Foolish Games (43 page)

“So you’re a groupie, huh?” he teased.

Tugging my hat down while fuming, I followed behind Lizzie while moving away from Hampton at the gate and down to the t-shirt vendor.

“You know what,” I muttered when out of earshot. “Yeah, I am. I’m a groupie. I said it,” I emphasized. “I’m a
groupie
.” God, if Hawkins could hear me now he would probably laugh and give that little shit a tip.

Lizzie turned around and smiled up at Trevor then Casey. “We really have enjoyed your company, but we have to go.” Lizzie went to grab my hand. “Oh, and she’s telling the truth.” She turned to look back at Casey. “She is Hawkins’ girlfriend. I’m just glad she’s finally admitting it to someone.” Lizzie took my hand and led me away from the bewildered guys.

We saw that Woodley was walking up towards us and we instantly separated. Pretending to get in line to buy a beer, I pulled down my ball cap and hid among the slew of fans. Watching through the corner of my eye as Woodley passed behind us. Lizzie made eye contact from the line at the next vendor down below. She nodded at me and we both took off again. Stopping, I leaned against one of the trees that looped around the outskirts of the lawn so I could give Lizzie time to make it to the second pavilion. She flashed her backstage pass, while continuing to go under the radar, and made her way down to the lower pavilion.

Glancing up at the lighting platforms, I tried looking for Riley, but I couldn’t see him or Kosic. Lizzie shimmied her way down to the orchestra pit, but instead of sitting down she approached the venue crew in front of the stage. Security did a double take in her direction like we had expected. I tossed the ball cap to the side and stepped out of the shadows of the greenery. Walking down the pathway, I followed the curve around the back of the second pavilion and in front of the lawn. Once by the aisle leading down the pavilion, I flashed my ticket to the venue crew and they let me pass by them. Raising my arms back and forth, I walked down the center of the aisle. Security was all abuzz while talking back and forth through their ear pieces. They moved away from the seats in the lower pavilion to converge around me.

As they came, I watched Lizzie explain what was going on to the crew in front of the stage. She had the men’s undivided attention like we had hoped. Just as security roughly grabbed a hold of me and dragged me down the aisle, I saw someone quickly usher Lizzie away from the stage. My heart sank with the realization that our plan wasn’t going to work. Then I saw Hampton at the end of the aisle.

“Hawkins’ bodyguard rigged the stage!” I exclaimed while being walked down to the lower pavilion.

“Yeah, well, he told me that you rigged the bomb on that bus that exploded.” He roughly grabbed my arm and escorted me away from the stage.

“Think about it Hampton, please! How could I have deleted the tapes of Cyrus picking us up backstage?” I grappled with the realization. “It was Harrison who wanted to know our position before the bus blew up, wasn’t it? A little convenient, don’t you think? Why the hell would we be walking towards the bus and not far away from it if we blew it up?”

“I know,” I continued, “
I know
that you had to have felt that something was wrong, too.” I tried to reason with him as he dragged me to the backstage door. “It’s your job to notice things other people would overlook. It must have felt impossible to think, to wonder how could he? He’s a member of security. He’s your friend.”

His eyes suddenly soften and I knew that I was right.

“But I’m telling you this is another one of those times that you have to just follow your instincts,” I stressed. “We didn’t blow up that bus and you know it.”

Loud clapping came from the direction of the backstage door. Turning my head away from Hampton, I looked over at Harrison. “That was quite a performance you just put on, Ms. Hall.” Apparently catching the end of what I had just said, Harrison continued, “But lying is what you do best, isn’t it? I’ll take it from here,” he told the other bodyguard.

Harrison grabbed me up by the arm and led me through the backstage door away from Hampton. Trying to figure out what I could do, I drew a blank. This just couldn’t be happening, I had to stop him! Harrison was so strong that he didn’t exactly need me to walk to get me down the long corridor. Tripping over my shoes a couple times while trying to keep up, I saw Woodley approach us from the opposite end. Harrison held up a hand. “Don’t worry I got this,” he assured the other bodyguard before he pushed through a door and dragged me in behind him.

“Where’s The Reaper?” He whispered hoarsely once we were alone again.

I didn’t answer so he wrapped his hands around my shoulders and shook me again. “Where is he?!”

