Naomi Knox is a murderer.
The thought doesn't bother me as much as it should. I get the feeling that the people in the video had it coming and try not to delve too deep into that line of thinking. She'll tell me about it. I can tell from her body language that she's already accepted that she has to spill her guts for me. If I find out they molested her though, I might go ballistic. Any man that thinks he can take a woman without her will disgusts me. Pathetic.
I trail behind Naomi and finish my joint, ending up standing in awkward silence next to her drummer friend while he glares at me, and she stashes the phone bits somewhere in the back of the bus. I do my best to ignore him, pretty fucking sure that if something starts between us, it's gonna end up ugly.
I take deep breaths to calm my nerves and try to bring myself down from the nervous high I've been on all night. That video seriously screwed with my head. I mean, I admit to myself how I feel about this chick and then I get railroaded with crap like that? What a load of bull. Whoever sent it had some pretty fucked up intentions in mind. I point at the fridge and keep my eyes off that emo dude's face and on Naomi's ass as she bends down and messes with something under her bunk.
“I'm gonna grab a beer.” I reach for the fridge door and yank it open, grabbing a couple cans and tossing one to Knox when she starts back this way. She catches it in her hand and then drops it in her purse, pausing next to me to reopen the fridge. She grabs a six pack and then gestures at me to follow her outside again, past groups of loitering people, trailers, buses, until we end up sitting on the curb as far from the action as humanly possible.
Behind us, the highway flashes with lights and rumbling engines, busy and getting busier. In the distance, I can see the sun rising up from behind the mountains. I pop the top on my can and swig it.
“I'm going to be blunt with you, okay?” she says, and I shrug.
“Haven't seen you as anything but,” I tell her as I study her face and wonder when she'll figure out that I'm after her, for keeps this time. A smirk curls my lip, but I force it back. I can't let her know that I've come to this abrupt decision. She'll think I'm fucking nuts. I think I'm fucking nuts. Everybody does. But shit, when the heart wants something, it'll do anything to get it, and right now, mine's in a fucking frenzy.
“Well, I was born, put up for adoption, adopted.” She puts her beer to her lips, and I watch as her throat works, swallowing the alcohol down like it's water. When she's finished, she takes a deep breath and crumples the can, tossing it into her purse and starting in on a second. I rush to catch up. Turner Campbell doesn't get drunk under the table. Nuh uh. “My adoptive parents were killed in a car accident when I was seven.” She smiles tightly at me. “Am I going too fast for you?” I lick my lips and lean in close.
“You go as fast as you want, baby.” My fingers trace down her upper arm, and she shivers. “But when you're finished, I might have you go back for all the little details.” I smile, and Naomi curls her lip at me. She acts like we never fucked, and it annoys the shit out of me. I wonder if she's doing it on purpose. She can't lie to me though. No matter how she acts, what she says, what she does, I saw her eyes wet. Thinking back, I figure she probably thought I meant something else. But all that dryness there was lit up for a brief second. I do my best to keep the smirk off my face.
“I want to know why you give a shit all of a sudden, why you care to know all those little details. What do you want from me, Turner?” I lean back with a sigh and put my arms out behind me.
“Okay, so they died and then what?” I ignore her question.
“Then I'm no different from every other troubled foster brat. I was bounced from place to place, ended up with a family who liked to fuck their own daughter, starve her, and beat her unconscious. When they came for me, I got rid of them. And then I went searching for you, found you, and left with an even bigger problem. I got an abortion and then I moved around the country for awhile.” Naomi pauses and shakes her head hard, like she just wants to forget everything that ever happened to her. “I ended up back in Tulsa which was either a curse or a blessing, haven't decided which yet.” She stops again to narrow her eyes. “Hayden and I formed Amatory Riot and then I ended up here. Any questions?”
I just sit there for a moment trying to process. Jesus Christ. Not exactly what I was expecting. I open my mouth several times and end up snapping it shut without saying a thing. What is there to say to that really? So I fall back on what I'm comfortable with. Flirting. I run my fingers through my hair which is disgusting as shit. First thing I'm doing when I'm done here is taking a shower.
