by Zoey Derrick
“Out, I need to shower.”
“Yup.”
“Hey Rusty?”
“Yeah?” He turns back toward me at the door.
“Thanks. For everything.”
He gives me a smile. “That’s what I’m here for. But make no mistake. If that douche goes back to that apartment, Ryan will make him wish he hadn’t.”
“Good.”
Rusty leaves after that and I climb into the shower.
Dex was lightning fast tonight with his shower. He came into the greenroom to find me sandwiched between Mouse and Talon. His eyes light up when he sees me and I have no doubt that mine do too. I’m finally starting to feel a little bit better, but I’m still waiting for Erica to send me pictures. Then again, I don’t think I really want to see them.
“Hi you,” I say to Dex when he comes to stand over me.
“Hey.”
“You look better,” he tells me.
“I’m feeling better.”
“Good,” he says as he grabs my hands and pulls me up, wrapping his arms around me and planting a warm wet kiss against my lips and I can smell his body wash. I run my fingers through his still damp hair and hold him to me a moment longer until someone clears his throat. He growls against my lips and pulls back.
“Hey, it’s bad enough we have to listen to you two on the bus, we don’t want to watch it too.” Dex and I both turn to gape at Talon.
“You’re fucking joking, right?” Dex teases him. “I’m pretty sure the three of you take the cake on the loud and proud award.”
“Well, that doesn’t bother me,” Talon snorts and the tension is lifted.
“Yeah, whatever, man. I’ll remember that the next time you’re pounding away. I’ll come pound on your door.”
Everyone starts to laugh and I nod to Mills, telling him to open the door. “Sit,” I tell Dex and he pants like a dog. I smack his shoulder and he takes a seat.
I go over to the bar and grab his usual beer and one for myself. After opening them and tossing the caps, I turn around and head back to Dex.
Something in the corner of the room captures my attention. Though it doesn’t fully register before I drop the beers and they shatter across the greenroom floor. People jump back, my head starts spinning and the next thing I realize is that the floor is rising up pretty fast. “Raine!” someone shouts, but that’s the last thing I hear.
“What the hell happened?” I nearly shout as I take Raine from Beck’s arms. He managed to catch her just before she hit the floor.
“I don’t know, Dex. She just panicked and fainted.”
“Don’t let anyone out of this room,” I bark.
“Already on it,” Beck whispers.
“Where’s Rusty?”
“I’m here, bro.” I look up at him.
“Is he, what’s his fucking name, is he here?”
“No, Ryan sent me his mugshot when he was arrested before. He’s not here.”
“Then what the fuck…” I look down at Raine.
“Come on glowbug, wake up baby.” I run my hand along her cheek while Beck checks her pulse.
“Keep talking to her,” he whispers.
“Come on, princess, wake up. You can do it. Please.” I keep sputtering out things to say, pet names, nicknames, her name until she finally twitches in my arms.
Then out of nowhere she pulls in a deep breath and sits straight up.
“Thank fuck,” I growl and she turns to look at me. “Hi you,” I say with a smile.
“Hi, wha…” She looks around, confused.
I watch her as realization dawns on her. “I’m going to kill that mother fucker,” she all but shouts.
“Who?” Rusty, Beck and I all say at once.
“Andrew.” She moves to stand up. I look at Beck and raise an eyebrow at him, then give him that weird frown indicating that I don’t know what the fuck she’s talking about.
She’s on her feet, but grabs on to my head to steady herself. I remove her hand and take it in mine.
The next thing I know, she’s charging over me, straight into the corner. Walking toward some wiry looking geek in the corner. We’d all noticed him when he came in, seemingly out of place for a rock concert. I watch as my feisty kitten walks right up to him and smacks him across the face.
Mills wraps his arms around Raine and Casey takes hold of the fucker she smacked. I get to my feet just as Mills, Raine, Casey and the dork start walking out the door of the greenroom. I follow behind them, much to Beck’s chagrin. When we clear the doorway, I notice that they keep walking all the way out the back door.
“Let me go.” I hear Raine struggling against Mills’ hold on her.
“Not until I know you’re not going to hit him anymore.”
“I’ll fucking hit this dirty ass son of a bitch all I fucking want.”
I clear the back door and am now standing a few feet behind him.
“Not on my watch, you won’t. I won’t have you getting arrested,” Mills states matter of factly. “Now, are you going to calm down?”
“No, let me go. I’m going to kill that son of a bitch.”
“Whoa.” I move to stand between her and the guy in Casey’s arms. “Look at me,” I command her and she settles instantly in Mills’ arms. “Why would you kill him?”
“Because that nerdy son of a bitch is my fucking brother.”
Red… that’s the only color I manage to see. I turn on my heels headed straight for Casey, without even realizing I’m doing it. Then, out of nowhere, my fist connects with his face, hard enough to knock him out of Casey’s arms and onto the ground.
“Fuck!” I hear Mills behind me. “Beck, Troy,” he barks into his mic. “Leroy,” he shouts.
