Get Bent (30 page)

The screaming starts up again, the running. The rest of the fans abandon their frantic rush towards us at about the same moment I hear a telling click.

Man, I don't know what the fuck comes over me, but when I hear that sound, I go all karate and shit. My primal instincts take over, and even though I know I don't know shit about combat, that I'm just an asshole with a good right hook, I react. After all, I'm an asshole in love.

I turn, spinning sharp and letting my fist fly without much thought. It cracks Eric 'the fuck up' Rhineback right in his pale jaw and spills a rush of blood from his mouth like a Halloween prop. But he doesn't drop the gun. Instead, he lowers his aim and fires.

“Turner!” His name barely escapes my lips before he buckles, blood spraying out his thigh and soaking his stupid girl jeans. I don't know if I've ever been as afraid as I am in that moment, my heart beating in slow motion inside my tightened chest. His other hand comes up and grabs Eric's wrist hard, biceps squeezing, using that practiced pretty strength to drop the gun from my foster brother's grip and send it skidding across the pavement.

Behind me, the monster screams and stops, closing in on us and the buses start to shake in the currents of wind and the trees whimper. Lawn chairs go flying and the debris that was dumped on us lifts back up as if by magic. The gunshot is going to kill Turner, but the tornado is going to kill us all.

I move forward as the man I hated more than anyone else in the world, the one person I thought that could never redeem himself, collapses in a puddle of his own blood with a grunt. But he never screams. Not once. He won't give Eric the satisfaction, stubborn even in his pain.

“Not right now, Eric!” I scream, watching his face, watching his eyes as they move to the sky and fill with fear. Whatever he says, whatever he thinks, he isn't really prepared for this. “Get to the ditch and we'll deal with this later! Go!” I make no false assumptions about the value of his character and watch in grim satisfaction as the gun is lifted up and carried away while my clothes whip around my body, stinging my skin. The most horrible fucking screech comes to us on the gale, the death throw of a small car as its open door comes off with a frightening ease. It doesn't have long to mourn its lost limb because up it goes next, spinning away like a toy.

We are so done for.

I crouch down over Turner who can't get up, who can't run and reach for the handle of the door to the venue. It's locked. Locked. Fucking
locked.

“Go,” he growls at me, shoving me back, pushing at me with bloody hands. “Now. Fucking get your ass out of here Naomi. I'd rather have a tree shoved up my ass than see you hurt.” I think I'm crying, but who knows because the tears get ripped away in the wind. Eric continues to lord over us.

“Come with me,” he says and in his voice, I hear the magic of a boy who once watched the stars with me. I don't know if it's in his genetics or what, but he's changed. He transformed from that hopeful boy to a disturbed young man. He can't be redeemed for what he's done. There is no
I'm sorry
for Katie. I hope the tornado kills him. “I'll keep you safe, Naomi. That's all I ever wanted was to keep you safe. I helped you clean up the crime scene, didn't I?” I ignore him. He's inconsequential now. We have seconds, if that. “I don't know what Hayden or Katie told you, but I can promise it's a bunch of bullshit. They've been playing me almost badly as Turner's been playing you. He knows everything, Naomi. He's a part of it.”

I grab Turner's face between my hands, and I look him in his beautiful, beautiful eyes. If I'm going to die here, I'm going to do it right.

“I fucking love you,” I tell him, and he stops fighting me. The gray sky drops a torrent of violent rain on our heads, plastering my hair to my face, drowning me. I slap it away and press my face close to his. “I haven't completely forgiven you for the things you've done, but I love you just the same. I love you. I love you.” And then I kiss him, taste his tongue ring, run my fingers down his face.

And then I'm shoving him onto his back, covering my body with his, waiting to die.

I can't describe my next few moments because the English fucking language does not have words for them. All I can tell you is that I've traveled to hell and back, and it isn't pretty. It's ugly as
shit.

“Naomi!” I scream after the wave rushes us, rides us, fucks us and then simply … stops. The building is missing its roof, the buses are not where they were when we left them and there are bodies everywhere. Some are covered with debris, others are lying bare on the suddenly sunny pavement like they're just out for a tan. I
must've
passed out because I don't remember anything beyond that kiss, that one fucking, single sharing of breath that will define who I am for the rest of my miserable life. “Naomi!” I push myself up with my elbows and grit my teeth against the pain in my thigh. It's inconsequential right now. I don't care. I don't care about anything but my one woman. My only woman. “Naomi?” My shout becomes a question as I roll her over. She moves limply, pulled only by my arms on her shoulders. I don't see her chest moving. I don't see it. I don't fucking see it.

She's dead.

She's fucking dead.

“Naomi?” That's it, there it is, a sob. A wail. “NAOMI! FUCK!”

I grab her face, lift her head up, tap her cheek. Blood dribbles down the side of her face and turns her blonde hair pink, taints her lips. I pull her body up to mine and listen.
No, no, no, no.
But then, there it is, a faint pulse, a light whisper. She sucks in a breath and groans.

I cry like a little bitch.

I won't lie. I bawl like a baby and go back for more, squeezing her against me, cursing her name under my breath.

“Would you stop shouting,” she whispers. “I mean, just shut the fuck up. My head hurts. I can't think straight.”

“You stupid, fucking bitch, what the hell were you thinking?”

