Chapter Three #2
“You’re really here,” he whispered fervently.
My hands started shaking, but I squared my shoulders with fake bravado, and said, “Yeah, but please don’t blow my cover.”
He looked at me for a beat, then threw his head back and laughed. The sound of it scraped my skin. I was positive if I looked down I would see tiny scratch marks bleeding.
It was then I finally took a step back. “It was good to meet you, but now I gotta…” I indicated the door of the bathroom and took one more step.
He took it with me.
I reached for the door, but he was quicker, his movements felt almost fluid. He stood between the door and me, a wide smile still on his mouth, and a weird glint in his grey eyes. He was close, too close.
“Can I get a picture?” Before I could answer, he waved his hand between us. “No, wait. No pictures. You want to have privacy tonight. Right? Right.”
I looked to the mouth of the hall, trying to figure out if I could get out of this situation without tipping this guy over the edge.
“Harley, is everything all right?” He frowned and leaned towards me.
“I—” I gulped. My breath stuck to my throat, the walls seemed like they were closing in on me.
The man reached up, like he was going to touch me, but then thought better of it. “You look tired,” he muttered, his eyes tracking over my face, down to my mouth, then back up.
It was as if he was touching me, and I shivered in repulsion. “I have to…” I started to say and took a tiny step away.
His eyes cut to my feet, and I stopped. His smile slipped from his face, his shoulder slumped slightly, and he looked at me with his brows pulled low.
“I just want a minute of your time. You owe me that,” he said softly.
“I…” I didn’t know what to say. I just knew I had to get out of there, and fast.
But he was bigger than me, and he bounced from happy-go-round personality to the hurt one in a flash. Here and there like it was nothing.
Then, he smiled again. “You saved my life with Black Saint. You said, ‘Find me where the red light breaks, and I’ll bleed myself into a song for you’.”
Those lyrics were mine, from years ago. From a dark time. Even then, not like this. Not like he was saying them. He made them sound like a promise I personally whispered to him, and not like it was—a line written about relief and grief mixed into one for cutting ties with a place I called home.
I hated those words in his mouth. It felt like he violated them, violated me just by speaking them.. They were mine. He had no right to them. A heat I hadn’t felt so long surged in my belly, a sensation I hadn’t felt since I wrote those lyrics.
He was twisting and turning them how he wanted them, and not how they were meant to be.
“That song isn’t an invitation,” I spat.
I knew I shouldn’t push him. I knew I should back down, smile politely and then get the fuck out of that hallway, but he was marring my perfect goodbye to a vile situation. He was dredging up something I’d buried long ago.
Sure, I performed that song, the fans loved it, but the majority of them understood the sentiment behind it.
Not this creep.
No, he thought I was inviting him to do… I didn’t even know what. But I wasn’t going to hand it to him. I didn’t give it to the man who inspired those words. I sure as hell wasn’t going to surrender it to him.
“But you meant it,” he countered, ignoring my reaction.
He leaned closer, and this time, I stood my ground. I wasn’t going to give this guy even an inch.
“You meant it for me. I know you better than all your managers and producers. I know you even better than that suit they chained you to. Carter, right? That’s his name? No one knows you better than me, Harley. And sure as hell not him!”
My ears started ringing, my vision blurred, and my stomach sank to my knees. “How do you know his name?” I whispered.
Pleasure washed his face. “Because I pay attention, Harley. I watch you. I know you. And I love you. I’m the only one that does.”
It was like he slapped me across the face. “Move,” I breathed. I couldn’t do anything else.
His face went hard. “Harley—”
The door behind him opened, cutting him off, and two girls came out giggling. I was going to seize this moment, and run, but before I had the chance, he moved and a cold palm clamped around my forearm.
“Don’t do it,” he murmured menacingly, smiling and nodding to the girls as they passed us. “Not after everything.”
A tingling sensation surged from my feet.
Slow and thick, it filled me up. Bile rose in my throat.
After everything that happened. After my parents’ neglect, after bullies in school laughing at me, pointing, then later threatening me.
