Get Bent (2 page)

The bus goes silent.

I stay completely still for several long moments.

Ronnie sniffles.

I guess they think I'm going to go bat shit crazy and fuck up my friend, but I'm not. The meth is kissing me softly, teasing me with its horrible, little claws, seducing my mind from the inside out. Instead, I smile.

“The show must go fucking on,” I say, dropping my chin to my chest. I flick my cigarette into the sink and snatch a pair of shades from my front pocket. When the police gave me back my personal items, these were there. I guess they might be Naomi's, but I don't want to think about that right now. I slide them up my nose and thank fuck that I didn't get booked for elbowing that cop. A few nights in jail, no drugs, no music, that would've killed me, stripped me right to the soul and bled me dry.

“What?” This is from Josh. His voice is kind of shaky, but hey, he has balls for even trying to talk to me right now.

“I'm going to sing for Amatory Riot,” I tell them, and there's no collective gasp or anything; the bus stays dead silent. They think I'm fucking nuts. “Trey, you'll play guitar.”

“I don't know any of their fucking songs,” he snaps back at me, taking a step forward. “Turner, they're done for. Their manager is in critical condition, their lead guitarist is dead, and their front woman is missing. Don't try to save a sinking ship. Worry about us, worry about this. Indecency needs you, man. Don't fuck us.”

I roll my shoulders and reach down, wrapping my fingers around the neck of Naomi's guitar. Don't ask me how I got it or why I have it. If love makes you crazy, then the absence of it drives you insane.

“If you won't help me, I'll do it myself.”

“Turner … ” There's a warning in Trey's voice, but what is he going to do? Is he going to stop me? Don't fucking think so. I move over to the door and reach out, wrap my fingers around the handle and pull.

Light and sound explode like fireworks. People start to shout; cameras begin to flash. I ignore it all and step out into the fray.

Confusion. Surprise. Pain.

These are the three things that came before the blackness.

“You've got to be fucking kidding me!” Dax shouts, spinning away and grabbing at his head. His bleakness mirrors my own, and I'm okay with that. He thinks he loves Naomi. Fine. But he can't. Not really. Not like I do. That's a Goddamn impossibility. “You want us to get onstage? You are nuts. Complete and utterly nuts. Do you not realize what's just happened? We are absolutely and completely screwed. Amatory Riot is over. America is practically dead. Naomi … ” Dax stops talking and leans his forehead against the wall.

Rook Geary watches on angrily, arms crossed over his broad chest. He doesn't like me on his bus, but that's where the remaining members of Amatory Riot are staying, so this is where I've gotta be.

“How the fuck did you get her guitar?” the chick with the blonde-black hair asks me. I ignore her question because I'm not really sure. When I got back from the police station, it was just there, leaning against the cabinets. I figured one of my bandmates picked it up for me, but I never bothered to ask. I don't fucking care.

“Can't you see we've got it bad enough? We don't need you over here rubbing our noses in this crap.” This comes from one of the other guys in the band. Shit if I know any of their names. I keep my attention focused on Dax.

“When she gets back, she's not going to want to see her music torn to shit.” I lift the guitar up by the neck with one hand and hold my cigarette in the other. “Her fucking soul is all wrapped up in this. We can't let it just go by the wayside. That's too fucking cruel.”

“She's not coming back, Turner. Naomi is dead.”

“You don't know that.”

“Turner, come on.” When Dax turns around, he's got tears in his eyes and he's not ashamed of it. While I stand here on a false high, tuned up with meth burning in my veins, Dax stands there like the emo fag he is and just blatantly sobs in front of his band and all of Terre Haute. What an asshole. Melancholy is a private thing. It's not something you just show to everybody. It's so disrespectful, I just want to punch him in the Goddamn face and knock his teeth out. How dare he. How the fuck dare he. I squeeze my cigarette tight. “I know you and Naomi were getting close, and you're upset because of the shit that went down between you, but you've got to stop deluding yourself, man. Go onstage, pick up a girl, move on. Let us deal with this, okay?” I resist the urge to smash the guitar against Dax's face. That won't get me what I want.
It won't bring Naomi back.

“Get onstage with me. Music heals, Dax. Even the ugliest fucking souls can take it in and heal a little. Play her songs, keep her alive.” I swallow deep and lean on the drugs for support.
Naomi.
I can't even fucking think past her name. It's just there in my head on a continuous loop. Her voice plays over and over again in my head, and I swear, when the wind blows, I can feel her body against mine. I squeeze my eyes shut and look down. I'm not usually this optimistic. But I've always been this stubborn.

“Fuck the fans,” Dax says, and I glance back up at him. He looks hysterical now, but I can't blame him for that, so I just stand there and let him rant. My muscles clench and anger rides over and through me, demanding respect, begging me to put him down. But I can't. I can't bring anybody else down because I'm at the lowest point there is. There's nowhere else to go. “This isn't a circus. We're not here to satisfy their morbid curiosity. Lives were lost and destroyed, Turner. There are a thousand vultures swarming outside this bus, wanting to cut so deep into us that we bleed to death.” Dax slaps his chest hard for emphasis, squeezing his fingers in their skeleton gloves so tight that his skin turns red. “And you want us to go onstage and play? Why? So every note can poison us a little more? So every strum of your fingers on her guitar can remind us that she's gone, and our life is gone, and the music,” Dax laughs, but there's no joy there. Just fucking pain and agony, enough to drown an army. “The music is dead, Turner.”

