?” I ask with more concern in my voice than I intended, and I can almost hear Luke’s eyes roll.

  “He got a girlfriend.”

  “So?”

  “So, you know girls. No more Deadzone, no more arcade, no more fun.”

  I clear my throat. “Not all girls are like that.”

  “Sisters don’t count,” Luke counters, and before I can argue, he says, “Hey, did you know Mike broke up with Danica?”

  I almost choke on my tomato-lettuce-mayo wrap. “What?”

  “Yeah. We were playing Deadzone last night, and—”

  “You were playing with Mike?”

  “We play all the time. But”—I can hear the frustration in my brother’s voice—“can you just listen?”

  “Yeah,” I say, doing my best to be patient. “What?”

  “So I forget how it came up, but he told me he broke up with Danica, and I was going to tell him he should go out with you—”

  “You didn’t,” I gasp, and Luke practically growls at me.

  “Let me finish.”

  I hold back a growl myself, and Luke waits to make sure I’m going to stop interrupting him before he continues.

  “I told him I knew who he should go out with, but he told me he already likes someone else. He said she’s really smart and pretty, but . . . I think you should just try to get in there anyway.”

  “‘Get in there’?” I ask, and Luke acts like I’m an idiot.

  “Yeah, like get him to like you.”

  I don’t know whether to laugh or lecture him on the importance of minding his own business. “And why would I do that?”

  “Don’t you ever want to get married?” Luke asks, and this time, I do actually choke.

  I have to set down my wrap and cough into my elbow to clear my throat, and my eyes are watering when I say, “Married?”

  “You’re twenty-three,” my brother reasons, and my brow furrows at my steering wheel.

  “Right. Twenty-three.”

  “Don’t you want kids?”

  “Luke!”

  “I’m just saying, sis . . . I don’t think you’re going to find another guy as good as Mike.”

  My appetite disappears as I rub a spot between my eyes, use the back of my hand to wipe the mayo oil away, and take a calming breath. I’m not about to start discussing my love life with a twelve-year-old—much less one who shares my last name—so I tell him half of the truth. “I’m concentrating on school right now.”

  Undeterred, my brother says, “He asks about you sometimes.”

  “He does?” I question before I can think better of it.

  “Yeah. Last night I told him about that time you tried singing to those cows to herd them. What was the name for that again?”

  “Oh my God,” I say. “You did not.”

  Luke’s laughter almost makes my mortification worth it, but I’m still going to kill him. “He thought it was funny.”

  Kulning. It’s an ancient Swedish herding call I saw on YouTube, and I sounded like an extremely drunk yodeler. My brother sat on the fence laughing his ass off. “And you expect him to marry me?” I groan.

  “He said he thought it was cute.”

  At the word cute, I can’t help smiling to myself, but I quickly school my expression back into neutral territory. “Well, I hate to break it to you, kid, but I didn’t go through all this trouble just to drop out of school and start popping out babies.”

  “Who said you had to drop out of school just to start dating him?” Luke asks, and I realize what I’ve said.

  It’s a choice that’s been nagging at the back of my mind, one that I’ve been trying to ignore. And without meaning to, I already gave Luke an answer: I didn’t go through all that trouble—five years of part-time community college, tons of declined financial aid and scholarship applications, nearly three months of putting up with Danica, two days of agony waiting for her to call her dad—just to throw it all away.

  “Can we talk about something else?” I beg, rolling down my car window for some fresh, freezing air.

  “Like what?”

  “Like when you’re going to get your own girlfriend,” I tease to make sure Luke forgets about the current topic, and when he groans and starts trying to find his own subject change, I try to just enjoy talking to my little brother. I try not to think of Mike or impossible decisions, and I try to forget how sick to my stomach I feel. I even promise Luke I’ll play Deadzone with him that night, and I do—along with Mike. The three of us play and laugh, and Luke does a not-so-subtle job of trying to convince Mike of my awesomeness. When we end the game, Mike calls me and we laugh about it, and he assures me he agrees with every single thing Luke said. My cheeks are stained red as I listen to him talk, and by the time he wishes me sweet dreams, I’m not entirely sure I’m not already living in one.

  But then the call ends, and it’s just me in a bed in a room in Danica’s apartment. I fall asleep knowing that Mike is leaving on tour in three days, that I’ll see him in two, and that it will probably be for the very last time.

  Chapter 28

  I’m no stranger to feeling out of place. High school parties, funerals of family friends I never met, Danica’s thirteenth birthday at an upscale hair and nail salon that included all of the most popular girls in her school . . . I didn’t exactly feel comfortable at any of them, but never have I felt as out of place as I do walking to the pond on Saturday afternoon.

  There are people everywhere.

  I had to take a shuttle. A freaking shuttle. Everyone was directed to park in a massive parking lot a few miles from the location. There were signs, workers conducting traffic—I knew at the sight of bright orange cones and professionally printed ghost video signs that I was in over my head. I parked my car in a shimmering sea of vehicles, and I tried to blend in as I followed everyone else to where the buses were picking people up.

