Chapter Nineteen – Angel
My head hurt like a you-know-what. My brain pounded with the force of an impending explosion inside my skull, and my eyelids were heavy as stone. I couldn’t open them for the longest time. I couldn’t really move any of my body, now that I was thinking about it. It was like I was conscious, but at the same time, completely out of it.
I fought with myself, trying to regain my strength and get myself up. My memories were hazy and foggy; I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten here, or where I even was. Hence the reason why it’d help some if I could open my stupid eyes.
I didn’t know how long it took for me to wrangle my eyelids into submission, but when I finally managed to open them, I saw a high ceiling through the darkness of whatever room I was in, shadows my only company. I had no idea where I was, but once my eyelids worked, the rest of my body followed suit.
Sitting up, I moaned and threw a look around. A bedroom. I was on an unfamiliar bed in a bedroom I didn’t recognize, but judging from how expensive everything looked in the darkness, I’d say I was in a suite at the Redborne. Not the suite I shared with the guys, but a different one.
Why in the heck was I was here? And how did I get here?
Eventually I got up and wandered out, my feet shuffling to the hall. With a quick glance down, I saw I wore a white dress with white tights underneath. My skin was painted white, which told me I was ready for a show.My mask was MIA.
But… wait. That wasn’t right, was it? It was so freaking hard to remember. My head hurt so bad it literally was painful to think.
As I came out of the hall, into a wide-open space that had the living room area on one side and an open-concept kitchen on the other, I realized I was alone. No lights were on. I was in the dark, literally—and that finally got my heart to race.
I hurried to the door, my intent to leave this random place, but as my hand curled around the door handle, I found I couldn’t open it. The thing wouldn’t budge at all, no matter how I tried to turn it. It was stuck, like it was locked from the outside or something. A broken door handle.
This wasn’t good.
I banged on the door and shouted, just in case anyone was walking by in the hall, “Hello? Is anybody out there? I’m locked inside!” If I had any luck, someone would hear and come to my rescue, call the front desk and they’d send maintenance up or something.
But, shocker, I heard not a sound in the hall. Nothing and no one answered me.
My breathing came out faster, and I pushed away from the door, feeling all around my body for my phone. These damned stage clothes didn’t have any pockets. Normally, when I didn’t have pockets, I stuffed my phone against my leggings—or in this case, the waistband of my tights—but having my phone possibly fall out on stage was something I wanted to avoid, so I always kept it in my dressing room.
Damn it. I didn’t have my phone.
I raced back to the bedroom I’d woken up in, flicked on the light, and searched high and low for my phone, hoping with a desperate heart it was somewhere nearby.
My search turned up empty.
I let out a groan, and as I tried to wrangle my emotions under control, I wandered over to the window on the far side of the room. Peering out, I was able to see a familiar skyline in the darkness—and that told me I was definitely in the Redborne, somewhere.
Where were the guys? How had I gotten here? I didn’t remember…and then I did. I never had an Oh, shit moment like I had right there.
Tonight we were supposed to perform our first show at Greenbay Stadium. I had no idea what time it was now, but I’d definitely say I missed that entire show. A sick feeling took over me, and I wandered back to the bed, slumping down as exhaustion took over.
I was in my stage clothes because I was supposed to be on stage with Bishop, Priest, and Deacon.
None of this was right. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to think back, to remember the last thing before it all went black. I was getting ready in my dressing room, the guys had all come to hang with me while I did my finishing touches.
And then… then Ramona had come to talk to me. She’d said the label was really impressed by me, what they were seeing and hearing from me, and that they’d love to discuss me sticking around longer. As in, permanently.
Everything got hazy after that. I think Ramona left, and then I walked out of the room, into the hall, looking for the guys. They weren’t there, so I… I…
Shit. I think that’s when I blacked out.
But that wasn’t normal for me. I didn’t black out randomly. Something had to have happened. I tried to think of what else I did in that dressing room, and the only other thing I did was drink some of the water that was there, waiting for me .
Oh, no. Had I been drugged? Drugged and then kidnapped? Shit. This wasn’t good.
I tried to recall if anyone had come up to me, if I’d seen anyone in the hall after Ramona left, but regardless of how hard I tried to think, the black curtain in my head wouldn’t clear. I couldn’t remember.
The guys had to be looking for me, right? They had to know I wouldn’t just up and leave them… I hoped. After all the time we’d spent together, after real feelings got involved, they had to know I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize their—our—credibility as a band returning to the limelight.