I look up, into Dax's gray eyes, past the wave of dark hair he uses to hide behind like a security blanket, and I give him God's honest fucking truth best as I know it.

“Music never dies, Dax. It revives and it soothes the soul. If you let this fall away, you let Naomi down, but the music will live on. The music will always live on.”

The atmosphere backstage is the most cloying, depressing shit I have ever had to sit through. Even Travis' funeral didn't feel like this. There's this sense of hopelessness that poisons the air and drags its dirty fingers through your soul. Nobody wants to be here, yet they have nowhere else to go.

The crowd is extra fucking insane today, screaming and shouting and clawing their way towards the stage, belting out questions that nobody knows the answer to.
Where is Hayden? Who killed Naomi? What will happen to Amatory Riot?
I keep the guitar slung over my shoulders and wait for Terre Haute to finish their set and get off the fucking stage. Once I get up there, this game is over. I will not allow the disrespect to continue. Those assholes will step up and shut up. They will show their support with open ears and desperate cries. They will listen and they will damn well appreciate Naomi's work, or I'll fucking destroy them onstage with her guitar. I will cut them up with this black and white axe, slice them to pieces and throw them to the wolves.

I finish my cigarette and toss it on the floor. I don't care if it burns the whole place to the ground. All that matters now is letting Naomi's voice be heard, using the music like I use the drugs, as a crutch to get through the day, a stepping stone to move across the black abyss of the horror filled week.

Nobody mentions that I'm wearing the same clothes I had on a few days ago or that I stink like shit. Not even Milo. I'm not even sure I'm the only one. Dax's outfit looks pretty fucking familiar.

“You don't have to do this,” Trey says to me, but I ignore him. He's really starting to piss me off. I used to think he knew me better than anyone, but this shit is starting to get old. If he can't see that I
have
to do this, then we've obviously grown further apart than I ever could've imagined.

“Trey, fuck off,” I tell him, and he just sighs.

“Fine, what the fuck do I know? I only watched Ronnie fall into a lifelong depression that he's never getting out of. Screw me sideways for trying to keep you from doing the same.”

“I'll be fine. Soon as I find Naomi.” Even if she's dead, I have to know for sure. Until then, in my head, she's still just missing. Although missing is better than bloodless and beat up, that's for fuck's sure.

“Oh, Jesus Christ, Turner. She's fucking
dead.
” He hisses this last part out, lowering his voice so nobody else can hear. The subject of Naomi Knox is friggin' taboo back here. They're all more than willing to entertain the scenario that she's lying cold in the morgue, but too chicken shit to say it aloud. Screw them. Screw them all.

“Do you hear the crowd?” Dax asks, moving up beside me. Trey throws him a nasty look though I'm not sure why. It's not like he's at fault for all this. God help the fucker who is. If I find him, I won't be thinking straight. There'll be his pain and his end, and I'll make it my own personal mission to see that he finds both. “This is ridiculous. We can't go out there. They're not even here to listen to the fucking music. Sorry to say this, but I think we're jumping ship.”

I spin to glare at him and get up in his face, pressing the toes of my boots to his. He doesn't expect it, so he doesn't step back, just stands there and let's me get in close.

“We will demand their respect, and we'll have it. They'll either give it or they'll leave. I won't accept anything else. If you bow out now, you give in. You might be prepared to do that, but I'm not.”

Rook drops the microphone from his mouth and pauses like he isn't sure what to do. The people in here have lost their Goddamn minds. Music isn't what they came here for; drama is. I don't do fucking drama.

Without waiting for a response from Dax, I storm across the stage in blood crusted boots, pausing in the center, waiting in the spotlight like I was fucking born for this. Rook gives up the mic without a fight.

“Hey.” One word from me shuts the whole place up, just the way it should be. I've always been in charge, ever since I left home. My life didn't give me any other options. It was either take control or be controlled. Not much of a fucking choice. And this is
my
tour, and it's my friggin' heart that's bleeding and my love that's lost at sea. The crowd gapes up at me with open mouths and cell phones flashing, taking pictures, recording video. Good for them. I want them to write this shit down in the history books, mark this moment as a landmark in life. If I get my way, they will remember this shit forever. Whether it's my dirty, sweaty clothes, or my sunken cheeks or my trembling hands, I don't know, but I get no backlash, just stunned silence when I speak my next words. “Shut the fuck up. We're not here to entertain you. We're here to destroy your souls and put you back together. We're here to make you remember why it's so damn good to be alive. We're here to remind you that all of the drama and the bullshit isn't worth it. So, you're gonna shut your mouths and you're going to listen, and if you don't like me saying that you can leave. And if you do stay, when you walk out that damn door later, you're going to stop gossiping and you're going to think real hard about what it is you want in life, and then you're going to take steps to fucking get it.” I pause and wet my lips while equipment is shifted around me, while the members of Amatory Riot sneak out from backstage, crawl across the dirty wood floor and stand with their heads down and their hearts pounding. “I fell in love with a girl last week. I didn't expect it, didn't even know what was happening to me until it was too late. Now that there's a chance I've lost her, I know I'd do anything to get her back.” My hand falls to the guitar, and my mind scrambles to remember her rhythm, her music, the rise and fall of her voice. It's been awhile since I've played, but I will be damned if I screw this up.