  So many people.

  Pink hair, blue hair, pierced noses, mohawks, dresses, Chuck Taylors, high heels, fishnets, leather pants, tutus, leggings, belly shirts, skinny jeans, choker necklaces, tattoos. I tried not to stand out in my faded blue hoodie, five-year-old Levi’s, and clearance-rack boots.

  The buses eventually dropped us off at an access road on the opposite side of the pond from where our group hiked last time, and I once again had to swallow my nerves to keep my feet moving forward.

  Trucks, everywhere. And not all small trucks, though I did think I recognized Mike’s cherry-red Dodge Ram. No, massive trucks, fit for hauling military equipment or full-grown trees. And tractors, all kinds. They honked for people to jump away from the narrow trail to the pond as they rumbled past us, carrying all sorts of equipment that once again reminded me how big this video is, how big the band is, how big Mike is.

  How small I am.

  I swallowed the growing lump in my throat and continued walking, and the crowd thickened . . . and thickened . . . and thickened. I knew even before I broke through the tree line that the scene was going to be insane, judging by the way the noises grew louder . . . and louder . . .
and louder. But nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when I stepped into that clearing.

  Hundreds, thousands of people, and more still coming behind me. Most of them colorful extras for the video, but also tons of guys with headsets and black staff T-shirts, all buzzing around like single-minded worker bees.

  I’m standing there, on the precipice of the clearing, frozen with paralyzing shock, when a hand slaps down onto my shoulder.

  “How fucking sick is this!” a guy with neon-green hair and a barbell in his eyebrow cheers in my face, and I manage a mute nod that prompts him to hoot excitedly and bound away. He’s like a very high Mr. Tumnus . . . I’m officially in punked-out Narnia.

  I fumble my phone from my pocket before any more woodland creatures can realize I’m a human girl where human girls don’t belong, and Dee’s name stays on my phone as it rings and rings and rings. “Oh God,” I worry out loud when I get sent to voice mail, staring around at dozens of faces I don’t recognize.

  “Excuse me,” I blurt, catching a passing staff guy by the arm before I lose him in the chaos. He furrows his brow at me, and I rush to explain, “I’m supposed to meet with the band.”

  “Yeah, kid,” he dismisses, already shrugging from my grasp. “You and everyone else. You’ll get to meet them later.”

  “No,” I say, uselessly trailing him as he walks away from me. “Listen, I—”

  “Hailey!”

  Never so happy to hear Dee’s voice, I spin around and find her in the mess of a crowd. She’s not hard to spot, considering everyone else is looking at her too: at her bluish purple mini dress, her knee-high boots, her long, long legs. Long chocolate-brown curls cascade over her shoulders, and she wraps me in an excited hug. “I am so happy I won’t have to kill you for not coming!”

  “This is insane,” I say, and her giddy laugh shakes us both.

  “I know, right?!” She pulls away, smiling wider than I’ve ever seen her smile. “They told me it was going to be big, but, holy shit, just look at all this!”

  With my trusted friend by my side, I finally take it all in, the massive scope of it all. The entire clearing has been mowed and manicured, the grass now cut to climb up only the edges of my boots instead of the legs of my jeans. Giant white generators can be heard buzzing faintly under hundreds of voices. And everywhere, breaking up the body count, is tech equipment: cranes and cherry pickers with gigantic spotlights, massive cameras attached to off-roading Segways, rolling tracks sunken into the grass. Dee starts pointing things out: Condor light, jib, Fisher dolly. I stare wide-eyed at her, and she flashes me a smile.

  “What, like I can’t learn a thing or two?”

  The whizzing of a drone steals our attention, and my eyes follow it through the sky and into the setting sun. I squint, raise my hand to my forehead, and try to see where it went.

  “Alright, listen up.”

  Adam Everest’s voice booms from every direction, from loudspeakers hidden in the trees, and the crowd goes absolutely wild. I can hear the distinct sound of Adam trying to cover up a laugh before Dee grabs my hand and starts dragging me in the direction everyone else is rushing as they clap and cheer and scramble for a better view. “We’re about to get started,” Adam announces as I struggle to hold on to Dee’s hand, getting swallowed alive by a mass of people much larger than me. She doesn’t let me go, finagling people out of her way and then mine to keep us moving forward. “So I just want to tell you a little about the song and what we’re going to be doing.”

  Dee suddenly stops, and when I squeeze in next to her, I see why. A rope barrier blocks us from moving forward, and beyond that is the edge of the grass. And beyond that, the pond. And beyond that, Adam standing at the edge of the steel platform with a microphone to his lips. He looks every bit the rock star in distressed black jeans and a tailored black button-down, with bracelets strung around his wrists and hair down to his shoulders, but my attention is already moving past him, to the back of the platform where Mike is sitting at his drums.

  He’s wearing that same Dallas Stars hoodie he wore here last time—the one that made my toes curl then, and the one that makes my toes curl now. He has a drumstick in his hand, and while Adam talks to the crowd, Mike twirls it between his fingers. A smile dances onto my face as I realize he’s practicing one of the baton tricks I taught him a few nights ago.