“Tons, but first, I want to know something else.” Naomi sets her beer down and digs out a smoke, holding it delicately between two fingers as she stares off into the distance with clouded eyes. I watch her for a moment and then I look around, checking to see if there's anybody watching. We're pretty well hidden here, drenched in shadow surrounded by brightness, lost in plain sight. I do my best to hold back a grin. I can imagine all sorts of things we could get away with over here. Doubt Naomi would be up to any of it though. “What did we do that night?”
“Pardon?” she asks, blowing smoke out in rings. My cock goes stiff immediately. Smoke rings are kind of a fetish of mine. “You mean sexually?”
“What else is there?” I ask which garners me a sour look. She still doesn't respect me, fine. I can wait for that, but at least I'm not getting angry anymore. As soon as I admitted to myself that I was interested in Naomi, that stopped right away. I try to think of that as a sign that I'm not fucking around here. This is real life shit. “Yeah, sexually.”
“Why?”
“Because I'm not telling the cops you stabbed your parents with scissors.” Naomi jabs the cherry of her cig against the cement so hard that her fingers come back bloody, scraped raw by the rocky surface.
“Turner, listen to me right now. If you can't remember what happened that night, that's your problem. I'm not going to sit here and relive it with you. Look, I gave you my life story. That should be enough.” I raise my brows at her and feel another stir of heat in my stomach. Okay, so maybe the anger didn't stop completely, but it's better. Anybody else talking to me like that … Let's just say, it wouldn't be good.
“You gave me a ten second rundown, that hardly qualifies.” With a snarl she stands up and spins around to face me, taking her purse with her, getting ready to run away again. Fucking me didn't change her opinion of my character, I guess. Or she wasn't impressed. I look up at her and lick my lips. If I'm going to win this girl, I'm going to have to use a different approach. The Turner Campbell style is better equipped to rounding up groupies. I stay quiet.
“Turner, listen up. That girl I warned you about before is my foster sister, Eric's sister. She's the one that sent you the video.” She pauses and chews the inside of her cheek. She's already backing up, getting ready to leave. “The reason I warned you about her is because she might be dangerous. She's … fuck, how do I put this? She's obsessed with me.” Naomi pauses and looks me straight in the face. “To the point where she was hospitalized for it. Now she's following me and she's doing … strange things. I'm going to say this once, so I hope you'll hear me out: be careful.”
“You serious?” I ask her, but I can already tell from her facial expression that she is.
“Watch your back, Turner,” she tells me as she turns away. “See you onstage.”
I hop to my feet, ready to follow after her and then force myself to stay back. I've gotta get mentally prepared for this falling in love crap. This shit's a lot harder than I first thought. Besides, the war of love can't be won with greasy hair and sweaty fucking pits.
I head back to the bus to rethink my game plan.
I storm across the parking lot, angrier than I was before, so pissed off that I can hardly think straight. My hands are shaking, and I see red. The problem is, I can't figure out why. Nothing happened just now, and I hardly told Turner anything. I was going to, was going to break it down, fe
ed him every last detail, but then I remembered: I hate him. I hate him, and I fucked him yesterday. Gonna have to get used to dealing with that.
Dax tries to intercept me as I climb on the bus, but I ignore him. I could never love Dax because I … because I hate Turner so much. There's not room for any other emotion inside of me right now. I thought I was okay, that I could fuck him and forget about all of it, but I'm not. If I thought telling Turner about the abortion would free me from his hold, then the only person I was fooling was myself.
There's so much shit going on around me that I can barely breathe. I want to be empty and carefree and emotionless and instead, I get all of this drama and angst. Fuck.
I strip off my clothes in the middle of the hallway and don't care that Wren is probably whacking it to my naked body. I put on some underwear and a tank top before I fall into bed, forgetting until the last second that Hayden gave me that horrible photograph. Scrambling out of the sheets, I dig my pants out of the dirty laundry and try not to imagine what Spencer would've thought if she'd found it.