I didn’t know how long I sat there on the bed, as if I was waiting for someone to come and illuminate the dark spots in my head, but it had to be hours. Eventually, I wandered to the living room area, and plopped down on one of the couches. My goal was to watch TV, but what would you know, there was no TV hanging.
No TV. This was hell.
Once I finished pouting about the whole no TV thing, I wandered to the bathroom to scrub off the body paint and makeup on my face. Without makeup remover, it was a pain in the ass. No towels, either, so I only had my hands. Eventually the skin on my hands and face got sore from rubbing so much, but at least I didn’t look like I’d just stepped off the stage. My skin was on fire by the time I cleaned myself up.
It was a long night. I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t. All I could do was think about the guys and the performance I’d surely missed, along with the reason I was here. Who could’ve done this?
One person popped in my head at the thought. One person. One man who had made it very clear he didn’t like me. A man who might just want to embarrass the remaining members of Black Sacrament because he was no longer in the band.
Pope.
Once the realization hit me, I didn’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner. I’d seen him twice, and the second time he’d forced me to go with him, sit down and talk to him. When I’d gotten up to leave, he’d basically threatened me.
Had Pope somehow snuck into the stadium, drugged me, and kidnapped me? It seemed far-fetched, but it was the only logical explanation I could think of.
Oh, God. How was I going to get out of this? I didn’t know what to do. I’d never been kidnapped before. This was absolutely insane. I was just a small-town girl from the middle of nowhere who happened to win a contest to join a band she’d never heard of before, all thanks to her stalker of a little sister who’d only done it so I could date all of them and get Mom used to the idea of her daughter dating more than one guy at a time.
That’s it. That’s the whole story. A bit of a mouthful, but that’s all there was to it. I definitely didn’t merit any kidnapping.
If it was Pope—or, really, if it was someone else—what was the endgame? What was the goal of this? What did he hope to achieve by doing this? Pope obviously wanted the guys to suffer. Maybe it was a if I can’t be in the band, then the band shouldn’t exist kind of thing. Maybe Pope had lost his mind and he wanted to make the guys look like fools.
But then what? He had to let me out of here eventually. He wouldn’t keep me in here forever, would he?
For the first time, I realized I might not be getting out.
I didn’t know what made me do it, but I got up and checked the fridge in the kitchen. I didn’t know what I expected, since there was no TV, but there was no food in the fridge. Just empty shelves.
Double shit.
This really wasn’t good.
Now that I’d realized all of that—that I might freaking die in this stupid suite, not far at all from my guys, just a few floors away—I paced the length of the suite. I couldn’t sit still, and I sure as hell couldn’t go to sleep. I paced the night away until my legs were sore, and then I kept it up because I had nothing else to do.I did break to scrub the paint off my body, not something super easy to do with no soap.
Morning came, shedding light into the suite from the windows, illuminating everything in a bright, orange glow. Whatever little hope I had that someone would come waltzing through that door once morning came died as the hours ticked on.
Again, I didn’t know what time it was, but I was starving. I was so freaking hungry, and sipping water from my hands from the faucet just wasn’t cutting it.
This was insane. This was absolutely insane. I didn’t know what to do.
I pounded on the door, thinking that, maybe, since it was daytime, someone would hear, but I only made my voice hoarse. After a while, probably around lunch time, I gave up and went slinking back to the couch, falling face-first onto it. The only thing keeping me company was my thoughts, and right now, my thoughts weren’t a very happy place.
I lay there for an eternity.
More like twenty minutes, maybe, but after a while, my ears heard something. I sat up the same moment I realized what the sound was: someone coming in from the hall. I whipped my head around, my feet slower to catch the memo, but once I was up and off the couch, I started to walk toward the door—to, like, bum-rush whoever it was.
Tackle them. Take them down. Do whatever I could to get out into that hallway.
I didn’t make it far, though, because as soon as I saw who it was, I knew there was no way I could take him down. My feet skidded to a stop. I stood next to the island, still a good thirty feet away from the door as he stepped inside and let the door close behind him.
“It’s you,” I whispered, glaring at him hard. Let’s just say my suspicions were correct.
Pope stood near the door, his eyebrows coming together as he saw me, a hard look on his face. He wore the same leather jacket I’d seen him in both times before, along with black pants that hugged his long legs tightly. Not a look many guys could pull off, but Pope had that swagger.
I thought he’d have something smart and, you know, evil to say, since he’d drugged and kidnapped me, but what he ended up saying caught me so off-guard, all I could do was glare at him in response: “What the hell are you doing here?”
We stared at each other, neither one of us saying another word for at least a minute or two. I stepped closer to him, wanting to keep as much distance between us as possible—couldn’t forget how tall and big he was. He could easily overpower me—but at the same time, something about his expression wasn’t adding up.