“You’re supposed to be an ex-FBI agent, where are your morals?” I blurted out.

“Why do you care about my morals,” he hissed.

“Cyrus is a psychopath,” I yelled while trying to put it all together. “But you can’t be evil. I’ve seen the way you interact with Hawkins. You care about him.”

“Don’t make me ask you again!” He screamed in my face while squeezing my arms that still hurt from the accident.

Ignoring the pain, I asked, “Was it for the money?”

“No, it wasn’t for the money,” he barked before thinking.

“Then why?”

“I don’t have time for this,” he huffed.

“What about the stage?”

“It’s triggered to collapse with the first chord,” he confessed like it was irrelevant information now.

I started hyperventilating. My heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest. My shoulders caved and I openly started to sob. I didn’t care about Harrison or what he was going to do with me. All I felt was the gut wrenching pain of knowing that Hawkins was walking to his death.

“Shut up!” Harrison hissed and quickly grabbed me by my upper arm before he dragged me out of the room. “I just need to get you back to The Reaper.” He pulled me further down the corridor and away from the stage.

“Then…you’re heading the wrong way,” I stuttered while realizing that I needed to get to Hawkins. “Cyrus’s getting ready to watch the stage collapse.”

Harrison pulled me up by the cuff of my shirt until we were eye to eye. “You better not be lying to me,” he growled.

“I’m not lying. Cyrus wants to record the stage collapsing for everyone to see on the nightly news and internet.” I said it so convincingly that I almost believed it myself. Harrison seemed too easily convinced when I realized this was probably the plan from the beginning. He had a firm grip on the back of my arm as we retraced our steps back down the long hallway. Right before we turned the bend to the opening of the side of the stage, Harrison whispered in my ear, “Don’t try any funny business.”

We rounded the corner when Harrison suddenly came to a halt. The band was huddled around the door leading onto the stage while looking up at the lighting screens. It was playing a movie on it, a
homemade
movie.

“Did Hawkins ever tell you why he looks so miserable all the time? Why he couldn’t write anymore?” My stomach dropped as I watched the video of Cyrus and me in the van. Cyrus sounded even crazier than I remembered, but I was relieved because this meant the lighting crew knew and could stop the band from crossing the stage.

“You wired his bus?” The shock in my voice boomed out of the concert speakers.

“
America
needed to know, they had a right to know,” he stressed, “why Hawkins was so cynical all the time.”

“You see, I’m not here for the ransom money, Joie. No, no, no,” he muttered. “I believe Hawkins might have mentioned his brother was dead. How it was so tragic for
him
.” The video continued to play. It was haunting to watch my reactions to what Cyrus was saying. My terrifying looks were probably giving him the performance of his dreams.

“He knowingly let his brother drive home drunk,” Cyrus said in a hushed voice. “That’s not going to do well for his ratings.”

Hawkins shivered and then did a double take when he saw me out of the corner of his eye.

“He could have stopped his brother, but he didn’t,” Cyrus continued overhead. “And now my wife and daughter are dead, too. He took the ones I loved from me and now I’m going to take the one he loves from him.”

“It’s Harrison,” I shouted in the background on the videotape. “That’s why he gave Lizzie such a hard time about her social. He wanted to leave her vulnerable with us in the van rather than safe with Warren.”

“Oh, very good,” Cyrus praised on the overhead screen.

Harrison looked up at the screen and then back down to Hawkins. “I had nothing to do with this,” Harrison muttered while slowly backpedaling with a hand still tightly wrapped around my arm. Warren glanced over at Hawkins and then turned around, too.

“What are you doing with Joie, Wayne?” Hawkins asked cautiously.

“He’s been working with Cyrus!” I shouted.

“Shut up,” Harrison said while fiercely yanking my arm.

“They rigged the stage to collapse!” I continued.

Hawkins started towards us, but Harrison whipped out a gun and put it to my head. “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” he forewarned. “But I need her.” He backed up even further down the hallway. “You don’t understand, The Reaper has my wife and kids. If I don’t give him something in return he will kill them.”

“No, you don’t understand,” I tried to explain that Cyrus was already dead, but Harrison wrapped a hand around my mouth and muffled out my voice.

Woodley to the left of the door went to radio for help. “Ah, ah, ah.” Harrison aimed the gun at the other bodyguard. “None of that,” he cautioned.