  “So that’s why the song is called ‘Ghost,’” Adam continues. “So the concept for this video is basically that the music is bringing you back to life. It’s going to start with all of you in the forest surrounding this clearing.” Adam stretches out an arm and spins all the way around. “We’re going to use CGI to make you look really washed out. But as the song plays, you’re going to walk from the trees, and as you get closer to this platform, where we’ll be performing the song, you’re going to gain color.”

  “The costume department has been handing out cards,” Shawn announces into his own mic, stepping up beside Adam. “There are trailers back where you guys came in. They’re color-coded. If you haven’t already visited the trailer that matches your card, you need to do that as soon as we’re done here.”

  “We want everyone dressed bright as fuck,” Adam explains, and Shawn chuckles.

  “Right. Most of you got the memo and look awesome, but if you got a card, there’s a reason for it, so go to the trailers.”

  “No logos,” Adam reminds everyone, and Shawn nods.

  “No logos. If you’re wearing a logo and costume missed you, go to the trailers.”

  Adam glances at a guy standing off to the left, who I’m guessing must be some kind of video producer. “Are we forgetting anything?” The guy gives a thumbs-up, and Adam continues. “So we’re probably going to spend a few hours doing the tree shit.”

  “We have to cut after every single angle,” Shawn explains.

  “But it’s going to look sick when we’re done.” A few cheers fly out from the crowd, brightening Adam’s electric smile. “By the time you reach the crowd that’s going to form around this pond here”—Adam gestures to the water surrounding the platform—“you’re going to be in full bright color, and you are going to be rocking out. By the time you get from there”—he points to the trees—“to here”—he points to a random girl at the edge of the water, who looks like she seriously might faint—“we want you to be out of your mind excited.”

  “Big smiles,” Shawn illustrates. “Hands in the air, jumping up and down.”

  “Rocking the fuck out,” Adam finishes, and when I glance back at Mike, a big contagious smile is on his face. I find myself mirroring it, my excitement for him washing over me. Even though I didn’t know him when he was younger, I know how hard he worked for this. I can tell by the way he plays those drums, like he used to practice even in his dreams.

  “Still good?” Shawn asks the producer, getting another thumbs-up.

  “So when we’re performing for the video,” Adam says, “it’s just going to be for show. You’ll hear the song, through the loudspeakers, but we won’t be live.”

  A murmur goes through the crowd, and Adam shakes his head at Shawn. “They have so little faith.” Shawn grins, and Adam looks back at the crowd. “I haven’t even gotten to the best part yet.”

  “You should probably get to it,” Shawn advises with a chuckle, and Adam smiles.

  “We’re going to have to get some shots of us playing, but then after that, this whole fucking clearing”—he spins around again, playing to the giant crowd surrounding him on every side—“is going to be transformed into the biggest rager you’ve ever fucking seen.”

  I flinch when excitement consumes the crowd, causing a deafening cacophony of screams and cheers. Over the roar, Shawn says, “We’ve got trucks coming that are going to be loaded with kegs and food and glow shit.”

  “And we’re going to perform two songs from our next album for you guys, so you’ll get to hear them before anyone else,” Adam adds, and the screaming grows even more insane. I look back at Mike,
my heart skipping a beat when I realize he’s found me in the crowd. He smiles wide, and then, in spite of all the screaming, he starts twirling the drumstick between his fingers, showing me that he’s mastered the trick I taught him.

  With my cheeks blushing red, I giggle—giggle. And then I thank God he can’t hear me.

  “This guy over here is going to give you more direction as we shoot,” Shawn says, pointing to the director. “So listen to what he has to say. If you haven’t already signed your release form, head to that lady over there because you need to sign it in order to be in the video.” Shawn points to a woman standing further back in the clearing, who waves. “And if you got a card from the costume crew, head back the way you came and let them fix you up.”

  I frown down at my boring hoodie, jeans, and boots, but Dee nudges me with her elbow and shakes her head, telling me not to worry.

  “And give yourselves a big hand for coming out tonight,” Adam praises, ever the energetic frontman. “You’re going to be in a music video for The Last Ones to fucking Know!”

  Chapter 29

  My outfit is a perfect combination of Dee and Rowan.

  My zippered black ankle boots: Dee. My solid black leggings: Rowan. My I-don’t-even-want-to-know-how-expensive leather jacket: Dee. My finger-curled hair: Rowan.

  And my dress . . . my dress. The soft layers of tulle remind me of Rowan, but the bright, bright bloodred color is all Dee. And it’s strange, how all of this together feels like me. Like a version of me I never knew existed, but which I’d like to get to know.

  Standing in front of a full-length mirror in the band’s personal trailer, I’ve never felt prettier in my entire life.

  “I can’t even get over how gorgeous you look,” Dee praises, lifting the delicate red tulle away from my knees and watching the way it falls. Rowan brushes my bangs away from my face and smiles at me in the mirror.