Chapter 10
Chapter ten
Kelsey
“Jaxon! Jaxon! Jaxon!” the crowd chants as Jaxon switches his guitar before the final song of the set.
They have two additional encore songs after this one, but the crowd knows the end is near, and the excitement in the place is palpable.
Opening night of the Forever Starts Here Tour has been nothing short of phenomenal.
Jaxon and the musicians are amazing, and the crowd is singing along at that perfect level of excitement that makes everything fun but not chaotic.
Our security teams have been on point, and from where I’m monitoring everything from the small room backstage, all is as calm as it can be.
We had one fan rush the stage during the third song, but the venue security team knew exactly how to handle it in a calm, professional way.
Carter’s sitting next to me, his attention primarily focused on the security guard who’s responsible for staying with Jaxon while he’s on the catwalks moving around the stage to various new locations on the set.
Kevin has been an integral part of rehearsals, and I’m impressed Mitchell Security was able to find someone with the level of experience he has—he played the same role for Hailey Moore’s tour last winter.
“Do you think that line is about Izzy?” Carter asks, pulling my attention from the screen where I’m monitoring the social media posts the team is sending my way.
I sent security up to the third level an hour ago to pull a woman who once turned up at Jaxon’s house with rope and a hammer to break in.
It feels like if you’re dumb enough to broadcast your location when you’re not supposed to be there, then you should be kindly escorted out.
“What line?” I ask. Even though we’ve now heard Jaxon’s setlist too many times to count, I’m embarrassed to admit I don’t know many of his songs. I’ve been so focused on making sure our team is perfect that I didn’t stop to really listen to any of his practice sets.
“We walked different roads, found love in the dark, but I always carried the light of your heart. I thought I moved on, thought I was fine, all the while imagining you by my side,” Carter says, his deep voice not quite singing, but coming out in a lilting chant.
I listen to the song then, really listen to the words Jaxon is saying, and slowly shake my head.
“No. This song has a happy ending. It’s the one a bunch of people use as their first dance song at their wedding.
Unless Iz has been keeping a very major secret from me, those two never got their happy ending.
I don’t think either of them even realized there could’ve been a happy ending for them.
They were friends—it never seemed to me like either of them felt more than that.
Or maybe they felt it every once in a while, but they never wanted it. They were happy with what they had.”
Jaxon reaches the end of the song, the last line, forever starts here…
with me and you lingering in my head through the cacophony of cheers that erupt.
I catch Carter staring at me from the corner of my eye and realize I’ve been staring at the screen showing the concert too long, a lone tear trickling down my face.
I wipe my cheek, pretending not to notice Carter’s questioning stare. He doesn’t need to know about my failed attempt at love or about how sometimes, just sometimes, I think this could be the start of something for him and me.
“Kelsey,” he starts, and as I turn to look at him, I see a new account pop up on my monitor, this one live streaming someone walking backstage, sneaking through a storage room.
“Shit,” I say as I see the message my agent sent along with the video: Security breach, room next to Jaxon’s dressing room.
I swivel my screen toward Carter. “Breach in the room next to the dressing room.”
“I’ll call Weston,” he says, raising his hand to his ear to touch the push-to-talk button on his earpiece. Weston is in charge of the close protection officers, or CPOs, who make up the backstage team.
“Weston, there is a breach.”
Carter pauses.
“Weston, do you copy?”
Carter glances at me as he pushes the button in his earpiece again. “Amee, do you copy?” he asks, this time calling to the head of the stadium’s security.
“Shit,” he says as no voice comes through.
On my screen, a feminine hand starts knocking on a wall, as if trying to decide which parts are hollow.
“You’re not coming through at all, boss,” the man positioned by the door to the security room says, pointing to his own ear.
“Luke, you make the call. Weston. Now.”
“Weston, you have a breach, do you copy?”
We all pause, straining to hear any return voice in his ear, as unlikely as it may be.
“Nothing, boss,” Luke says with a shake of his head.
