“Well, America, I am finally admitting it, I was wrong,” Riley said while I laughed. “Little did I know that when I was in the elevator that night, Hawkins’ annoyance wasn’t directed at me, but at his friend Warren. Warren, who in Hawkins’ opinion, was acting like the typical rock star by getting it on with my friend while having no concern for anyone else. In retrospect, it wasn’t until my friend pointed me out to Hawkins that he noticed I was even there since he was trying very hard
not
to look around.
“He thought I was stunning, breath-taking really, with my dark silken hair, expressive dark brown eyes that seemed to look right through
him
, and full lips that were pressed together in a thin line. In fact, I gave
him
the impression that he wasn’t good enough for me. It only infuriated him more to hear about my rules. Rules that clearly said what my eyes could not; you don’t have a chance in the world so don’t even try. Offended, he made a quick verbal jab at me, when I matched his wit and sarcasm as the elevator doors closed, it was more than he could handle.
“What I didn’t see was him pacing back and forth in the hallway while he pushed the elevator button again and again so he could set me straight, but it was too late. Angered beyond belief, he headed back to his hotel room for a stiff drink while restless and enraged. Then adding salt to the wound, he goes online to find out I wasn’t done insulting him days later. How awful that must have felt to him.”
“Ah,” I whispered then cleared my throat and changed the subject for a moment. “Do I sound like that when I write?”
“Ah, huh,” he emphasized while reading the blog to himself again.
“Adding salt to the wound?” I looked at him quizzically.
“He taunted the raging sea,” Riley rattled off one of my quotes and then continued, “Scorned my pride?”
“Okay, okay.” I rolled my eyes as he softly chuckled beside me.
“So he thought
I
was the arrogant one that night?” I smirked while focusing on the road again. “That’s so wild.”
I replayed the elevator ride in my mind. It was Lizzie I was I rolling my eyes at and I was miserable, but by the sound of it, so was he. Though, I wasn’t miserable now. I smiled as we passed over the bay of Charleston, South Carolina. The smell of salt water hung thick in the air, and so did the humidity, as we drove with the windows down. It took six long hours until we finally reached our destination.
“I’m so exhausted,” I groaned.
“Join the club,” Riley confessed.
“Why? Was everything okay?” I darted a glance over at him while my hair lightly whipped around my face from the wind.
“The whole being alone with this killer on the loose,” he reminded me. “I just put on a brave face for you guys.”
“I’m sorry.” My shoulders caved with the realization that he was scared, too.
“No, I completely understand.” He smiled. “You were
busy
.” He waggled his eyebrows with a pretzel tucked in between his lips.
“Ha, ha.” I half laughed, “But you’re coming with me tonight when I visit Hawkins.”
“What if he doesn’t want me to?”
“Don’t worry, I think that you’re somewhere in his master plans,” I mumbled while thinking about his open invitation for Riley to ride along in the tour bus with us. We were just on the outskirts of town with plenty of time to kill. The drive was so draining that even Lizzie was still asleep behind us.
“Well, it’s unanimous.” I exhaled. “We need to find a place to crash for a couple hours.” I veered off the highway just one exit before downtown Charleston.
Continuing to drive along the road, I found a spot that was completely surrounded by trees. I eased the van down a small slope off to the side of the road. Once completely hidden by the small forest, I cut off the engine. Riley and I fought for the space next to Lizzie on the cot with the best out of three of rock, paper, scissors. To my dismay Riley won and hopped in the back to lay down. Leaning back in the driver’s seat, I glanced out at the greenery of the forest before falling asleep.
In my dreams, I was running from Cyrus through a crowd of people at a concert. I wanted to give up, but I had to get to Hawkins! He was going to kill him! Then my dream switched and I was beside the van. Riley was behind the wheel as I frantically jumped in and shut the door.
An unsettling sound of metal against metal came from outside. Looking out the window, I saw nothing so I turned around to Riley, but it wasn’t Riley anymore. I screamed at the sight of Cyrus! I went for the door when the silver lock slammed shut.
