by Nora Flite
The tape slid wide, enough room for me to inch my fingers out. Every motion turned my adrenaline to gasoline. One wrong move, I'd be set ablaze.
Letting Johnny into my hotel room was the last wrong move I planned to make.
My ankles were attached to the chair legs. Free hands, but nothing to do with them. If Johnny came close, could I do something? Punch him in the teeth is what I want to do, but that won't help me escape.
Looking at my phone, it became clear. If I can grab it, I can text, tell someone where I am. My stomach coiled over and over. But where am I?
Johnny hadn't said. Looking around, it was clearly a motel room. But which one? Scanning the floors, the walls, I looked for something iconic. A crumpled pile of towels revealed the name in poor, faded embroidery: 'Greenmill Motel.' It was like a drum exploded in my brain. Sean told me that! My brother had known the name; would know where I was.
Wouldn't he?
Rejuvenated with determination, I peeked at Johnny. He was on his side, his back to me. This is it! This is my chance! Inching my arms around, I leaned across, ready to grab my phone. My fingertips hovered just as it vibrated. The noise touched my bones.
“For fucks sake!” Johnny cried, rolling over on the old springs. “That damn phone of yours needs to shut up and—hey! How the fuck!? Stop!”
Desperately I snatched my phone, fumbling with sweaty palms to open it, to dial anything. Johnny was on me, digging his grip into mine, wrenching for the device. No, no no no! Inhaling to capacity, I started to scream for help.
His backhand shut me up, but it didn't stop me. Releasing the phone, I rolled forward, knocking the chair over beneath me. Holding onto his legs, I wished he would crack his skull on the table as I brought him down.
No such luck.
“You little fucking bitch!” He buried his grip in my hair. “I told you to stay quiet, you lying—aahh!” I'd buried my teeth into the meaty part near his thumb. Dug in, and just worked my jaw as hard as I could.
When he hit me that time, I saw spots of white.
Next to me, I noticed the phone. I could read the missed calls. Drezden. So many calls from him. Johnny shoved the gag in my mouth, tied it so tight I struggled to get air. “Shut up.” There was no sympathy anymore. “Fuck, were you always the sort to betray people, or did you pick that up from Drez?”
Along my tongue, I tasted coppery blood. It filled me with glee, knowing I'd managed to hurt him. Grunting, Johnny lifted my chair up, forced my arms back behind me. “You actually got the tape off?”
Yanking at him was pointless, but I tried anyway.
The sound of something plastic, scraping; he bound my wrists with more tape. But that wasn't enough, and we both knew it. “You're more trouble than I was ready for,” he muttered. Cloth wrapped next. Socks? A shirt? I didn't know.
Picking up my phone, Johnny frowned. “You think the cops can trace this?” Glancing at me, he waited, like I could answer. “Or... shit. Guess it doesn't matter.” Looking around, he stomped out the smoking remains of his fallen cigarette. “They're going to find me eventually, huh? Fucking fuck.”
He just realized what he's done. Watching blood drip down his arm from my bite marks, I shivered. He really didn't consider what to do next. What would happen to him next.
It did nothing to settle my terror.
It meant Johnny was now debating what to do with me.
Chapter Seven.
Drezden
“Why the hell would you bring her to meet Johnny!?”
Sean bent over the steering wheel, one great hump of regret. “I didn't know he would do something like this!”
It was a waste of time asking how he could be so sure Lola was with Johnny. My gut, cold and turbulent as it was, knew it was the truth. I knew it in every fiber of my being; Johnny Muse had Lola. The girl I would crush a town to dust for, just to find her safe.
The girl I would do anything for.
Fuck the consequences.
Johnny didn't know what he had unleashed.
But he'd find me—it—on his doorstep soon enough.
“How much further?” I growled, ignoring the pain in my thighs. I'd been digging my fingers into my jeans the whole ride.
Squinting out at the growing evening, Sean sighed. “I'm not sure. Fifteen minutes? Maybe?”
“Maybe.”
He shot a glare at me, hammering on the gas to make us go faster. “The motel is on the edge of the city, I can't magically make us appear there!”
