Hard Rock Roots Box Set (32 page)

“What's the devil's name?” I ask, hoping she'll give me something concrete. Katie wipes her hand across her face and clutches her plastic purse against her chest.

“He goes by many names. Beelzebub, Antichrist, Satan … ” The girl is obviously off her rocker. I'm not getting
anything
out of her. I spin around and punch the wall in anger, letting out a growl of frustration. The tile cracks and blood oozes down my knuckles. Too late, I spin back to Katie to apologize, but she's already gone and I hear Heaven crying for her pain, drenching the earth in tears as she explodes into the auditorium and disappears into the crowd before I can take a single step forward. When I do, my boot crunches down on something. I pause and take a step back.

Beneath the rubber sole is a car key.

Chapter 12
Naomi Knox

Voices wake me from my foggy stupor. They're familiar, but I can't place them. All I know is that I haven't heard them here before. I can't make out any words; the drugs won't let me. What I can tell is that the music has stopped. All around me is quiet, a few sputtering generators but not much else.
Where the fuck am I?
I wonder as I shift to my side and feel a painful tug in my arm. The IVs are still attached, pumping God knows what into me. Food? I know I haven't eaten in days. Moisture certainly because I haven't had anything to drink either.

Footsteps come toward me, growing so loud it feels like my eardrums are going to burst. The swishing noise of curtains sounds again and light flashes bright against my blindfold.
Curtains. An enclosed bed. Generators.

I'm on a bus. Or an RV, I guess. But probably a bus. A tour bus maybe?

This time, instead of the usual arm prick, a hand tangles in my hair and brushes it back gently in a soothing gesture. Only it doesn't soothe me. It pisses me off. I want to get up. I want to know where I am. I want to know who the fuck has the audacity to tie me up like this? I start to scream and the hand becomes rough, jerking me around and smashing my cheek against the rough fabric of jeans. Behind the fabric, I can feel a hard bulge that can only really be one thing.
No. No. No.
I start to struggle and the hand reaches down for my gag, digging fingers beneath the fabric, getting ready to tear it away.

Whoever this is wants to rape me.

My body explodes with panic, adrenaline taking over and making me kick and flail like a wild animal. The hand slaps me hard, but I barely notice, shrieking and bucking, arching my back and hitting the wall with my feet.

More footsteps sound toward me and the hand retreats. A tense moment of silence reigns overhead and then the prick comes, digging into my arm painfully. As I fade into a forced slumber, I cry out to the world around me, praying that someone or something has enough mercy to care about a girl who thought she was broken, who only just now realized she's merely bent.

Who, who, who will come for this girl who doesn't know how to love anymore?

Who?

Chapter 13
Turner Campbell

I bail on our set.

It's fucked, I know, but I can't sing when my heart's in my throat. If I were to open my mouth now, the only thing that would come out would be a strangled cry of rage. That's it, all I got right now. I sneak around the front, using the advantage of the bathroom to escape into the drizzling rain outside. Above my head, thunderclouds crack and snarl, warning me out of the mess. But I ignore it all, key clutched tight in my hand. The weather may not realize it, but I'm the one with the advantage right now. The crowd's been cut down to the barest minimum and even the few people left are huddled under umbrellas and inside tents. I make an easy beeline to the customer parking lot and stand stone still, eyes scanning the dripping vehicles.

The key's nondescript. The only reason I know it goes to a vehicle is because it has that black rubber bit on the end. Otherwise, I'd have never even known. I hold it so tight that the metal cuts into my palms and bleeds my red blood into the puddle below my feet. The task in front of me seems downright fucking impossible, but I can't talk myself out of it. So in the dark, in the rain, I move forward and I start testing vehicles. I try doors and trunks, moving from one end of the row to the other, then onto the next. I figure if anybody catches me, I'm Turner Goddamn Campbell. They'll back off. If not, there's always money. Last I checked I had a whole shit ton of it.