Snapping my eyes open, I felt too paralyzed by fear to move. My heart was beating a mile a minute. It was just a dream, but the troubling feeling wouldn’t leave me. Looking out at the surrounding forest, I was just about to close my eyes again when I heard the strange sound of metal scraping against metal again. Jerking my body still, I glanced in my side mirror, but saw nothing. Still terrified, I glanced up at the rearview mirror and watched the two of them snoring in the back.
What the hell could have made that noise? There was a flash of movement in the rearview mirror when I was just about to sit up. My heart jolted alive, in the next second a tall figure appeared in the back window of the van. Oh, my god! The surrounding forest cast a sheen of blue and green off his white bald head. How did Cyrus find us?!
The keys dangled from the ignition while I continued to stay still. I was doing my best to look asleep. Then suddenly he was gone and I heard the familiar, unsettling sound of metal scraping against metal on the opposite side of van. Pouncing up, I peeked in the passenger’s side mirror. Oh, holy shit! He was dragging the tip of a gun, no louder than a whisper, along the side of the van. Adrenaline took over as I turned the ignition and the van quickly roared to life. Through the corner of my eye, I saw his silhouette pop up in the passenger side window.
“AHHH!” I screamed out.
Slamming on the gas pedal, the van jerked ahead and then slowed due to the small slope. My heart pounded as Cyrus fumbled with the handle on the door that I knew Riley forgot to lock. Riley and Lizzie groaned from being tossed around in the back.
“What is it?!” Riley shouted as the van slammed forward again in the game of catch and release. Cyrus opened the door, but it was wrenched from his hand and shut when I hit the gas again. Riley and Lizzie tried to stand.
“Stay down, he has a gun!” I shouted at them when the van slid slightly sideways. The tires spun in the soft dirt below as Cyrus got a hand on the door again.
“Too many secrets, Joie,” he grunted when the door flailed open. Now that the van was taking the hill from the side, I hit the gas and it rammed forward again, throwing him back, but the gun stayed steady in his hand. He fired in my direction as gunshots busted the window next to me.
“HAAAA!” I screamed. He was going to kill us!
“Ohhhh!” Lizzie shouted from the back.
As the van moved over the hill, Cyrus ran along taking aim. Riley grabbed Lizzie’s luggage from the back, slid the side door open and chucked it hard at Cyrus. The blow hit him dead center knocking him back. The van was finally freed from the deadly terrain of the forest as all four tires hit the pavement of the nearby road. I laid my foot on the gas pedal while leaving Cyrus behind just as the rear window shattered from a bullet and glass sprayed across Lizzie who screamed with her head ducked down. Approaching the highway, we veered down the entrance ramp heading off to Charleston and out of firing range.
“Is everyone okay?!” I shouted as adrenaline continued to shoot through my body. My hands literally shook as I grabbed onto the steering wheel.
“I’m fine,” Riley said as he slid the side door shut before I merged onto the highway.
“Lizzie?!” I perked up in my seat to look back at her through the rearview mirror.
“Why does this keep happening to us?!” she squeaked. The color had completely drained from her face.
“I don’t know.” As pissed as I was with Lizzie before, I wish I could have stopped to hug her right then, but after what just happened, all I wanted to do was get out of there. I brushed the bits of glass off my lap in between looking up at the highway.
Ten minutes later, we were just aimlessly driving around downtown Charleston. Finally, I decided to pull over and call Hawkins, not knowing of anyone else who would help us.
“He shot at you?” I heard the astonishment in his voice.
“A few times,” I explained. “We had been completely surrounded by the woods. You couldn’t see the van from the road. I had been careful. Something was off,
really
off.”
“There was something else.” I narrowed my eyes while searching the heavily parked street for any sign of Cyrus. “He said to me, ‘Too many secrets, Joie.’”
“It’s like,” I hesitated. “It was like he was coming for me this time, not Lizzie. It’s like he knows about the two of us or something. I can’t think of another possibility of why he would suddenly be fascinated with me.”
“Where are you?”