I unfold the image and stand looking at it, highlighted by a shaft of brightness that's leaking from the partially closed pocket door that separates the kitchen from the bunks.
I see Hayden naked, standing over a lifeless body. It's naked too, but it's hard to tell whether it was a man or a woman since it's soaked in red, beaten to a near pulp. Bile rises into my throat, and I crumple the image up in my hand, tucking it under my mattress for safe keeping. Hayden didn't tell me shit about this, and I didn't ask. What right do I have anyway? I've killed before, and my guess is, so has she. The picture is just so fucking horrible that I don't even want to think about it. I don't want to know. Whatever it is, it's her secret to keep. All it is to me is a key, so it doesn't change anything. You know what they say – let sleeping dogs lie.
So I crawl into bed and slip my headphones over my ears. They're big fat ones, neon green, and they block out everything around me, sliding over my ears like shields. I turn the music up so loud that Wren actually comes over, jerks the curtain back and turns it down for me.
“You're not Beethoven, dude,” he says, looking like a shadow creature in the dimness back here. I can't even see his face. “If you go deaf, you can't write us anymore music.”
“Fuck you, Wren,” I tell him and then turn over, doing my best to force my mind away from everything – Katie, Eric, Hayden … Turner. Turner. Turner. If I didn't know any better, I'd say I was obsessed with the man. After awhile, I give up trying to deal with this on my own and go for the pills I have stashed in the drawer beneath my bunk. I know just the right combination to knock myself out and make me forget, at least for a few hours anyway.
Once I've got a good night's (or day's I guess since the sun is rising outside the bus) sleep cradled in my hand, I down the pills and fall into the pillow. A short while later, Turner's face appears floating above me.
I'm so drugged up that I'm not sure if what I'm seeing is a dream or a hallucination or if Turner's really right there, bending down low, smelling like soap and mint toothpaste. He climbs into the bunk and slides the curtain closed, pulling my headphones off my ears but leaving the music on, setting them beside my head as he runs a hand down the side of my face.
I try to pinch myself, try to wake up, but I can't really move.
“I was thinking,” he tells me, and I figure then and there that this must be a dream because there is no way in shit that Dax or America would let him come back here like this. They know how I feel about the stupid fuck, probably better than I do. “That you might be, like, my saving grace or something.” Turner pauses and adjusts himself, curling forward so that he can sit in the tiny space of the bunk without any limbs hanging over the side. “I didn't know I even needed one, but that's the point, isn't it? Help comes along when you least expect it.”
“Go away,” I groan, batting at the air in front of me. Turner just smiles and stays right where he is. “I need to get some sleep or I'm never going to survive this shit.” He adjusts himself, tucking his feet underneath his body, so he can lean over me and brush hair away from my forehead. I reach my hands up to push him off, certain that if I do, the dream will break and he'll go away. Instead, I come up against warm flesh and my fingers curl involuntarily, wrapping around his strong biceps.
“Tell me again, and I'll go,” he says, smirking all the while, pressing a kiss to the pulse on the side of my throat. My heart flutters and my arms drop to my sides. I'm getting the most horrible déjà vu right now. I'm getting pulled back to that night when Turner Campbell punched a guy out for me and drove me into town, took me places, romanced the ever living shit out of me. The memory of getting tattooed flies past and then I'm sixteen again, lying on a bed in a hotel while Turner kisses and caresses every single part of my body, treating me like a goddess, promising me that I'll never have to suffer again, that he'll take care of me. Yeah, I knew he was fucked up then. Sure, I did, but I was so lonely and desperate that I wanted to believe him. I had nobody and nothing, and my soul was drenched in the blood of my foster parents, so what else was I supposed to do? My idol was promising me the world. It seemed to good to be true. I should've known better.
So now, Turner, who I guess maybe really is there, is touching me, sliding my tank top up and over my head, running his fingers down my body, caressing my hips. I'm not sure what to do, trapped somewhere between that handful of pills and those memories. That's what I tell myself anyway. I refuse to admit that I actually want him there. That would be sacrilegious at best.
