5. Scott
FIVE
SCOTT
Unknown: Hey man, I’m just trying to help you out.
—number blocked—
Alarms scream, blaring so loudly my brain can barely comprehend my next move. Red lights flash across the hotel walls in violent outbursts, turning the lobby into a strobed nightmare of shadows, motion, and noise. So much noise.
Guests stumble towards the exits clutching bags and phones, some in plush hotel robes, others in half-buttoned clothes or pajamas.
Children are crying. There’s some pompous asshole yelling at an employee over being woken up in such a manner, as if their comfort is more important than everyone’s safety.
As if that very employee isn’t potentially risking their life to help his snooty ass get outside instead of saving themselves.
The sounds bounce off marble and glass until it all blurs together into a deafening roar.
I shove through a crowd gathering near the revolving doors, pressing my free hand against my other ear.
“Cory!” I shout again. The chaos on both sides of the phone is too loud to hear anything.
“Scott! Where are you?”
Relief rushes through me so hard my knees almost buckle.
“I’m in the lobby. Where is everyone? Do you have them? Do you have Naz?” I bark, probably sounding harsher than I mean to, but I have to yell to be heard over the sounds of chaos around us.
A woman carrying a tiny yapping dog nearly runs into me. I sidestep around her and keep moving, looking over the heads of the crowd rushing outside, still not seeing any signs of our group.
“Do you have Naz?” There’s no answer, just more jumbled sounds and a static sound like the phone is being fumbled against fabric. “Cory! Do you have Naz?!” I shout into the receiver.
Cory says something, but the words are swallowed by another wave of noise. I catch maybe every third word.
“Band… Moving… Package… Outside.”
The last thing I hear is a curse before the line disconnects. I stare down at my phone for a beat before jamming it back into my pocket and turning in a slow circle.
Nothing. No sign of Cory or Eric, of Blake, or any of the band. No sign of Naz.
My pulse is hammering so hard I can feel it in my teeth.
I shouldn’t have left him.
The thought slams into me with enough force to make my stomach lurch with nausea.
I shouldn’t have left him.
I didn’t want to leave him.
Less than an hour ago, I was staring down at the top of his head, watching his eyelashes flutter against his cheeks as he slept with his head on my chest. He’d fallen asleep halfway through the terrible action movie I’d chosen for us to watch.
I wanted to stay. God, I wanted to stay so fucking bad.
The weight of him against me was like a balm, soothing the chaotic day we’d had.
It would have been so easy to wrap my arm around him and burrow down into the sheets and sleep for just a few hours.
To sneak out when the sun came up, or even better, to wake up with him again. To be there when he opened his eyes.
Instead, I’d slipped out of the room like a guilty teenager sneaking out after curfew and went back to my own room.
Because those are the rules.
Because every time I push too much, Naz pulls away. And because I am trying—really trying—not to overstep.
Now I’m kicking myself for leaving him in the first place.
Or that I went to the hotel gym instead of staying in my room and going to bed.
My room is only three doors down from his.
Three fucking doors. But no, I just had to burn off the restless energy buzzing under my skin because I’d gotten more out of tonight than ever before.
The excitement of making the barest progress with Naz, of getting real time with him the way I did tonight, made it impossible to stay still.
And now the entire hotel is being evacuated, and I have no idea where Naz is. The crowd is thinning, employees and firemen are ushering the last of the guests through the doors. Still, there’s no sign of our group. No sign of him.
Ignoring shouts of protest behind me, I head back into the stairwell to go find them. I get half a flight up the stairs before I stop and think.
Panicking isn’t going to help anything. I need to slow down. Think. Breathe.
Cory wouldn’t have left him behind. No one on the security team would have, much less the other guys in the band. They would have made sure he got out.
If I were up there and in charge, I probably wouldn’t have led everyone through the same doors the entire hotel was rushing through. It’s unlikely they evacuated through the main lobby. It’s too exposed, too crowded.
