Hard Rock Roots Box Set (26 page)

“I knew it,” she whispers. “He got here first.”

And then there are men in uniform, dragging me and Dax and the girl back, pulling us out of the blood, away from the scent of copper and pain. My first instinct is to fight, and I end up elbowing a cop in the face. They cuff me and throw me in the back of a squad car, but I still have a first row seat to what's going on in front of me.

One body goes on a stretcher, the other in a body bag. I don't know which is which, and it's killing me.

This can't be happening. It just can't. I can't discover Naomi only to lose her. How fucked up is that? And she can't be dead, not yet, not with that pain she's carrying around. She deserves someone to show her a good time first, show her that life isn't all bad. Maybe I'm not the one, but maybe I am. How the fuck are either of us supposed to know, to be happy? If she is gone, I get the feeling that I am really and truly screwed. And I also know that I don't care because without her on this earth, nothing else will matter. Not even me.

Blue and red lights flash as the ambulances speed away. Well, one speeds, one goes slow. That's the one that scares the shit out of me. I drop my head to the back of the seat, and I scream. It echoes out the open window and ricochets around the lot.

In the midst of the gathering crowd around me, somebody smiles.

Chapter 1
Turner Campbell

I tap the vein in my right arm with two fingers and check the rubber tourniquet that's wrapped around my sweaty flesh, making sure it's pulled tight. I'm trying to set up a good injection site, so I can take the syringe I've got clutched between my teeth and shoot up. It's the only way I'll get through this. The only fucking way.

“Turner! What the hell is going on in there?” I slump against the wall and ignore Treyjan's hoarse shouting. He's been out there all damn morning, screaming his friggin' head off. I don't want to hear it anymore. He's driving me nuts.

I pull the syringe out of my mouth and slide the needle into my skin, hissing at the rush of white hot pain when it punctures my vein. I press the plunger down and wait. A few seconds later, I feel it in the back of my throat. It tastes like fucking victory, like accomplishment, like I'm king of the fucking world. I yank the needle out unceremoniously and toss it into the trash can. It lands on top of a mountain of used condoms and tissue paper, and it's probably unsanitary as shit, but I don't care. I don't care about anything right now except Naomi.

Naomi.

“Turner, get your fucking ass out here now!”

I rip the tourniquet off next and lay it on the counter, clutching the sides of the sink as I lean over and cough. Good meth always makes you cough. And it makes you feel so fucking good that even a nightmare like this starts to look like a dream.

“Are you slamming dope in there, motherfucker?” Trey screams, and he sounds like he's about to burst a damn vein this time. I lift my eyes up and stare at myself in the mirror. It's not a pretty sight.
I look like shit. Jesus Christ. Have I been walking around like this for three days?
My eyes are bloodshot and ringed with purple, and my lips are pale and cracked. I look like a Goddamn zombie.

“Don't get your panties in a wad, bitch,” I call out to him, standing up and sniffing, letting my eyes fall closed for another minute. At least now I don't have to worry about how I'm going to get through another day. The drugs will take care of that for me.

Naomi.

I reach over and unlock the door.

Trey doesn't waste any time opening it and throwing me a death glare. I ignore him in favor of putting on some eyeliner. We have a show tonight, and I want to look good. Hell, I have to look good or I'm not getting onstage. My pain is private, not something to hang out for all to see. I'm not on display here.

“You got a hard-on for me or something?” I ask him, pretending that everything's alright, that my life has not just gone from bad to worse, that the breath has not just been suctioned out of my fucking lungs. “I can't even shit in peace anymore?” Trey looks down at the garbage, up at the tourniquet and sneers.

“You're just gonna get high everyday now?” I shrug, applying black around my eyes, making sure it's thick enough to hide the circles. Women love eyeliner on guys anyway. Or at least the women at my shows do, the ones with the piercings in their noses and the tattoos on their hips. I want to pick one of them up and fuck away the pain, but I can't do that to Naomi. For the first time in my life, I can't even imagine screwing another woman.