“You'd be more useful if you could.”
“Why the hell are you so pissed at me?” he asked, pulling us sharply around a turn. “I took Lola to meet Johnny, but it isn't my fault that the crazy motherfucker grabbed her!”
It's not his fault, I know that. Scrunching my face, I looked out the window. Is that how it happened? I tried to picture it, sliding puzzles pieces together. Sean took Lola to Johnny, then he took her to the Hilton. If she checked in like Brenda said, but then her hotel was a wreck... she wouldn't answer her calls... did he really grab her from her room?
The images fueled my rage even more.
“Now you've gone silent on me,” Sean muttered. “Seriously. Why are you such an asshole to me?”
The question caught me off guard. “Pretty sure you've been just as big of a thorn in my side.”
His eyes darted up, then away. “I had my reasons not to like you.”
“Then we're even.”
“We're not fucking even!” He punched his fist onto the wheel. “You started this shitty thing between us! You had no reason to be such a dick to me years ago, what did I do to deserve your shitty treatment?” In the darkness of the vehicle, his eyes were glowing. “What did I do to you that made you want to hate me so much?”
My lower back was hammering me. What had Sean done to make me sour on him from the beginning? Closing my eyes tight, I breathed through my nose. All he did that day... that entitlement, the heat in his stare of disbelief when I denied him the right to be in my band...
How could I explain to him that he had just reminded me too much of my father?
“Nothing,” I said flatly, “you didn't do anything.”
“Then why? Was I really so bad at guitar? Was that enough reason to—”
“No, that wasn't the reason.” Grabbing my forehead, I dug through the wave of migraine. I was feeling the exhaustion from my overnight trip home, but more so, the emotional drainage from it. And now, with Lola missing, I... “Listen. This will suck to hear, but...” Honesty. “That day, you just made me think you wouldn't cut it. I knew guys like you.” One guy. “Men who couldn't handle the idea they weren't made for greatness.”
Men who tried to destroy those better than them.
Looking over, I saw Sean staring straight ahead. “You're better now than you were years ago,” I said flatly. Those blue eyes flicked my way. “But your sister is miles better.”
A relief I hadn't expected surged through me when Sean snorted with laughter. He allowed a tiny smile onto his face. “Fuck you. Yeah, I know she is.”
“And?” Is he angry over it? “Do you care? That Lola could go as far as she wanted, and you might never get there? Do you hate her for that?”
In my mind, I pictured the rage on my father's features. How his mouth had writhed like a python, his knuckles coated in my mother's blood.
Sean lifted his eyebrows high. “Hate her? Lola?” The engine rumbled softly, the van slowing as we crawled a hill. “Lola's my little sister. I couldn't hate her if I tried, even if she got everything I ever wanted and I didn't.”
Warm compassion, something I didn't feel prepared for, filled me as I listened to him speak. I judged him wrong.
Sean was nothing like my father.
“There,” he whispered, turning the headlights off. Looking out, I saw the small, barely lit motel sitting in the parking lot. It was hunkered down, the flickering sign proclaiming it as our destination. “This is where Johnny was staying, last I knew.”
All at once, my blood began to stir. “You think they're both here?”
Sean hesitated, removing his seat belt hurriedly. “If they aren't, I don't know where else to look.”
His words were heavy. If Lola isn't here, then we have no trail. Pushing the door open, I flared my nostrils in the putrid air of the lot. She has to be here.
She just had to.
Quietly, we approached the building. It was a ghost town, an occasional room showing pale yellow lights. All the doors faced out into the parking lot, some missing numbers on their cracked fronts.
Wordless, Sean and I prowled beneath the rooms, ducking to not be spotted so easily in the windows. Nothing we glimpsed looked useful, the shadows growing the further we moved down the doors.
Are they not here? My heart was crumbling with a wave of distress. Where do we go next, what do we do?
What do I do?
Touching my pocket, I felt my phone. The idea came to me like a battery on my tongue. Squatting down, I grabbed it and began to dial in the dark. Sean came beside me, and as he saw what I was doing, pulled out his own phone.