I looked up at the sign in the distance. “On Church Street,” I informed him. “We’re parked now, but we had been driving around. This town is so small that our bullet ridden van stands out. It’s kind of freaking me out,” I confessed.
“Come to the venue,” he urged. “I’ll notify the staff to look out for your van.”
“Thank you.” I closed my eyes as relief washed over me.
“You don’t have to thank me, Joie. I want to protect you.”
“Okay.” I bit my lip.
“So umm,” he said awkwardly which was cute as hell. Hawkins didn’t proclaim his feelings easily. “I’ll see you, soon.”
“Yep.”
Snapping the phone shut, I looked over at Riley who was scanning the road behind us through his side mirror. “He wants us to…”
“I already MapQuested it,” he interjected while scanning the street ahead of us with his laptop perched up on his right leg again. “We’re not that far away,” he said, to my relief.
11. ARRANGEMENTS
Fifteen minutes later, we pulled onto a street that led up to the stadium. The staff was on the lookout for us like Hawkins had said. The venue crew, which was dressed in bright yellow shirts, directed us down to the left of the stadium. A security person manually pulled back the metal fenced gate for us to pass into the band’s parking lot that was enclosed with rings of barbed wire. I felt like we had just driven into a maximum security facility as they closed the gates behind us.
If it wasn’t for the expensive sleek tour buses all parked in a line near the edge of the fence, I’d have thought I was visiting Hawkins in jail. Once we parked, we got out and assessed the damage to the van. A few bullet holes had riveted through the metal on the side. Thankfully, Lizzie didn’t get shot while ducking in the back. Besides the two busted windows, the van was still in pretty good condition.
Lizzie squealed and took off for Warren who was waiting with Hawkins near a doorway to the back of the stadium. She jumped up into Warren’s arms and he hoisted her up as she wrapped her legs around his waist.
“It was so scary!” Lizzie cooed in a baby voice while he brushed back her hair.
“Are you okay?” Warren looked tenderly up at her.
“I am now, but I don’t want to fight anymore,” she purred.
“Don’t worry about the fight. I’m just glad that you’re safe,” Warren responded before he twirled her around and carried her back towards the door. Harrison opened the door for them when Lizzie gave me a knowing wink. She whispered in his ear while arching her eyebrow at me then looked away. In the next second, they both busted out laughing.
“Are you okay?” Hawkins came to stand in front of me while blocking off my view of Lizzie.
Regrouping, I momentarily wondered, was Lizzie calculating her every move?
“Umm…oh yeah.” I looked up at him. “I’m okay.”
“Riley?” Hawkins asked.
We both turned towards Riley who was doing his best impersonation of an American Eagle manikin, muscular and cut, but completely still.
“Yeah.” I smiled up at Hawkins. “He’s okay.”
Hawkins scanned the parking lot warily, but his eyes softened when they met mine again. He then put a protective hand along the back of my shoulder while squeezing it. My muscles relaxed under his touch. We headed over to the back entrance of the stadium.
“Have you finally come to your senses?” Hawkins asked me.
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean?” he said parentally. “You’re going to stop traveling around in that van, right?”
“It’s still in good condition.”
“Joie, you can’t be serious.” He suddenly stopped and turned to me. Any hint of a smile was now gone. “Is this because of those stupid rules?” He looked down at me with fury in his expression while getting more pissed by the second.
“No,” I shook my head, remembering my father.
“You’re not taking this seriously enough,” he said with exasperation.
Harrison cleared his throat which caused Hawkins to jerk his head up. They exchanged a look, before Hawkins said, “Let’s just get inside.” He took my hand in his and led me through the back entrance with Riley close behind us.
Hawkins led us down a hallway while he practically growled at me to come to my senses. “The Grimm Reaper isn’t just threatening to blow up a tour bus,” he explained. “He has threatened to abduct the
real
Lizzie next.” We locked eyes with each other. “And now that I know he is capable of murder…”
He stopped walking and turned to face me. “Please,” he said earnestly while putting a hand on either of my shoulders. “Stay with me.” His eyes were soft and searching. This had to be completely unnerving for him to have us so unprotected.