“I was shielding you, you asshole.” Naomi tries to sit up and whimpers, dropping her body back against mine. I hold her tight and wrap my arms around her as I survey the damage. It's like a fucking apocalypse out here. In the distance, I hear sirens, ambulances probably. The tornado warning has stopped, but I doubt out of choice. I bet that fucker got ripped up and torn up, spit out and eaten alive. Whoever it is that's coming, I hope they get here soon because I don't think either of us is able to move. I press a kiss to Naomi's hair. “You're alive,” she says.

“You sound almost disappointed,” I whisper, trying to keep the fuck all, screw it rhetoric. I don't want to know how many of those bodies are never going to get up again. Naomi doesn't respond and we wait while leaves skitter around us. Groans are coming from various places across the lot and voices from beyond the chain-link fence. I don't turn and look at them. I can barely fucking move.

And then I remember. Shit.

Dax.

I twist around and try to look, trying not to let Naomi figure out what I'm doing. I spot his emo ass right away, lying motionless where I last saw him standing. God-fucking-damn it. I turn back around and squeeze Naomi's head against my chest. She doesn't need this right now. I just keep my attention on moving my hand through her hair, nice and gentle and slow.

I notice Eric's blonde head sticking out from under a cluster of cardboard boxes, buried there like a bum in an alleyway. He, unfortunately, isn't as motionless as Dax. I can see his fingers twitching as he groans and crawls forward, straining himself up on his elbows. Behind me, shouts ring out and boots pound the pavement. My neck is fucking killing me, but I stay in that position and watch as some of the police officers and roadies check the bodies.

Naomi starts to fall asleep, but I give her a gentle shake and press another kiss to her head. I think she has a concussion. Ain't no way I'm letting her out of this now. Not after that confession. It was as epic as the fucking storm and ten times as unexpected.

“I love you, too, Naomi Knox,” I tell her. “And it'll be alright. It'll be o-fucking-kay.” I glance back. Hayden is leaning over Dax with tears on her skinny, gaunt face. She checks his pulse and I wait with bated breath.
One, two, three.
She rubs at her nose and sits down, pulling his head into her lap. It only takes a moment for some of her bandmates to catch up to her. From their reactions, I can tell that Dax is alright. They're worried but not devastated. Good sign. I breathe out a sigh of relief. He might be a fucking rival, but I don't want him dead. I don't want anything around that could hurt Naomi.

“He's okay?” she asks, and I pause.

“Yeah,” I say, as I look back and lift my hand to grab Ronnie's attention. He starts towards us in a jog. “Dax is alright.” I smile. “Sneaky bitch. I was tying to protect you from that shit.” Naomi's orange-brown eyes flicker open and she focuses her watery gaze on the crawling form of her foster brother.

“Turner, don't ever try to protect me from feeling something real. Don't try to protect me at all.” She pauses and a tiny smile tweaks her bloody lip. “Unless it's as stupid and egotistical as thinking you can take out a man with a gun without being shot. Kind of like that.”

I smile and then pause. My lips turn into a frown.

“The fuck?” Naomi twists just enough to see, wincing as she spots her foster sister, Katie, standing with her dirty dress and plastic purse. She's at the edge of the parking lot, next to a toppled bus. She doesn't look bothered by the devastation. She doesn't even
see
it. Her purse falls to the ground with a crash that sounds too loud for plastic on cement, like something else is falling, too, like her sanity is smashing down right along with it. And then she starts to run, bare feet whispering across the lot as she skitters, moving in a way I've never seen another human move – with grace and fucking violence intertwined around the bareness of her soul.

“Katie?” Naomi asks, but her sister doesn't look at us. She has black angel wings on her back, guiding her forward, bringing tiny tears from the sky in the form of rain. It splats on our cheeks as we watch. She skids to a stop next to Eric and bends down to pick up a wooden board from his back. At first, I think she's fucking helping the asshole, that this whole plot is even more sick and twisted than it was before, that she has hardcore Stockholm syndrome.

Eric doesn't see her, doesn't even look up.

Katie whispers something that nobody else can hear, that's meant solely for the ears of God. Or the Devil. Yeah, probably for him.

And then she drops the board.

Naomi and I cringe as it hits Eric in the head and drops his chest back to the pavement. He whimpers and tries to stand, but she isn't finished. She hits him again. He collapses a second time with a strangled cry. There's so much going on that nobody but us sees at first. And Katie keeps going. She has a purpose in mind and
nobody
is going to take her from it. The board comes down. Eric grunts. Again. The crack of skull.

“You! What the fuck are you doing?” The gruff voice from behind us doesn't stop Katie. She starts to slam that board down with a renewed vigor, splattering her face with blood, soaking her dress with the spray. “Drop your fucking weapon and put your hands in the air!” Katie swings again and a warning shot is fired into the gray stillness above our heads. She drops the wood by her side and looks down at the bloody pothole of Eric's skull. When she raises her hands above her head and drops to her knees, tears of joy are rolling down her face.

I hold Naomi close to me and try not to think the one thought that we're both feeling.
There goes the problem. That solves it. This is it, right? The rest of the little details, the unanswered questions, can be worked out later. The threat is over, erased with violence and tiny, porcelain hands so used to abuse they can stand innocent no longer.

The cops cuff Katie Rhineback and keep guns trained on her tiny form. A man in an
Ice and Glass
shirt checks his pulse. He shakes his head and purses his lips.

In the midst of the chaos and destruction, somebody spins America's silver wedding band around their finger.