Hard Rock Roots Box Set (66 page)

“Too late. He already got his ass handed to him,” I say, wondering what's going to happen to Cohen out there and not really giving a flying rat's ass about it. “The man pissed himself. Doesn't get much worse than that, huh?” I step up to Ronnie, and nobody stops me this time. Milo's too busy turning to the employees and trying to figure out if there's a back door or something we could use. Treyjan's got Lydia, and Turner, he's sitting there with sweat staining his shirt and dripping down the tip of his nose. That gunshot isn't treating him well apparently.

“Won't work,” he mumbles, putting his head in one hand and using the other to flip off the growing crowd. “But give it your best shot. If it does, maybe I'll forget about the key card.”

“I swiped it from your back pocket, you lazy shit. Next time maybe you should pay attention when a woman's groping your ass?” I smile at his baffled facial expression and turn back to Ronnie, pressing my fingers to his temples. He's so tall, I don't even really need to kneel down to gaze into his face. Just a little lean that's probably flashing my ham wallet to all the stupid fucks outside …
Oh well. Maybe this'll grab the top story spot instead.
The thought of seeing Ronnie's miserable face plastered across the web makes me want to cut a bitch. “Hey,” I whisper, running my nails down his skin, tracing the path of the tears that've finally stopped. No response, not even a flicker of recognition. “Oi, you in there somewhere?” I touch his lips gently and then move forward for a kiss. It's pretty fucking stupid when you think about it, but somehow I imagine an X-rated version of
Sleeping Beauty
or something – only
I'm
the fucking prince.

My mouth meets his, and it's like kissing stone. Ronnie just doesn't respond. At first.

I force my tongue past his lips, grab his chin and hold him still while I kiss him with everything I've got. I don't admit it to myself, but deep down I know this is my last chance at redemption. This
has
to work. He has to snap the fuck out of it, and I have to tell him about Shannon, if nothing else. We have to save Shannon. And not just for her (because I really am a selfish prick). I need to prove to myself that somehow I really am special, that I'm not just a farmer's daughter come from nowhere tryin' to make something of herself. I want to do something that'll actually make a difference in this world, if only to a single person. Even if I can do just this for Ronnie, maybe he can find it in his heart to forgive me someday.

I lift a hand up and barely, just barely, put my fingertips against his chest.

With a start and a scrambling of feet, Ronnie is up and grabbing me around the hips, slamming me back into a bistro table. His mouth feeds at mine hungrily, asking, begging,
commanding
something. His hands trace my body underneath my jacket, putting on one hell of a show for the crowd outside. The hard bulge of his growing erection presses against me insistently, demanding the same price as his mouth.

Love.

We're a hell of a long ways off from that, but I can see the flicker of something in the distance. The question is: do I chase after it? And if I do, would I even live long enough to get there?

Chapter 9
Ronnie McGuire

When the lights in the venue dim, I let my head fall back and close my eyes, waiting for Turner to make his way out to the stool that's sitting center stage. That's right. A fucking stool. That's what you get when you decide to go all
Rambo
and roundhouse kick the fuck out of some glass doors. And with an open wound, no less.
Fucking moron.

I listen to the murmur of the packed crowd, all these people that flocked here to see us even though we're days late and missing half our freaking act.
Shit.
My head is pounding already, and I haven't even started to play. This is gonna be a fun time, oh yeah. I try to wrap my mind around the memories that slide away like fish in a stream. I remember that backwoods bleach blonde piece of trash coming into the store, remember his words cutting me like blades, but I don't know what he said. I don't try to bring that up in my mind though. I'm no idiot; there's only one thing he could've said that would've sent me off the deep end like that.

Asuka.

Fuuuuuuck.

I open my eyes and look back at the audience. My timeline goes like this: scrawny Turner wannabe shows up, Lola is kissing the crap out of me. That's it. My knuckles are bruised to shit, and Milo is freaking out about a possible lawsuit from Cohen Rose. 'S all I know.