I was calling Lola, hoping to hear her ringing, any noise at all through the motel walls. For a long time, there was nothing. Crickets sang, and in the far distance, a car honked.
Looking over, I wondered who Sean had dialed. He can't be trying Lola, too, can he?
As I heard her number go to voicemail again, my stomach burning at it happening for what seemed the hundredth time, I caught a sound that stopped my breath.
“Fuck!” A gritty voice shouted down the way, a mere two rooms over. “Shit shit shit, now they're calling me, dammit!”
Sean looked me in the eye. Yes, right. He had Johnny's number. That's who he... I didn't finish my thought. Together we moved, uncaring in our blooming excitement. He's here, she has to be, too!
We didn't have a plan, but that was fine. Both of us wanted the same thing. A shared look was all it took.
Together, we slammed our shoulders into the motel door. Inside, I heard Johnny's swear of surprise; it just fueled me more. The wood was old, not well made. In two, three hits, Sean and I took it down.
And then there she was.
Lola. Lola, who's beautiful blue eyes were boggling at me not in disbelief—no, she had known I would come for her—but in satisfaction. I'd taken her away from strife just by appearing.
Lola. If it was fate or divinity or some other fucking magical thing that had brought us together in life, I didn't know. I didn't care. All that mattered was that she was mine.
I would never lose her again.
Johnny Muse. He saw me before I saw him. In that tiny room, I froze my acid-green eyes on him and felt the moment for what it was. Here, we both realized... here was where his retribution would come.
Lifting his hands to protect himself, he backed into the wall. “Drez! Wait, man! Hold on!”
Distantly, I remembered the day I had kicked him out of my band. How I'd sucker-punched him, watched him flail and backpedal in an attempt to escape my wrath. That day, I'd only wanted him gone. I'd hit him to make a point; to lock in my frustration and anger with a man who cared about nothing but himself.
I'm not that different, I thought in my fog. I saw my fingers come down, wrenching Johnny up by the front of his shirt. I cared only about what I wanted. My music, my fame, my ability to get to the top. Hard work.
In the background, I heard Lola's muffled scream around her gag.
And now...
I just care about her.
Johnny's head slammed into the wall, making the room—my marrow—quake. Again, I pushed him into it. Again, I smashed his body into the hard surface, trying to break him into tiny pieces.
True fear boiled in his eyes. The sight of it brought a smile to my lips. Someone called out to me, but I ignored them. Twisting, feeling Johnny claw at my wrists, I watched him hit the floor. “Drez,” he coughed, red staining his nose. I saw the bruise on his cheek, the scabs of old cuts.
Had Lola done that?
My boot came down, jamming him in the stomach. Liquid ran free from his mouth, smelling like pure whiskey. Reaching low, my fingers trapped his jaw. Johnny struggled; a single knee on his arms pinned him in place.
“Drezden!”
The voice was pure, jolting my attention around. Lola was standing there, leaning on Sean, watching everything. As always, she wore no mask. She was pale as snow, looking on with a grimace. “What are you going to do?” she whispered.
In the room, there was only the sound of heavy breathing. Johnny was wheezing, gawking up at me, a trapped animal. Staring down at him, I tried to recall how this husk of a man had once called himself my friend.
From the start, there had never been the connection between us that Colt and Porter had. Johnny was a wild card, too wild.
I should have known better.
“Drez,” Lola asked again, firmer. “What are you going to do?”
Squeezing Johnny's cheeks, digging in my nails, I ignored his squeak and stared at her once more. I wondered what she saw in my face. Inside, I felt the wretched, clawing visage of the monster I knew I could be. It was hungry, and here, now, lay the decadent chance to taste victory. To chew at the sweet piece of vengeance.
Lifting my chin, I let the words roll free. “I'm going to do what I promised.” Lola didn't blink. I wondered if she still breathed. “I said if I ever saw Johnny's face again... I was going to break his fucking jaw.”