Heavy footfalls come flying across the pavement and the backdoor flies open and all I can do is stare at the son of a bitch on the ground, holding his face. Casey, abandoning the duckweed on the ground, wraps his arms around me. “Fuck off, I’m fine.” I fight his hold. “Don’t,” I snap and Casey lets go. I kneel down, catching my breath as Casey assesses him on the ground.
“Do you need a doctor?” Casey asks him.
The motherfucker spits at Casey’s feet and Casey reacts by grabbing a hold of his shirt and lifting him up. “Explain your purpose here,” Casey demands as he sets him on his feet. “You’re obviously unwelcome, so why have you come here?”
“I came to talk to my sister,” he says and I scoff.
“You lost that fucking right ten years ago, Andrew,” Raine shouts from behind me.
I turn to Mills. “Let her go.”
He does and she comes to stand next to me. “You’re no longer my brother, you son of a bitch.”
“Such foul language, Lorraine.”
“My name is not Lorraine.” I can see the fiery anger building in her clenched fists. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I came to bring you home.”
“You’ve been stalking me. You were there in Greensboro, weren’t you?”
“Jesus is ready to welcome you home.”
“Bullshit,” she spits and now I can finally see it clear enough. “If Jesus was so fucking great, Andrew, I wouldn’t have been raped, I wouldn’t have been abandoned by our parents. By you. Do you ever think about that? Does it ever fucking occur to you that they, your parents, are wrong?”
“Mom and Dad want you to come home.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“It’s true,” Andrew argues.
“Really? Then where the fuck are they? Are they here?” Andrew shakes his head. “Did they fucking send you here?” Again he shakes his head. “So you just thought you could show up here and haul me back to Hickory like nothing happened? Like it hasn’t been ten years? Did you think that I could stand on their doorstep and they’d welcome me back with open arms? I hate to blow up your delusional bubble here, Andrew, but one, I would never return to Hickory, and two, if I was so fucking important to them, I would have never been thrown out, wou
ld have never been left to fend for myself and Jesus fucking Christ…”
“Don’t use our Lord’s name in vain, Lorraine.”
“Fuck you, you fucking moron, get off your god damn high horse and go back to mom and dad.”
“Dad’s dying.”
That was the last thing I expected him to say.
“He’s desperate to repent his greatest sins.”
Without even missing a beat Raine replies, “Well, he can die with his greatest sin unforgiven. Now get out of my sight. If you ever show up around here again, there isn’t a single fucking person out here that will stop me from killing you.” I watch as she charges past him. Casey and Leroy are standing between him and her so that he can’t get to her and she runs full tilt onto the bus.
I walk up to Andrew. “You ever come back here, come around her, come anywhere near her ever again, if she doesn’t kill you, I will. Now run on back to mommy and daddy and tell them that their daughter is dead as far as they’re concerned.” I turn to Casey. “Get him the fuck off the property, make sure he leaves.”
I push past all of them, walking onto the bus in a huff, stomping my way back to our room, back to my woman.
When I round the corner into our alcove, she’s standing there, her back to me, sobs wracking her entire body. “Raine.” She jumps.
“That motherfucking cocksucker. Who the fuck does he think he is?”
I frown. “I wish I knew.”
She sobs out. I reach out to touch her back and she pulls back, turning and plowing into me, her hands in fists beating against my chest. “Shh, glowbug, I’m here. He’s gone. Come on, princess, please.” I rub my hands along her back, comforting her as she settles into my embrace.
“I’ve spent ten years trying to forget them, trying to move on from what they did to me, and now, tonight, when I finally feel like I’m capable of letting it all go and moving on, he has to fucking show up here.”
“You said he was stalking you…”
“Remember my out of body experience?”
“Yes,” I say with hesitation.
“I’m pretty sure I convinced myself it wasn’t real. That it was strictly psychological because that was easier to process. Easier for me to deal with, but in reality, I had a feeling it really was him. The last couple of days in Nashville, I kept getting this creepy, ‘I’m being followed feeling’ but I just thought I was being paranoid.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I’m supposed to take care of you…”
“I know, okay, I just thought I was overreacting. I guess I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that someone would go to those lengths to follow me, to track me down, not now, not after all these years.” She wipes away the tears and I slide down to the floor, bringing her with me and she curls up on my lap. “When your parents died, were you upset?”
I rub her back. “No, I was relieved. But I had a very different relationship with my parents. They didn’t give a rat’s ass, yours care too much, to the point of smothering, there’s a big difference.”
“I don’t see it that way,” she tells me. “I see it the same. There is such a thing as loving someone too much, which I think they thought they did, but the reality was different. They held me back from so much. I saw that when I got to California and I felt like I grew up fifteen years on that bus. I didn’t have a clue about anything. I was so naive to think that I could do it on my own, but…” she pauses as she nuzzles into me, “I figured it out because I had no choice.”
“But look at you now, you’re strong, independent, loving, caring, but yet you maintain a sense of yourself without getting lost in it. You’re probably one of the most loving people I know.” I kiss her forehead.
“I’m going to smother you to death.”
I wrap my arms around her, holding her tight to my chest. “Impossible.” I kiss her forehead again and we say nothing else for some time, until I hear the guys come on the bus and I realize that she’s fallen asleep in my arms.