It’s more likely they would have taken the back stairwells and service routes and gone down to the basement exit.
I pivot and take off running, taking the steps two and three at a time. The alarms and lights are overwhelming in the concrete stairwell, the sound reverberating off the walls.
By the time I reach the basement level, my ears are ringing.
There’s a hotel security guard waving me toward a corridor near the loading docks. “Outside!” he shouts.
No shit.
The metal exit door bursts open beneath my shoulder, the tepid night air a cool slap against my flushed face.
Police lights paint the loading docks in flashing red and blue.
Hotel security and emergency personnel are everywhere.
Finally, behind the bustle of people, police cars, and emergency vehicles, I see black SUVs idling at the back of the lot.
There’s a small group of familiar faces, but I don’t take a breath until I see him.
Naz is maybe twenty yards away. Alive and well. Angry and pushing Eric. I can’t hear him from where I am, but it’s clear he’s fighting against the group that has circled around him.
“Fuck. There he is,” Jesse says, pointing to me when he sees me jogging across the pavement to get to them.
Naz swings his head around and sees me. His shoulders drop and the tension drains from his face. His eyes lock on mine, then travel down my body as if assessing me. I do the same to him, finally taking a breath.
“Let’s get moving!” Cory shouts, and the world around me rushes back in. The lights, the sounds, all the chaos around us sharpens and reminds me that we need to get out of here.
Naz’s eyes narrow before he looks away, muttering, “You’re a shitty shadow.”
His mask is firmly in place when he straightens his shoulders and climbs into one of the vehicles behind Jesse and Luc.
Cory gets behind the wheel, Tad sliding into the passenger seat.
Eric, Blake, Ari, and Will get into the second vehicle.
I don’t hesitate to climb in after Naz, taking a seat in the third row next to him.
Once I’m buckled in, I extend my hand into the seat between us, grazing my pinky along the side of Naz’s balled-up fist. His hand relaxes, and our fingers lock.
The silence lasts for all of thirty seconds before we hit the main road and conversation erupts as we drive away from the flashing lights of the evacuated hotel. Naz pulls his hand back into his own lap, and I turn my attention to the front of the car.
“Do we know what happened?” I ask Cory.
He keeps his eyes on the road and answers in a clipped tone. “Bomb threat.”
The vehicle goes quiet again.
“An actual bomb?” Luc Martín, Jesse’s NFL boyfriend, exclaims.
“We don’t know yet,” Cory answers, his jaw tightening.
“The threat came in through hotel security. Someone called it in, and while they were searching, staff located a suspicious package on the penthouse floor,” Tad adds.
“The penthouse?” I repeat, unable to disguise the anger in my tone.
“It was addressed to the band,” Cory says flatly.
No one says anything for a long, drawn-out moment. The only sound is the hum of the tires against asphalt as Cory drives up a ramp leading to the main highway and away from the city.
Naz finally speaks.
“Do we know what was in it? Was it actually a bomb or just a scare tactic?”
Cory shakes his head.
“We don’t know yet,” Tad answers for him. “Our focus was getting you all out first and asking questions second. The bomb squad took over before the hotel was even fully evacuated, and we’re still waiting to hear more.”
The SUV falls silent again. Behind us, the headlights of the second vehicle with the rest of our group follow through the darkness.
“We’re safe. For now,” I say to no one in particular.
Naz is staring out the window, his careful mask firmly in place. Pretending he’s fine. Pretending none of this got to him.
Pretending he isn’t gripping the edge of the seat hard enough to turn his knuckles white.
I know better, though.
Slowly, I reach across and thread my fingers through his again. When he snaps his head to the side, presumably to give me a warning scowl or tell me to stop, I’m looking straight ahead. Pretending I’m not giving him what I know he needs in this moment.
An hour later, after circling the outskirts of the city until Blake called and gave Cory new instructions, we’re sitting in a conference room at a second hotel. The adrenaline of the night has burned away, and everyone is exhausted.