“No one better follow us either.” He aimed the gun at Hawkins who had come one step closer. “Or I will have no other choice but to shoot her.”

“Cyrus doesn’t want her, he wants me. I’m the one he blames.” Hawkins edged closer to stage.

“How does it work?” Hawkins asked him. “The stage, what is it rigged by?”

“No, the girl is enough.” Harrison sounded flooded with guilt by what Hawkins was planning to do now that the scene was playing out in front of him.

“No, I won’t let you hurt her. You run down that hallway and I will hunt you down,” he said through clenched teeth. “This is
your
best option.”

Harrison stood still contemplating his decision as he easily kept me contained with his arm wrapped around my waist and his hand covering my mouth.

“How is it triggered?!” Hawkins shouted while startling Harrison.

“You play the first chord,” he said flatly.

“And the crowd,” Hawkins asked. “Are they in danger?”

“No, he wanted as many witnesses as possible. The stage falls in on itself,” he explained in the same disheartened tone.

Hawkins backed further away and insisted, “Let her go.”

“I’m not stupid!”

“Just enough that I know you won’t run away with her,” Hawkins explained. “The further I move to the stage, the further she moves away from you. It’s not like you don’t have a gun aimed at her.”

Harrison released his grip around my mouth and shoved me forward. “Hawkins, don’t do it!” I bolted forward and Harrison jerked me back by my shirt.

“Joie, I’m alive again because of you. If he kills you, it will be as though I died too. This is the only option I can live with,” he said before turning around to walk over to his guitar. The crowd roared to life with his entrance to the stage. Hawkins turned in Harrison’s direction with his arms held out.

“Move,” Harrison ordered while pointing the end of the gun in my back. I inched closer to Warren who had his hand held out for me. “Watch it,” Harrison warned Warren. “Not until he plays the first chord.”

I watched in horror as Hawkins threw the guitar strap over his head. “Hello, y’all,” he said to the thunderous applause of the crowd below. The spotlight zinged around to warn Hawkins. Harlow or maybe even Riley was trying to warn him. He was going to die and I couldn’t stop it. Tilting my head in Harrison’s direction, I tried one last time, “You know Cyrus is dead, right?”

“Why should I believe you?” he snapped.

“It’s coming up on the clip. The semi runs him over. You have nothing to offer a dead person.”

“Shut up!” he roared as he backpedaled down the hallway, but his aim was steady.

“Cyrus is dead!” I shouted back to Harrison. “And now Hawkins is going to die, too,” I hissed. “Except this time it fault. Just watch the end of the movie!”
will
be your

Hawkins spoke into the microphone bringing everyone’s attention back to the stage. “The band thought that we would do something a little different tonight. Start things off a little quieter so I’m going to do a little solo,” Hawkins explained over the loud video clip in the background. Cyrus’s face was plastered everywhere on the stage as if he was watching everything unravel down below. Hawkins tall frame looked so small on the stage and so very alone.

The death scene was coming up. Hawkins looked down as he arranged his fingers along the fret board of the guitar; the last chord he might ever play. On the screen the door opened and everyone could see Cyrus trying to balance himself before he jumped. Cyrus struggled to hold on while screaming. Harrison’s eyes grew wide with fear when in the next second Cyrus was sucked under the truck. I bolted towards the stage not caring if he still decided to shoot me as Hawkins strummed the first chord.

The platforms below me started to wobble when we collided into one another. The ground dropped us at an angle and the crowd screamed. We skidded down along the tilted metal platform into darkness when Hawkins was suddenly jerked back. He had just enough time to grab the cuff of my hoodie. Pinning my upper arms to my sides so I wouldn’t fall out of the hoodie, I grabbed at my neck since the material was strangling me.

“Give me your hand,” Hawkins ordered and I lifted my right arm up. Our fingers twirled around until he firmly had a grip. A mixture of fear and willpower gave him enough strength to pull me up. I wrapped my legs around his waist and held on. We were awkwardly dangling there by his guitar strap as I breathed a sigh of relief. Looking down at a wash of lights to the concrete floor below, I realized the stage went further down than I thought—two floors at least. A circular contraption that must be used for performers to enter the stage from below was underneath us. I heard the fabric of the guitar strap start to rip. Hawkins and I searched for something else to grab on to.