It was almost like he was surprised to see me here, and that didn’t make sense.
“What am I doing here?” I repeated. “Why are you here? Come to see how crazy I am after you drugged me and brought me here?”
“After I… what the fuck are you talking about?” Pope’s face twisted into a sneer. A slightly confused sneer, but a sneer nonetheless. “I didn’t drug you, and I definitely didn’t kidnap you.” He didn’t sound like a liar, as much as I hated to admit it.
“If you didn’t do it…” I trailed off, studying his face. “Why are you here? How’d you get in?”
Pope held up a room key. “I was sent this, along with a note. Trust me, the last thing I thought I’d see was you.” He strode forward, close enough to me that he could toss down the room key onto the counter with a huff.
“Who was it from?”
I could tell Pope didn’t want to answer. He ground his jaw and looked away before muttering, “Ramona.”
Wait. Ramona ? His answer hit me like a physical blow, and I took a step back, desperately trying to think back to last night and the talk Ramona had with me. How she’d wanted it to be private. Had she drugged my water while I wasn’t looking?
But why in the world would she do that?
“I thought she wanted me back in the band or something, but it turns out this is just one stupid prank,” Pope muttered with a scowl. “Whatever. I’m out of here.” He left the key card on the island, turning and heading back toward the door.
I watched, not saying a word, as he tried—and failed—to leave.
“What the fuck is this?” Pope demanded, whirling around to glare at me. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do this. Why the heck would I invite you here under the guise of meeting with you and trap us both in here?” I asked.
Pope prickled, but even he had to concede, “Good point.”
“And, anyway I was supposed to perform at Greenbay Stadium last night—and tonight, and tomorrow night—and I missed our first show.”
“Boo fucking hoo. Nobody cares.” He gave me his back and tried to jiggle the handle again.
That’s what he was wrong. “I care,” I whispered. I cared a lot, a lot more than I ever thought I would. Bishop, Priest, and Deacon; I loved those guys. I loved them and I loved Black Sacrament. It might not be the same as it used to be, but that’s all right, because things didn’t have to stay the same to be great. Change could be good.
Pope wouldn’t let go of the darn doorknob. He kept at it, futile.
I told him, “You know you don’t need Black Sacrament.”
That got him to stop and turn to face me. Again, about thirty feet were between us, but it was like he was right in front of me, staring daggers into my very soul. “You don’t know anything about me, Angel ,” he hissed out my fake name. “Black Sacrament is me, and I am it. It wouldn’t exist without me.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I acknowledged, “but things change. People move on. Don’t you think it would be better for you if you did the same?”
He took an aggressive step toward me. “I don’t want to move on. I’m nothing without Black Sacrament. That band is fucking mine! Not yours, mine . I don’t care what you say or how you have the others eating out of the palm of your hand. Your days in the spotlight are numbered. I’ll make sure of that.”
Again, so threatening.
I didn’t know him, and I only knew what the headlines had said about why he’d been booted from the label for personal conduct, but I did know that sticking around and stalking me, saying all these things to me right now… it didn’t look good. It made him look really, really bad.
So I told him the truth. I told him what I thought, even though he probably wouldn’t care. “I think you need to move on.”
The way he stared at me made me want to shrink away and hide, but I stood strong, refusing to be cowed by him. He might’ve been older than the others by a year or two, but he was no man. No, if anything, Pope was still a boy.
And I would not be intimidated by a boy.
Pope was before me in an instant, hissing out a venomous, “Fuck you. Who the fuck do you think you are—” His hands flexed at his sides. He stood less than a foot away from me, towering over me, an ugly look on his face. I couldn’t tell if he wanted to put his hands on me or not, but I stood strong.
I heard shouting in the hall, and both our heads turned toward the door. Whoever it was, they were a saving grace, helping me diffuse this situation.
Pope narrowed his eyes at me, and as the scuffle in the hall grew louder, he leaned down and whispered, “You’re lucky someone’s here to get us out of here, otherwise… let’s just say you wouldn’t like being trapped in here with me.”
I really hated that he was Deacon’s brother. Deacon could get in moods, but Pope was downright awful. So mean and vicious and cruel, with the way threats could roll off his tongue as if he was just asking about the weather.
Everything that happened next happened fast. The people in the hall yelled about opening the door, which we obviously couldn’t do. Then those people started hitting something heavy on the door, busting the thing off its hinges. A swarm of men in uniform raced in—one of them actually tackled Pope to the floor and put him in handcuffs.
What the hell was going on?