Each failure pisses me off, making me grit my teeth and bite at my tongue ring, tasting blood on my mouth, feeling like I want to beat the shit out of someone. No. Not someone.
Him.
Whoever the fuck is that took Naomi. God, when I find him, he better run because if I get my hands around his throat, it is lights fucking out.

“Turner!” A sharp voice cuts through the rain and draws my gaze up and over to a figure jogging through the drizzle towards me. As he gets closer, I can see that it's Ronnie. His face is pale and his hands are shaky, but he looks lucid enough. I stick the key in the next lock and turn. Nothing. “What the hell are you doing out here?” he asks, watching as I move to the trunk of a silver Miata. I pause for a moment, trying to figure out how the hell to answer that question.

“Looking for my woman,” I say simply because well, that's all there is to it. Ronnie should understand better than anybody. I move onto the next vehicle, and he follows, hair sticking to his pale forehead and sunken cheeks. Ronnie used to be a good looking guy. Not so much anymore. He better chill on the damn drugs or he's going to rot from the inside out. Even I fucking get that.

“Trey is not happy with you,” he says, but he doesn't mention Milo, so I figure everything's alright. With Hayden's sudden reappearance, the crowd will get over it. They got to see me sing, a ghost rose from the grave, and I crowd surfed the shit out of their asses. They'll remember this concert for a long time coming.

“I figured as much,” I say as I keep at it, inserting the metal, twisting it, feeling that surge of disappointment. From behind me, I can hear the sounds of the crowd filtering out of the building. I'm not going to be able to keep this up for much longer. “But that doesn't mean shit compared to this.” Ronnie doesn't question me, just holds his hand out for key and examines it carefully. Being the God of Gossip has honed his skills and refined his knowledge of useless shit, so when Ronnie looks at the key and squints hard, I know he's come up with something for me.

“This isn't a car key, Turner,” he tells me as he nods once and hands it back. His shirt is sticking to his body, showing me how skinny he's gotten. It makes me feel like a shitty fucking friend. How did I miss this downward spiral? Where the shit have I been?

“Then what is it?” I ask as the masses disperse and start moving towards their respective vehicles. Probably a good time for us to leave. But I won't. Not until I get an answer from Ronnie. He licks his lips and glances around like he expects somebody to be listening in on our conversation. When he looks back at me, I can see the curiosity and the fear in his eyes. He doesn't know exactly what's going on, but he can guess, and he doesn't like it. I don't blame him.

“If my instincts are right, and they usually are, I'd have to say that this key … goes to one of the tour buses.”

Ronnie and I leave the parking lot running, pausing only when the big burly bouncer out front looks like he's about to blow our friggin' brains out. I don't flash him any ID, just swipe the hair from my forehead and look him in the eye. He lets us right in.

Pausing there in front of the chain link fence, I look around the mostly empty parking lot. Nobody really wants to be out in this dark, miserable weather, so it gives me time to think, to scan. There were five buses before; there are four now. This key could go to my bus or even to Naomi's. In that case, it isn't really a clue at all. But then there's the chance that it goes to one of the other buses. There's Terre Haute's over on the left, closest to that side of the fence. In the center, I see the bus for Burning the Bleeding. To the right of that, Ice and Glass.

I twirl the key around my finger, using the empty ring it's attached to and just watch, watch and wait. Lightning crackles in the distance, snaking through the blackness of the horizon like a warning.
Stay out of this,
it tells me.
If you don't want to get hurt.
I smile. Not even God herself could stop me from taking on this task.

“I'll walk you back to the bus,” I tell Ronnie, but he's already shaking his head. When I look over at him, I see something in his face. In that gaze, the one that's been empty for too long, there's hope. There is seriously fucking
hope
in Ronnie's gaze.