Under my grip, Johnny stiffened. I was letting them judge me. Lola, even her brother, both looked on, knew they could try and stop me. I wouldn't let Sean end this, but if Lola... if she opened her perfect lips and told me to stop...
I would forget my promise entirely.
Closing her tired eyes, Lola turned away. Her permission was given in silence.
The sound of my fist, crushing into Johnny's face, shattering bone as it went, was all that came next.
I was a man of my word.
And the monster had been so very hungry.
Blood soaked my knuckles as I stood. I hoped I hadn't broken my own hand with the punch. Flexing my fingers, I turned away from Johnny's moaning body. Sean stepped aside, showing me the hint of fear living in him. He'd seen what I could do; wanted no part of it. “Call the police,” I said bluntly.
“No need.” Nodding his head, he drew my ears to the distant sound of sirens. “Brenda must have called them like she said she would. That, or someone else in this motel did.”
I didn't care who called. It wasn't important anymore.
What I needed was right in front of me.
Lola met me halfway, not caring about the blood on her cheek when I cupped her face. Her mouth opened, but if she'd wanted to speak... I didn't let her. I buried my lips on hers like she was the first sip of water after days in the desert. Lola, my fucking beautiful, wonderful Lola.
She tasted like victory, like the god damn blue sky.
“Drez,” she whispered, but I ate my name away.
Cradling her in my arms, inhaling her scent until it made my senses blind, I listened to her heart beat. Mine. Mine mine and mine again.
Lola is mine.
And I finally deserved her.
****
The police arrested Johnny, took all of our statements down. It was smooth and professional. Well, minus the one guy who asked me for an autograph.
“Do you need to go to the hospital?” I asked Lola, unable to stop touching her for even a second.
Regret watered her eyes. “I'm fine. My right shoulder hurts a little, but it's nothing. I'm just... god, I'm just so sorry about all of this.”
“Don't be sorry,” Sean said, gravel in the parking lot announcing his steps. “You didn't do any of this. Johnny was the one who went unhinged.”
“I just feel awful that the whole show was ruined,” she mumbled.
Grabbing her chin, I made her look at me. “I don't give a shit about the show, okay? I only needed you to be saf
e. The rest is pointless otherwise.”
Sean chuckled, eyeing the time on his phone. “Too bad we can't have both. Show should have started an hour ago.”
“We should go there anyway,” Lola said, staring between us. “At worse... we should apologize to everyone, tell the fans we're sorry. Just... something.”
I guided her towards Sean's van. “You want that to happen? We'll make it happen. Come on, let's move.”
We all piled into the two-seater. Lola was warm on my lap, her presence fitting against me like my missing piece. That drive could have gone on forever if we could stay like that. I felt... whole. On reflex, I linked my arms around her waist, whispering in her ear. “I'm the one who needs to apologize. You would never have talked to Johnny if I had just told you what you wanted to know.”
Shifting, Lola's hair tickled my cheek. Her lips pressed to my forehead, hands cradling over mine in her lap. “It doesn't matter now.”
“It does matter now,” I declared. It has to matter. “I took care of everything. I'll tell you every single thing about me now, Lola. Everything.”
Her body knotted up. “Took care of...?”
“Holy shit!” Sean shouted, the van turning onto the street where the Paramount theater was. I didn't need to ask what was wrong. The mob gathering outside, the number of security and cops trying to wave people through or around was massive.
Tugging out my phone, I held it to my ear. “Brenda,” I said when she picked up, “what the hell is going on?”
“Please tell me you're all outside! Is Lola okay, is everyone okay? God, Drezden, you won't believe—”
“What,” I said sharply, “is going on?”
The edge of her voice wavered with nerves, as well as excitement. “We managed to delay the show. Everyone is super pissed, but we did it. Can you... is it wrong to ask if you...”
Lola had been leaning in, listening to the call. Grabbing the phone from me, she shouted into the receiver. “We'll play, yes! We'll do it!”
Sean was staring at me, slowly shaking his head in wonder. “Tell me what's happening.”
Pulling the phone back from Lola, I allowed myself to smile. “Guess the show must go on.”