I look up at the ceiling as my brain seizures with false pleasure, misplaced hope, fatal courage.

“What are you now, Mother Theresa? We've gotten high everyday since we were sixteen.” I pretend not to notice that Trey is wearing Travis' cap. Or whoever's cap. Still haven't figured that mystery out. There seem to be a whole shit ton of them floating around right now, and that's kind of the least of my worries.

Naomi.

“Not like this, Turner. Not fucking like this. What are you doing? You're gonna kill yourself.” I don't tell my best friend that I don't care, that I'd rather die than live without Naomi Knox. I mean, how fucked up is that? Love sucks balls. Everybody always acts like it's the one thing worth living for, that spark in the fire that pulls you in, that strokes your hair back and lets you know that everything's going to be okay. Well now that I've fallen into it, nothing is okay. Nothing will ever be okay. I sipped from love's wine and now I'm drunk as shit without a place to lie down. My happy ending, my saving grace is lying dead in a morgue, cut up and fucked up, so mangled they can't even identify her damn body for sure. Oh, they say it's probably her because if not then, I mean, where the shit is she? Where? Where?
Where the fuck are you, Knox? With your pretty blonde hair and your sunglasses and your fuck you all attitude.

I drop the eyeliner and shove Trey out of the way, barely managing to lift the toilet seat before I throw up into it. He watches me with a curled lip but doesn't say anything, not until I'm done and cupping water from the faucet to splash my face with.

“Look, man, what happened to those girls is fucked up in all sorts of crazy ways, but what do you want to do about it? The cops are on it. The manager chick is in the hospital.” Treyjan pauses and blows out a rush of air. His brown hair is disheveled and his eyes flick this way and that, looking for a way out of this confrontation. He knows what he wants to say to me, but he's afraid to. He should be. I stand up and turn on him quick, getting in his face, narrowing my eyes. My body is pulsing now, and I feel like I could sing from the mountaintops or some shit. But then I think of her.

Naomi
.

For as long as I've been playing with fire, popping pills, shooting up, whatever, I've never had a buzzkill quite like this. I feel the urge to reach into my mouth and pull my heart up, yank it right through my throat, bleed my pain all over the damn sink.

“Say it,” I tell Trey, clenching my fists, knowing I could beat the crap out of him if I wanted to. And I'm not gonna lie, I kind of want to right now.

“You don't even know her.”

“Naomi. If you're going to insult her, you may as well use her name.” Trey sighs and steps back, pulling a cig from his pocket and lighting up. He glances around for Milo, but our manager is off in another universe, one that has to do with hordes of reporters and TV cameras and magazine editors. There are conspiracy theorists galore, some cops, crazed fans, candlelight vigils. We're not on tour anymore, not really. Now we're part of a traveling circus, complete with freak show. Everything's gone to shit and nothing is right anymore. I feel like I'm walking crooked, like the whole world's on a tilt and I'm the only one trying to stand straight.

“Naomi was a cool chick,” he begins, but I cut him off, turning away and stalking back towards the front of the bus. Ronnie, Josh, and Jesse watch me with nervous eyes.

“Is,” I tell him because if I don't hold onto that last, little shred of hope, I'll crumble to pieces. I pull out a smoke of my own and light up.

“Turner, come the fuck on!” Treyjan screams, getting frustrated with me again. I think he's terrified that I'm going to turn into Ronnie, slide away into the shadow realm and become a walking, talking slice of melancholia. But he needn't worry about that crap. Knowing what I know now about this love shit, I'm surprised that Ronnie's still alive. I won't last if I find out for sure that she's gone. I'll just wither away and disappear. I take a drag and let my head fall back while smoke curls from my nostrils in gentle spirals. “You had a week long affair with this girl. Big deal. You're not in love. Stop being an emo bitch and get over it. People die, Turner. Life fucking blows. So suck it up and get over yourself.”

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.

Chapter 2
Naomi Knox

Confusion. Surprise. Pain.

These are the three things that came before the blackness.

Chapter 3
Turner Campbell

“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.