“Man, if I let you do this alone, I'd be putting a gun in my own mouth. I have to have something, and this it. You've got to be happy, Turner. If I can't make things right for you, then what chance do I have?” He rubs at his nose, a habit from snorting all the crack. His eyes are wet but maybe that's from the rain or whatever. “After Asuka, I … ” Ronnie shakes his head. He's not ready to talk yet, but he will be. Eventually. If this all works out. If Naomi's dead, then I'm giving up and I'll probably be taking Ronnie along for the ride.
Can't think about that right now, Turner. Cannot even consider that.
“Anyway, I don't want to go back to the bus and hear Trey bitch. Let's just pound this out, so we can sleep tonight. I am tired as fuck.”

Ronnie starts off towards our bus, dragging me along in his wake. We don't talk when we get close in case Trey or Milo are inside, and test the lock. Not our key.
One down, three to go.
Next bus belongs to Terre Haute. I highly fucking doubt that this is theirs. We have to test it though or I won't rest easy. I won't even go to the grave easy if I don't know in my fucking heart that I did everything I could to find Knox.

As we approach the silver and green walls of the bus, we can hear voices buzzing inside, hovering around Hayden like she's the most precious Goddamn thing the earth has ever seen. Personally, I don't think the world would've suffered much to lose her, but what do I know?

“You hear any gossip about this?” I ask, tilting my head towards the foggy window on the side. Ronnie nods but puts a finger to his lips. We manage to successfully test the key without anybody noticing us. They're too busy cooing at Hayden to pay much attention to anything else. Their Barbie doll is back, and that's all that matters. I doubt any of them are even thinking about Naomi right now. Except for Dax. Maybe emo boy is sobbing away in his bed, I don't know.

“She's telling everybody she spent the last week tied up. Says she doesn't know where or why, but that she just woke up lying on the ground near the dumpsters, heard the music and wandered in.” I raise both brows.

“Bullshit.”

“That's what she's saying. She doesn't have many details, just keeps repeating the same things over and over again. She said she was on her way from the bus to the venue in Denver when somebody hit her over the head and took her.” I crinkle my brow. That shit doesn't make sense to me, not with what Naomi said before the show. She said she was filling in for Hayden, like she knew something else. I look at Ronnie, but he's just shrugging.

“Hey, I'm not a lie detector. All I'm telling you is what I heard, and it's second and thirdhand information anyway. Could be dead wrong.” Ronnie's never wrong, and he knows it. I rub at my chin, but I can't figure out why Hayden would lie. Maybe she's just getting her shit mixed up considering the circumstances. If she's telling the truth as far as she knows it, it would make sense. If not, it's too much of a coincidence. There is no way in hell she was off doing her own thing and just
happened
to be kidnapped the same night that all the rest of the shit went down. Nuh uh. I call bullshit.

“And the police?” I ask. Ronnie shakes his head, dark hair plastered to his skull like a cap.

“Don't know crap about the police,” he tells me and we both stop talking. The other two buses are easy enough to get access to, a lot less activity goes on over here. We try two locks, get two misses. I'm about to toss the key to the ground and smash it when Ronnie makes another suggestion, one I've obviously overlooked because I'm a fucking tool.

“What about the staff RVs?” he asks as he glances around with squinty eyes. “I don't see them here, but the key could belong to one of them. They're off refueling right now.” He turns and looks at me as we make our way back to the bus. “Or it could be nothing. I don't know where you got the key, but maybe it belongs to some old lady in Oklahoma or some shit. You never know.”

“No,” I say automatically, spinning the bit of silver around in my hand. “I do know. This key is a piece of the puzzle, a bit of the map that's going to lead me to Naomi, and I'm not going to stop until I find out where it came from.” Ronnie nods and sighs deeply, reaching out for the door handle and pausing as his fingers wrap around the cold metal.

“If you're right, Turner, then what?” he asks, but I think he already knows the answer to that question.

“Then?” I say as I look up and watch the gray clouds moving across the dreary darkness of the sky. “Then I kick some serious ass.”