“Turner,” I begin, but he stops me with a gentle kiss, one that's the complete opposite of the bloody teeth smashing thing we've been doing lately. He presses his lips tight against mine and runs his fingers down my body, pushing my legs gently apart. I think he's there to fuck me at first, but then he starts to tease the skin on my inner thighs, brushing his hand down to my knee and back up again, like he's petting a fucking pussy cat or some shit. But it feels so damn good that I let him, relaxing my head into the pillow and letting him massage my tongue with his.
After a few moments of this, Turner takes off my panties and then his shirt, laying across me so that my naked body presses against his skin and my bare crotch lines up with his clothed one. He's erect and ready, but he doesn't take off the sweatpants he's got on. Instead, he continues to touch and feel me, rubbing my breasts in gentle motions, gliding his palm across my nipples. His actions are so unexpected, so unlike anything I'd ever think Turner Campbell would want to do that I convince myself once again that this is all a dream and try to relax into it.
Seriously, I've never had anyone but him touch me like this. It's intoxicating. I mean, it's not like I'm a virgin or anything, but let's just be honest, my sexual experiences have been limited to quick ruts and one night stands. The only boyfriend I've ever had was my damn foster brother and that never went anywhere at all.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I ask when it's clear that Turner didn't come here for sex. As mind boggling as it seems, I'm pretty sure he came here to prove that's exactly what he wasn't looking for. Or maybe he remembers that night, the way he skimmed my body with his lips, the way he teased my nipples with his tongue. Either way, I'm a bit shocked. Or I will be when these damn pills wear off. Right now, I just feel weightless, like I'm floating on a sea of feathers. Fuck.
“Why not?” he asks, and when he lifts his head and smiles at me, I know I'm in trouble. “You're enjoying this, aren't you?” And then Turner descends and buries his head between my thighs, cupping me under the ass with his hands and holding tight, locking me down and flicking his stud across my clit. Tears spring to my eyes and my back arches off the bunk, fighting against the tight grip that Turner's got on me. Holy shit, that feels fucking sickening. Nice to know that mouth's good for something other than singing. And I'd thought that was his only talent. Silly me.
My fingers curl into the sheets as he works his mouth against my cunt, tasting me, not afraid to dive in a
nd use his entire tongue to reach out and penetrate me, draw me into him. He leaves no spot untouched, gliding up and down with his lips, breathing against me, spreading me open and eating me out like he knows everything about me, like we've been together for years. It's fucking weird. Weird because I don't know him, weirder because he doesn't know me, weirdest because that's Turner fucking Campbell down there.
Just when I think he's about to finish and pull away, he slides his fingers into me, and I can't hold back. My body squeezes around him tight and my hands reach down to tangle in his hair. I pull his mouth up to mine and grind my hips against him while he teases me, sliding in and out, drawing gasping breaths that escape my lips and crash into his. All the while, I can feel his erection straining against his pants, begging to fuck me.
“Do it,” I whisper, and he grins like he knows exactly what I'm talking about.
“Not tonight,” he tells me, voice low and rough, like he's about to come in his pants. Still, that self-assured look never leaves his face, and I just know, even through the haze of fatigue and pills and pleasure, that I'm never going to be able to live this down if I come in his fucking arms with tears rolling down my goddamn face. So I reach up and wipe away the moisture with my knuckles, and then before he can stop me, I'm thrusting my hand down his pants and grabbing his dick so tight that my nails cut into his skin and he bites my lip hard enough that I bleed. Seconds later he's blowing a fucking wad into his sweatpants and slamming his knuckles against my pussy, bruising my pelvic bone and drawing an orgasm out of freaking nowhere.
The pleasure grips my body like a vice and sends shockwaves rolling through me, leaving me a panting, shaking mess.
Turner withdraws his hand and wipes it on my blanket.
“God, Knox,” he says as my eyelids start to flicker closed and the word spins around me. “You sure are something else, you fucking know that?”
Consciousness fades, and I pass out.
Real Ugly Page 15
