Chapter 16
The swipe of a card sliding in the lock has me hitting the power button on the TV remote, which engulfs the hotel room in darkness. And for a quick instant, I consider jumping across the room into my rollaway. But I’d never make it in time. I slip into the dark bathroom instead.
After Seth had refused to get on a bus, Sam reluctantly agreed to let him come to the concert. Seth had hounded me all day with questions. He’d been by my side while I ran the booth, before and after I took pictures of Luminescent Juliet onstage, while I packed up the booth, and then backstage. No matter how many times I’d refuted the notion, Seth had come up with more ways to insinuate that Sam and I are together. He’s obsessed with proving it. The harassment got so bad that I snuck away, paid for a cab myself, and came back to the hotel alone. As the door starts to open, I’m practically praying Justin is on the other side of it because I can’t deal with Seth anymore.
Unfortunately for me, it’s not Justin. I hear Sam’s voice blare angrily, “No, no, no. Gabe doesn’t give a shit about you.”
“Wrong!” Seth’s voice sounds wild. “He’s after me. Wants to take me down! Of course he’d slip something in my drink! He tried to poison me!”
What? Seth has to be wasted or something. I stand quietly in the bathroom, debating whether to turn on a light or say something to make them aware of my presence.
“Enough of this bullshit! No more of your bullshit!” Sam yells angrily. I freeze at the tone and volume of his voice.
“It’s the truth,” Seth says in a tone that borders on a whimper. I can sense that he’s cowering and refusing to back down at the same time. “It’s the truth,” he repeats.
Someone hits or kicks the bathroom door, then Sam says, “Okay. Okay. Why is he after you?”
“I don’t know. Ask him.” Someone, most likely Seth, stomps on the floor. “But I could tell he was planning something.”
I hear the frown in Sam’s voice as he says, “He was making out with a groupie. How or why the fuck would he be worried about you?”
Seth’s voice drops to a conspiratorial tone. “He wants to get rid of me,” he says. “Do me in. He might be one of the bad guys or even an alien for all we know. “
At those words, I want desperately to disappear, melt down the drain or something, and avoid hearing all this craziness. But there’s only one way out, and it involves leaving the bathroom and passing the brothers. So I stay put.
“Alien? Do you in? Do you in?” Sam repeats incredulously. “A drummer for an up-and-coming band has plans to murder the bassist’s twin brother because . . . ?”
“He’s evil,” Seth says in a wild tone. “You refuse to see it. Like always, you refuse to listen.”
Sam groans. “How long have you been off your fucking meds?”
I hold a gasp in. Somehow, I stay frozen, probably because of the shock hammering my brain.
“I told you, the pills were poisoning me!” Seth takes a deep breath. “The pills are bad. I can’t think with them, and they slowly kill a person, like arsenic. Everyone in my therapy group knows that.”
I’m still wishing I could dissolve into thin air when everything clicks into place: Seth is certifiably insane.
Sam’s next words come out sounding dull and cold. “You are getting on that bus tomorrow if I have to tie you to a fucking seat. Then you’re going back to your doctor and taking your fucking meds.”
“No,” says Seth, sounding stubborn. “I want to stay on tour with you.”
“What about the guy who wants to do you in?”
“He—”
“No!” Sam shouts. “Forget I asked. We’re going to bed, then getting up early so you can catch that six o’clock bus.”
The door to the bathroom opens and the light flicks on.
I stand frozen, staring at Sam.
“Peyton?” he asks, horror in his tone.
Seth is instantly by his side.
Oh crap. They both stare at me wide-eyed and openmouthed.
Seth takes a step past Sam, pointing at me. “She was listening!” He turns to his brother. “She’s spying on me,” he says angrily. “You brought her to spy on me!”
I back away from him and almost run into the tub. “I—”
“She’s not spying on you, Seth.” Sam draws in a deep breath, looking at me angrily. “She should have made her presence known, but no one is spying on you.”
“I’m really sorry,” I say, more to Sam than to Seth. “I was going to say something, but you started yelling and I didn’t want to come out and interrupt you. I kind of froze. I didn’t mean to listen,” I add when I see Sam’s jaw harden.
Seth’s fists bunch at his sides. “Stay out of my business, Peyton.”
“Okay,” I say simply. I step past Seth and then Sam, wanting to get the heck away from the drama. In the room, I reach for my purse.
“Just a minute,” Sam says, looking at my bag. “I need to make a call home. Can you wait with him? I’ll just be a few minutes.” Before I can answer, he points a finger at Seth. “You stay put.” With his phone in hand, he disappears into the bathroom.
Not wanting to hear anything Seth has to say, I flick on the TV and fall into a chair.
But of course Seth comes and stands in front of the TV. He pulls at the edge of his white tank until it’s stretched past his hips. “So why were you listening, Peyton?”
Not sure how to deal with him, I decide to be honest and say, “With you two barging in, it was kind of hard not to.”
His mouth twists as he glances toward the door. “Sam thinks I’m crazy. I’m not. I know things. See things. Lots of things. Things that others can’t see.”
Very uncomfortable, I stare at the TV. “Okay.” I’m not going to argue with him. From everything I’ve just heard, arguing fuels his paranoia.