I managed to get myself up off of the floor with Raine in my lap and to lay her out on the lower rack. Once I lie her down, she settles in and I cover her up before kissing her forehead. With her squared away, I head out into the main cabin of the bus. There’s a lot of conversation going on.
“Jesus, Dex, what the hell happened?” Talon asks as soon as I round the corner.
I put my finger to my lips, shushing them. “She’s asleep,” I say quietly. “It was her brother.”
“My god, I can’t imagine anything that would set her off on her brother like that,” Addison says.
I look at her. “I’m surprised she didn’t kill him.”
“That bad?” she questions.
I nod. “Her family booted her when she was eighteen.”
“Fuck, so what the hell was he doing here?” Kyle asks.
“Trying to convince her that after ten years her parents wanted her to come back home.”
“Why’d they kick her out in the first place?” Addison asks.
I sigh. I knew someone was going to ask the question. “She grew up in a very strict, very religious household. When she was eighteen, barely in college, she was beaten and raped.”
I watch shock cross everyone’s features and Addison covers her mouth and sits down. “That’s no reason to abandon your child,” Addison says as she strokes her hand over her growing bump.
“It is when you’re left with no choice but to have an abortion.” I jump and turn to see Raine standing behind me.
“I’m sorry…” I start to say and she stops me with a small smile and a shake of her head.
“When the choice comes to your own survival or the loss of both lives…what would you choose?”
I look to Addison who has tears in her eyes, “I would have done the same thing.”
“Well, my parents would rather have seen me buried than have an abortion, regardless of the circumstances behind the pregnancy. It didn’t matter that I was beaten, near death and raped, a life was a life. When I got out of the hospital and returned to my parents’ house, all my personal things were thrown out on the front lawn. I spent less than twenty-four hours in town before climbing on a bus for California. I knew my parents had talked, had told them what I’d done and when you come from a town with the same views and morals, or lack thereof, as my parents I may as well have been walking around with an A on my clothes.”
She comes to stand next to me and I wrap my arm around her shoulders, providing comfort and security. “Well, you have nothing to be ashamed of around us,” Mouse, of all people, says.
“We have no grounds to judge anyone based on their past, present or future,” Talon adds.
“We’re family,” I declare, and I mean it.
My declaration is met with cheers, laughter and good times. Within another twenty minutes the bus was pulling away from the Atlanta arena and we were on our way to Orlando.
Raine and I stayed up in the kitchen area with the guys and Addison for some time. Raine and Addie even made us all dinner while we bantered and bullshitted.
I realized that we hadn’t done this in a really long time and I started to feel guilty about that.
Feeling guilty reminds me of how much things have changed these past few weeks. Before I would have never given a shit, but before this tour started, we were all really close and gradually we’ve all managed to separate ourselves. Talon and Kyle with Addison, me with Raine, and watching Calvin and Eric now, their dynamic is changing. They treat each other a little differently than how they would have in the past. It causes me to raise an eyebrow but who am I to judge.
Tori joins us to eat.
“Sorry guys, we’re gonna stop up here.”
“Everything alright?” Kyle asks the driver.
“Yup, we need to pick up a passenger.”
“Who?” Talon asks.
“Mills,” the driver replies and we all look at each other in confusion.
“Why didn’t he just call me?” Tori says, not really expecting
an answer.
We travel another ten minutes or so before we pull into a gas station. “Do I have time to run inside?” Kyle asks the driver.
“Go for it, we’ll wait for you.”
“Thanks.” Kyle hops off the bus as soon as it stops and Mills hops on.
“Good, you’re still awake,” he says to Raine who’s sitting on my lap.
“What’s wrong?” she asks nervously. Mills looks around, everyone is here. “I have no secrets, nothing to hide,” she tells him and he finally decides it’s okay to talk.
“Someone showed up at your apartment.”
“Fuck, who?” I ask.
“We don’t know. It wasn’t the same guy that we have previously identified as Michael,” Mills says as he reaches for his phone. “Ryan snapped a picture through the window. He was looking around, even hopped your patio and was pushing against the plywood. Here,” he says turning the phone around so that Raine can look at it.
I look at the picture, hard. Then a little harder. “That’s not a guy,” I say, my anger boiling up to the surface. I squint, looking at it a little more. She’s familiar, but…
“I’m gonna fucking kill her,” Addison barks.
Raine can barely get a word out before Addison is grabbing her phone. She presses a couple of buttons. Then holds it to her ear.
“Jess, it’s Addie.”
Jess… Jess… I notice Peacock sits up a little straighter, paying more attention now. “No, no I’m fine, yes, they’re fine too, listen, I need you to do me a huge fucking favor, like right this minute.” There’s a pause. “I need you to go to my condo. I will call and tell the doorman to let you into my apartment. I need you to let me know if you notice anything wrong, missing, damaged or…yes, no, yup. Alright, yes, call me once you’re there…okay, thank you Jess.” She hangs up.
“Mind cluing the rest of us in on what you know, love,” I growl at her.
“That, in the picture,” she gestures to the picture in Mills’ hand, “That’s Sam.”
Dex practically dumps me on the floor in his attempt to get up. “Dex?” I squeak as he stomps off of the bus.