After Derek. After five broken bones, and bruises over my neck.
After everything, I was okay. I was always okay.
Always pushing onward. But not this time.
This time, fear had me in its grip. Terror like I never knew.
I tried to think of what I could do. I did my best to come up with a plan of how to escape, how to get into a crowd, how to find shelter. I couldn’t. All I could feel was his grip on me, and the claws of pure fear tearing me inside.
Before I could scream, swing, or whatever the hell I was going to do, the man’s grip was no longer on my skin. He was no longer by my side.
One second. he was holding me firmly, barring my escape. The next, he was being dragged by the collar of his blazer by Carter.
With a roar, Carter lifted him off the ground and slammed him against the wall so hard, the door of the forgotten bathroom shook. He had one arm pinned across his torso, the other was around his neck.
“You touch her again, and you’ll lose your hands,” Carter said almost conversationally. His face was hard, only a muscle jumped in his jaw, making the wings of his butterflies flutter.
“I can do anything I want.” The man laughed. “She’s mine. She said so herself in Yours ‘till the end.”
I lost it then. No one could use my words against me. No one had the right to tell me what to do or what to think.
Not anymore.
“It’s just a song,” I screamed.
He struggled against Carter and turned his head. Looking at me, he smiled almost tenderly. “But I know you wrote it for me, Harley. You don’t need to pretend otherwise.”
I shivered. This man was clearly sick.
Just then, the hall became crowded. I was being pushed back, and four men stood in front of me. The sounds of a struggle could be heard.
“Get off me,” the man muttered between pants.
After what felt like forever, but was most likely two minutes, Carter pushed through the bodies and stood before me.
His eyes ran the length of me before they came to mine. “Did he hurt you?”
“What just happened?” I asked, looking around. Nothing made sense.
It was supposed to be an easy night out. A break from the stuffy hotel room, and a release from being constantly watched over by Carter. Now, there were all these people walking up and down the hallway, glancing my way with worry in their eyes. Some even held pity.
Two hands framed my face and turned my head gently. Thumbs stroked gently under my eyes, and I realized it was to wipe the tears away.
“Dynamo.”
I looked up into the hypnotic eyes that pulled me in every time I peered into them. “Dynamo?” I asked after what was clearly a nickname. For me.
“It suits you,” Carter murmured gazing down on me.
It was the first time he wasn’t looking at me either pissed or annoyed.
The look he was giving me was gentle, probing.
His face held understanding. But there was no worry.
There was no pity. “Everywhere you go, it’s like an explosion happened, and mayhem ensues," he spoke softly, still gliding his thumbs under my eyes.
His touch was soothing something inside me. Something that hadn’t had attention in a long time. I closed my eyes and dove deeper into the feeling.
“Dynamo,” I repeated, my mouth curving slightly. I liked it. It was the first nickname I’d ever got.
What I liked more was the feeling of Carter naming me with it gave me. Like I was somehow his. Like on some miniscule level, he held a part of me precious.
It was a dangerous feeling. One I knew I had no right to. Still, I didn’t fight it. I let go and leaned fully into it and the safety it gave me.
“She knows who I am.” A voice yanked me back and into the harsh reality of the moment. “Ask her about the red lights. Ask her how she wrote that song for me. If she didn’t know me, she wouldn’t say those words to me.”
I tried to look the way the screaming came, but Carter’s hands tightened on my face, preventing me to look.
“Don’t give him the satisfaction,” he whispered. “All he wants is your attention. He doesn’t deserve it.”
“Does this mean it’s all over?” I asked.
His mouth tightened, but he said nothing.
“Carter.” I grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulled. “Does this mean he’s the fan you’re after?”
Somehow, I wanted it to be over, and at the same time was terrified Carter would leave me.
All this time, I wanted him to leave me alone. But now, when that was a real possibility, I couldn’t cope with the thought of not feeling safe like this ever again.
Tonight, I learned two things.
One, I wasn’t as safe as I thought I was. Two, I didn’t want Carter to leave me.
I wasn’t sure which of those two truths scared me more.
What I did know was that I was fucked.