“Yo, Wichita,” Turner says, quieting the crowd instantly. The lights are still off and the hush of gossip is clinging to the air like dew to a spiderweb, ready to fall at the slightest disturbance. I'm viral now, how cool is that? My daughter's going to have plenty of memories to cling onto when she grows up. YouTube (or whatever's hot shit at that time) videos of me destroying a man's face while she clings desperately to a girl in a bra and zebra heels. Laughing. Laughing while I pummel some dude because he insulted the one person I ever wanted to be with. I hope she's doing alright with Milo. He borrowed some bodyguards and took her to a hotel just a block away from here. Unfortunately, I ruined the whole purpose of us coming here. We thought we'd outwitted the press? Maybe at first. But not anymore. Frankly, I'm fucking terrified to leave this building. I don't know even want to consider the logistics that'll be required to make that happen.
Hope we don't get mauled by a mob here tonight,
I think.
I want Turner and Naomi to have a real shot at it.
I don't even think about myself.

I refocus my attention on Turner. Without Milo here to keep him in check, there's a pretty good chance he'll make an ass out himself. Shit, what am I even blabbering about? He always makes an ass out of himself anyway.

“So, I pretty much fucking hate you,” Turner continues, swinging the cord of his mic around. I can't see him, but I can hear the sound of it slapping the wooden floor of the stage. Laughter bubbles up from below, pricking my skin like bee stings. Of course they like it. They like whatever he does. He could drop his pants and take a shit right here and they'd fawn all over him like he was the second coming of Jesus. “I'd much rather be anywhere but here, but hey, beggars can't be motherfucking choosers, huh?” The stool creaks as he stands up. Not a good move on his part. He's going to end up with some septic oozing sore that'll take his leg if he's not careful. “I'm going to sing for you, but you have to promise to be good little girls and boys,” Turner hisses this part out and the lights come on slowly, highlighting his blue-black hair, the paw print tattoos on the back of his neck. “Leave my best friend and his fucking daughter alone.”

The crowd explodes like a bomb's gone off, flinging their bodies towards the front of the stage, clambering over one another shouting things like
Let me be your baby mama, Ronnie!
mixed in with the usual
Fuck me, Turner!
. I close my eyes and push their voices out. Can't listen to that shit right now.

“
I've gotta talk to you, Ronnie.
” Lola's voice, the first words I heard when I snapped out of it. “
It's really important.
” But we never did get to talk. There were too many people, too much chaos. Milo basically tore us apart, terrified that Ice and Glass might press charges. When I flick my eyes to the side, I feel like I can see her there, feel her heart beating in the space between us. I have no clue what she'd want to say to me, but as soon as this is over, I'm going to find out.

I spin my sticks in my fingers.

One, two, three.

I hit that shit with a fast blast beat, murdering my kit while Turner bends over into a scream. No words, just an explosion of pain and hate. 'Been There, Fuck That'. It's from our first album, and it's been a hell of a long time since we played it live, but Turner made the decision to go for it before we took the stage. Nobody argued, not even Josh. Kind of surprising since the song doesn't mean shit to him. When we originally recorded this tune, it was with Travis in tow.
Fuck man, I sure do miss your ass.

“
Your suffering screams to me, but I don't hear it anymore. ANY-MORE!
” Turner bites the last word off with a growl, spinning on his good leg, letting himself get wrapped up in the cord from foot to fucker. “
Can't find your fucking face in a crowd. Wouldn't want to even try!
” I close my eyes and ignore the pain in my arms. To be honest, it feels fucking delicious. Man, if I could've, I probably would've killed that piece of shit. Not just for what he said to me, but for the way he treated Lola. I know all about that.

Sweat slicks my face as I pummel the drums like I'm trying to fuck the shit out of 'em.
Come for me, baby,
I think as Treyjan stomps the stage, taking advantage of Turner's injury to draw a little more attention to himself. Jesse follows along, dark hair flying as he grinds into his axe. Even Josh seems to be into this shit. But hey, who doesn't love a song about Turner's miserable crack whore of a mother?

A show is exactly what we all need tonight, something to get away from the bullshit, an alternative universe where nothing exists but this. My foot pumps a heavy rhythm while the lights above us shift, bathing me in color, cloaking me darkness. Normally, I just sit back and do my thing, ignore it all.

But not tonight.