“This isn’t good.” His hands twist in his tank now, causing his white stomach and protruding ribs to show. “Sam is calling my mother. They’re plotting right now. I’m not going to let them work against me,” he snarls. Then he releases his twisted shirt and moves lightning fast toward the door of the room.
“Wait!” I yell, stumbling after him. But before I can stand straight, he’s gone down the hallway. This can’t be good. I pound on the bathroom door. “Sam! Seth took off! Sam!” I shout and pound harder.
The door whips open. Holding the phone to his ear, Sam says, “He took off. I gotta go.” Racing past me, he goes to the door and looks down the hall. “Fuck!” he yells, then over his shoulder adds, “Peyton, I’m going to check the stairwell. You take the elevator. Meet me out front.”
I grab my purse, slip on my flip-flops, and head toward the lobby. I rush around the hall corner, but no one’s in front of the elevators. I tap my foot in irritation as I wait for an elevator. Once in the lobby, I don’t spot Seth anywhere. Outside, Sam stands at the far end of the sidewalk, his gaze sweeping the area.
I run over to him. “Where would he go?”
He shakes his head furiously. “I don’t know and he won’t answer his phone.”
“Would he try to confront Gabe?”
As he considers the idea, he winces. “Maybe.”
I haul Sam by the hand toward the hotel entrance, where cabs always wait. “Let’s go to the arena.”
He follows slowly at first, but within a few seconds, he’s dragging me. Luckily for us, there is a cab waiting. We slide into the backseat as Sam barks at the driver to go to the arena, which is about five blocks away.
Once we’re on the road, I ask, “What exactly is going on?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. He wasn’t supposed to know about the tour, but he clearly found out somehow. I never know what the hell Seth’s going to do. It’s just like him to get on a bus and come to Charlotte. Why fucking come to Charlotte?” he asks in a frustrated tone, staring out the window.
Aware he’s not looking for a response and forced to acknowledge that he’s not answering my question, I keep my mouth shut while many, many other unasked questions burn in my mind. Now is not the time, especially with Sam obviously dealing with so much.
The driver drops us off in front of the arena. We rush past masses of people leaving. But when we get to the front gate, they won’t let us back inside because the concert is letting out. Local people work the entrances, and Luminescent Juliet is not that well-known. Which is why the two guys at the gate don’t believe that Sam is in the band. At the point Sam is about to blow up, one of the roadies comes by pushing a flat cart full of boxes. Even when the roadie tells the gate guys Sam is in the opening band, they are reluctant but finally let us in.
We rush backstage and find the party in full swing, stereo blasting Pong. The large cement-walled room is packed with people, and a few band members. Gabe should be in here somewhere. Although the guys from Brookfield are usually tired and hang around only for a bit before heading to their hotel, Gabe always hangs out to party—usually with Sam.
After shoving through the mass, we find Gabe at the back. Girls hang on him, but he steps out of their embrace as we come at him.
Before either of us can ask about Seth, he yanks Sam by the collar and shouts in his face, “What the fuck is wrong with your brother?”
“Is he here?” Sam asks wide-eyed, obviously not caring Gabe is manhandling him.
Gabe jerks him closer. “The fucktard got in my face screaming weird shit. I almost punched his lights out. Luckily, I’m on probation. I settled for a bitch-slap,” he says, releasing Sam’s collar.
I tuck away the little nugget about probation.
“So he left?” Sam asks.
Gabe shrugs and wraps his arms around one of the girls. “Fucking hope so.”
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Sam says, then starts pushing through the crowd.
I stay close, a shadow in the swath he cuts through people.
Near the back entrance, he interrogates several bouncers. The third one thinks he saw someone fitting Seth’s description leave a few minutes ago through the parking lot. Out near the buses, Sam starts tearing at his hair and swearing under his breath, pacing back and forth across the cement.
After a few minutes of letting him vent, I ask, “Would he go back to the hotel?”
He stops and releases the tight hold on his hair. “I don’t have a clue!”
Knowing he’s frustrated, I choose to ignore his anger and think of possible solutions. “I could go back to the hotel while you look . . . somewhere else.”
He’s staring at me, breathing heavy, when the bass line of his phone rings and he takes it out of his pocket.
“Mom,” he answers curtly, then turns away. Staring at the back of him, I see him shake his head several times but can hear only the low murmur of his voice as he continues walking away. Minutes later, done with the call, he comes toward me, searching on his phone. He stops a few feet from me without looking up.
“He’s at the bus stop.”
“Really?” I ask incredulously. He didn’t want to go home this afternoon. He’d told me repeatedly he was staying on tour with his brother.
Sam continues studying the screen on his phone. “According to what he told my mother.”
“If we go back out front, we could probably catch another taxi.”
He shakes his head and turns. “We’re about two blocks away.” He shoves the phone back into his pocket and takes off past the bus. “It should take less than five minutes to walk,” he says over his shoulder.
Jogging in flip-flops is a bitch.
Sam was right. About five minutes later, we come up to the bus station. A bus slowly passes us and we both stop running at the sight of the person giving us a middle-finger wave from the back.
Actually, Seth’s twisted grin pairs rather well with his one-finger wave.