Jesse is slouched in a chair beside Luc, rubbing his eyes every few minutes.
Ari is wrapped in an oversized sweater, presumably Will’s.
Will looks calm until you notice he’s been cracking his knuckles nonstop for the last twenty minutes.
And Blake hasn’t stopped pacing since they brought us back here.
My eyes drift to Naz, sitting across the large table from me.
I’m still reeling from the panic I felt back at the hotel, when I didn’t know what was happening or where he was. He’s only six feet away, but it isn’t close enough. I’d rather be back in the SUV where I could reach out and touch him, even if he pretends it isn’t happening.
A uniformed officer stands at the front of the room, speaking in low voices with Cory and two men who introduced themselves as federal agents.
We’ve all been waiting on pins and needles for any information since they got here.
Cory ended up as our designated spokesperson, since he was the one hotel security initially alerted and he actually saw the package and called for the evacuation.
A detective moves to the front of the room and clears his throat, not having to wait long before everyone’s attention settles on him.
“We have some preliminary findings from the bomb squad,” he begins. “And unfortunately, it seems this was no hoax. The device recovered from the hotel was, in fact, a legitimate explosive.”
The room falls silent and still. Even Jesse stops fidgeting.
“The good news,” the detective continues, “is that the device appears to be homemade and assembled incorrectly. Based on what we’ve seen so far, one of the triggering components was either missing or failed.”
“Meaning whoever built it might not have known what they were doing?” Cory asks, still standing near the front of the room.
The detective glances at one of the other agents standing near Cory.
“It was a rather rudimentary device. However, it was still dangerous. Had it functioned as intended, it’s likely that anyone standing within ten to twenty feet would have been significantly injured or worse, not to mention the fires, structural damage, or electrical issues that could have occurred. ”
Will curses under his breath. Everyone else stays silent, looking around at each other uncertainly.
I’m guessing everyone else is thinking what I’m thinking. This wasn’t just some bullshit threat. This wasn’t someone just trying to scare us.
Ari shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “Somebody actually wanted to blow us up?”
The agent doesn’t answer immediately, which is answer enough.
“Yes,” the detective answers plainly. “And as the device was packaged and addressed to the band as a whole, there is a very credible threat against all of you. We will be looking into security footage and questioning every hotel employee to find out how the assailant accessed the floor. We’ll also interview every member of your team to make sure we have a clear picture of the events of the night.
Until we figure out who the assailant is, I believe it’s best for you all to lie low. ”
Blake leans forward, placing both of his hands on the table. “What concerns me most is that not only did the bomber know which hotel we were at, but they knew which floor. Which means they had to have some kind of inside help.”
Cory steps forward. “He’s right. We’ve been tightening procedures for months because of the harassment campaigns and threats.
We don’t announce our itineraries and are careful not to release information about where the band is staying.
We take great pains to enter through back entrances, use aliases to cover our tracks.
Not even the staff have had any confirmation of who we are.
Access to the floor was restricted, so finding out who got that far is important, but there’s more to it than that—”
“How did they find out where we were staying in the first place?” Blake finishes for him.
The detectives and agents chatter back and forth, but I watch the subtle change in Cory’s demeanor. I notice the way he looks at Blake. He looks worried.
A knot forms in my stomach.
We’ve gotten used to a certain level of threat.
Angry emails, protestors, people showing up where they shouldn’t.
Enough that we’ve all gotten used to checking over our shoulders.
The band and the main security team have resorted to covering our faces, breaking into smaller groups, and using outside vetted security to avoid being noticed.
Whatever it takes to protect the guys from the scrutiny and threats that are thrown at them constantly.
It never occurred to me that the threat could be closer than we ever thought. That the threat wasn’t the bomb itself or even the bomber.
The threat is whoever helped them find us.
Someone on the inside.