Tonight, I just can't. I feel so … pumped up, like I've gone on a run and slammed a whole fuckload of dope. I'm a Goddamn superhero up here, and I haven't had a single hit tonight. I haven't even had a fucking
beer.
I pause, resting in this heavy space, my arms tingling, my heart beating a rhythm my drums are begging me to repeat. I want to play that sound in my chest and see if anyone hears it, if anyone else knows what I'm trying to say with a crash cymbal choke and a bass drum. My eyes find Lola again, see her standing at the edge of the stage clutching the curtains with tight fingers. Even in this lighting, even with the crowd screeching like a flock of crows, I can still hear the sound of her heart. It's not possible. It shouldn't be. Even if it was fucking silent as death in here, I shouldn't be able to hear it. But I do. I do, and I don't know why.

Asuka,
I begin, waiting for that spark of posthumous wisdom I seem to have no trouble drumming up.
I'm falling for a girl I just met. The fuck is up with that?

“
I pray for your death with every breath. I wish you all ill will, every prick and screw, every man that blew through like a hurricane. But the worst one of all was you.
”

Time to pick up the growling. When we record, Turner does all the vocals. Onstage, it's not possible to mimic the overlapping, the layering that goes on in the studio.

“
Was YOU!
” I snarl into my mic, blending my gravelly voice with Trey's and Jesse's. Only Josh stays silent. My knee's bouncing up and down like a kid on crack, and my arms are moving so fast they're a blur.

“
The scars of your deceit still haunt me, but the rage that you kept has only made me better.
”

I take a rimshot, striking the center of the snare drum and catching the rim with the fat part of my stick. Sounds dirty, doesn't it? Well, baby, it
is.
This song is so fucking fucked, I feel like I'm being pulled under a spell.

So does the crowd apparently. They don't even look like people anymore, just a wave of howling mouths and wild hair, a tidal surge of emotions and desperation. Rock. It's the sound of lost souls, and we're calling them home. If you do it right though, you make sure they never get there, that they drift on the surface of the earth hoping for that last bridge to carry them through. Each song, each beat, each chord is there to entice them back to us, bring them to Indecency for their next hit. I'd feel bad if it didn't feel so damn good. Music's an extension of the soul and right now, mine's not sitting stagnant, steeping in shit. It's out there touching every single person here, brushing along the fringes of humanity and taking their emotions as souvenirs.
Hate, love, pain, pleasure, rage, peace.
I feel it all flowing into me, cutting through the floor and clawing at my boots like the hands of zombies reaching for a taste of life. Trey is swinging his head in a circle, stomping the floor with his foot. The sound of his guitar is like the cry of a demon, smashing us all in the skull with decay and desperation.

Turner can't do his usual parlor tricks tonight, so he makes up for it with a voice that's extra pure, that carries over the screaming fans and shuts them down. The mosh pit whirls like a washer on a spin cycle, churning bodies around, clearing a hole in the center of the muck.

My sticks become extensions of my arms, indistinguishable from my flesh, just another bit of me to slam out and stir air molecules, vibrate the world and the hearts of the desperate and lost, hearts like mine, hearts that have been so fucked they can barely pump blood to the brain anymore.

Hear me, Asuka?
I ask.
Do you hear this? This agony I feel is for you, this love I feel was all yours. It's all bottled up, and I have nowhere to put it.

I drain myself out across the drums, bleed that wicked heart pain dry, and wait for a response.

“
Ronnie.
” I hear my name, but the voice that's speaking to me isn't Asuka's. It's Lola's.

I glance over at her again, knowing that she's not really speaking, just as her heart really isn't beating loud enough to compete with the speakers flanking us like soldiers. I'm just
feeling
her, sensing her like she's on a fucking radar in my head.

Lola sees me looking and leans against the curtain for support, hanging on it like there's a heavy weight around her shoulders, dragging her down. Her tongue moves over her lips, and I see the rise and fall of her chest as she sighs. I can't look away; I'm possessed. I stare at her, get caught on her eyes. They're big and round and open. I feel like I could fall in them and drown, suck in lungfuls of water and thank the universe for the chance to die there. Her mouth is so full and curved, like a fucking strawberry or some shit. I feel my pants getting tight, my dick rising up like a protest.