On the screen, the woman has pulled off her white tennis shoe. She points the camera at her face, showing a happy, if not slightly drunk, smile, before pulling a small saw out of a hole cut into the sole of her shoe.
“Cell phones,” I say, standing quickly. “Call your team on their cell phones.”
I take in Carter’s white shirt and six-foot frame, realizing he can’t be the one to make a mad dash across the stadium.
“I’ll go,” I say, grabbing my phone. “Luke, do not let them take Jaxon back until you get the all clear from Carter, understood? Head to door 102 where Jaxon will enter the walkways from the field. Get him inside but go no farther,” I command.
I barely hear his “Roger” as I take off, sprinting down the hallways until I reach the public concourse that I have to traverse to get to Jaxon’s dressing room.
Luckily, almost no one is leaving this show early, so I have few people to navigate around as I run past the food and drink stands that have already closed for the night.
It takes me less than three minutes to get where I need to be. A hundred yards to go. Then fifty. Ten.
I find one of the venue’s security guards standing at the door to the back hallway. I flash my badge to him, confused about how the woman made it past him. “We’ve got a breach,” I say to the security officer. “I need in now.”
He opens the door, barely glancing at the badge I offer.
My phone vibrates in my hand, and I huff out a hello.
“We think she’s still sawing,” Carter says from my phone.
“Stay at the door!” I yell behind me when I hear his footsteps start to follow. The last thing we need is more unauthorized people getting back here because we left the fricken front door unguarded. “And don’t let anyone out unless they show a badge!” I yell as an afterthought.
Carter starts again, giving me a progress report as I run, my lungs burning from the full-out sprint. “I’d say you have thirty seconds until she breaks through. Weston and his team are already waiting for Jaxon. They’ll move him to location two. Luke is there now confirming that location is clear.”
“’Kay,” I get out between pants.
“There is no security camera in there, and she cut her feed. Your team has eyes on you in the hallway. Backup is on its way. Do not, I repeat, do not engage. Do not put yourself in danger.”
“Need my hands,” I say as I end the call, wishing I had brought my earbuds with me. Though they’re usually worthless when you’re using in-ear comms, it would be nice to be able to communicate hands-free with someone right about now.
I turn the next corner, spotting the guard stationed outside of Jaxon’s dressing room. He’s staring straight at me, hands by his taser holster as he monitors my loud approach. I halt, realizing I passed a door right before I turned—the door that must lead to the storage room.
“Comms are down,” I say loudly to the security guard, the roar of the crowd drowning out most sound.
Recognition crosses his face as I approach, and he drops his arms behind his back into an at-ease stance.
“There is a breach. A woman, likely midtwenties, roughly my size, is currently sawing her way into the dressing room.”
The flare of his eyes is the only outward sign of his shock.
“She’s just about through, if not fully. I’ll go in through the storage room to make sure she doesn’t get out that way. You wait here for backup and confirm she doesn’t get out this way.”
He looks like he wants to argue but decides against it, giving me a slight nod to confirm my orders.
I run back around the corner, not wanting to put the agent at the door in harm’s way if she decides to leave rather than wait in the dressing room.
Scanning the hall, I find it as empty as before.
The crowd’s roar has changed from the bellow of cheering to the noise of hundreds of thousands of feet walking—the concert is over.
I grab the handle to the storage room with my left hand, my right shoulder pushing the door open.
My right hand feels strangely empty, even though it has been almost ten years since I last practiced this maneuver with a weapon in my hand.
Maybe I should start carrying a taser at these things too.
It seemed unnecessary when I was just going to be coordinating things from the security room, but now I feel a bit naked without something to protect myself.
I slip into the room and silently shut the door.
My biggest concern is that I can’t remember if this room has another entrance or not.
We have another concert here tomorrow, and if she gets away, who is to say she won’t be back with a bigger saw next time?
Or tell her friends how she got past our security, and we’ll have a full mob of unstable fans in here sawing through walls.
Forgoing silence for speed, I hurry down the aisles of paint, wood, and other backup set pieces from various concerts. I catch a slight movement to my right and whirl just in time to see a shelf of paint cans crashing toward me.