Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Tatum
It felt like an eternity since we’d left the bus that morning.
Calix’s heartbreaking words to his brother were a heavy weight that I’d struggled to shake until fear forced everything but survival from my mind.
As we pulled up to the bus and Calix left to return the car keys, his words seemed to echo across the quiet lot.
Of course you’re a fucking project. I’ve spent my whole life keeping you alive, and you still have the coping skills of a fucking pineapple.
I have been raped to protect you. Beaten to within an inch of my life.
And your thank you is to check the fuck out and hope you don’t wake up.
Well, maybe that would just be easier all the way around.
The look on Toby’s face had been something worse than devastation.
I knew Calix thought I’d been quiet because I was mad at him, and a part of me was, but more than anything, I didn’t know how to begin to fix what was broken between the twins.
Through no fault of their own, they’d lived a life no one should have to experience and were left to pick up the pieces while the responsible ones walked away.
I wished I could speak to Ma about it. She’d know what to do. But that conversation would lead into the one where I had to admit I’d been lying about my means of employment for the last few months.
The bus was quiet as I stepped inside. The familiarity wrapped around me as I moved past a passed-out Otis and headed for the bathroom to splash my face.
I’d handled the whole elevator incident with less grace than even I could have predicted, and a part of me hated that I’d had to lean so heavily on Calix to avoid going into complete meltdown.
I was still unclear whether I hated how easily he’d stepped in to help me, or whether he was starting some new fucked-up game that was going to make life infinitely harder than it already was.
With one hand on the door to the bathroom, I took a steadying breath before moving into the tiny space. The door I left wide open.
Boots.
At first, I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. Why would there be boots in the shower?
But as I moved farther into the room and pulled back the curtain, Tobias’s body was revealed, slumped in a corner of the shower.
“Toby?” I shook his shoulder gently, growing increasingly concerned at the chill in his skin. That concern grew to absolute terror as I spotted the syringe by his right hand.
“Tobias,” I snapped, stabbing two fingers under his jaw in search of a pulse. The skin around his lips was an unhealthy blue, and his chest was not moving.
“Shit. Shit. Shit. Help! Toby!”
The first aid training Ruby insisted we do every few years evaporated from my mind like I’d never heard of a rescue breath before. What did you do when someone wasn’t breathing?
Breathe for them.
Taking the syringe gingerly between thumb and forefinger, I dumped it in the sink and pulled his big body flat, folding his knees in to the point where I worried I’d compress his lungs too much to get breath in there anyway.
I tilted his head back, pinched his nose, then looked back at the syringe.
“Oh, God.”
The yellow case Ruby had given me before we left home sat where I’d left it amongst my clothing, stupidly thinking I’d never have to use it.
“Damn it, Toby.”
Inside the box was a small spray bottle and a folded page of instructions.
“One spray, then wait,” I muttered, stumbling back into the bathroom.
His face was porcelain white as I kneeled beside him, a terrifying gray pallor tinting the edges of his eyes and nose.
“Okay, Toby, let’s make this work. I’m going to spray this in your nose, and you’re going to not die.”
I pressed the spray to his nostril and squeezed the trigger, holding my breath as the soft hiss told me I’d hopefully administered it correctly. Checking back on the instructions, I pushed and pulled his body until he was on his side, and then all I could do was wait and pray.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it wasn’t the fist that swung straight for my face.
I fell on my ass and crab walked out of the way as Toby’s body followed, his eyes wild as he crawled over the top of me and pinned me to the cold floor.
His fingers clawed my shoulders as he leaned over me. Pain shot through me.
“Toby.”
He paused, head tilted like there were two perceptions of reality co-occurring for him.
“Toby, it’s me.”
Recognition bled into his face in fits and starts, his grip tightening incrementally until he finally seemed to notice what he was doing.
“Angel? Shit.” He released his hold, stumbling backward. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay? Why did you do that? I could have hurt you.”
I’d never considered myself to be an emotional person. When Adam had betrayed me, I felt nothing. But as Tobias stood there, hands out in helpless appeal and asking why I would risk myself to save his life, my blood boiled.
“You almost killed yourself! What the fuck were you thinking, Toby?!”
“I was fine. Just a little doped out. I just wanted a bit of quiet.”
“You were fucking blue! You weren’t breathing, and I couldn’t find your heartbeat. You almost died, and I don’t think you care at all.”
My eyes stung, and Toby blurred in front of me as a weird tremor took over my body.
“I thought you were dead.”
He cursed, finally moving in close enough to wrap his arms around me as my knees gave out.
“I’ve got you. I’m sorry, Angel. I was selfish. I’m sorry.” He muttered gentle words of apology as the tremor increased into a full body shake I couldn’t control.
Shock. My mind provided, finally calling up my training too late. A heavy breath turned into a sob, and I let him hold me as I finally broke.
How much could the human nervous system take in a day? I’d found my limit, apparently.
Beneath my cheek, Toby’s heart beat a strong, comforting rhythm, a reminder that he was still here, that I hadn’t found a corpse.
“I’ll quit,” he murmured, so low I almost didn’t catch it.
“No offense, Toby, but I don’t have the energy for empty promises right now.”
He pulled away just enough to look me in the eye. “No, I mean it. Total abstinence. I’ll do it. For you.”
“How?”
He paused.
It was easy to say never again after a life-threatening event. He probably even meant it in the moment. But I’d known people in addiction before, and stopping was the easy bit. Not going back was the hardest part, and that required a plan.
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
“We can do some research together, if you want. But you have to do it for you,” I said, stepping out of his arms now that I had something to focus on.
“How about I do it for you today, and work on doing it for me tomorrow,” he compromised with a small tilt of his lips.
“Deal.”
I needed to talk to Ruby. She’d know how to go about finding someone to help with Toby’s detox, and maybe there was some kind of rehab we could do remotely.
Or maybe we needed to cancel the tour to get him healthy.
The first step would be cutting off his supply. I glanced at the syringe. How can something that looked so medical be so destructive?
“For fuck’s sake, Otis. Dry out and take a shower. We have a show tonight.”
Calix’s grumpy voice filtered in from the front of the bus. Tobias stiffened in my arms.
I understood his reaction. Their blow up this morning had been awful, add to it that Tobias had promised…
“Who gave you the drugs?” The question came out with more accusation than I’d meant it to, but I distinctly remembered Calix saying Toby promised not to use needles. If that was Calix’s boundary, there wouldn’t be a single person on tour unaware of the rule, which meant…
“I’m going to kill her.”
“What the fuck is going on in here?” Calix stood in the doorway, his gaze sweeping over the position Toby and I stood in, the yellow case tossed haphazardly on the floor, and the syringe in the basin.
His face darkened, but I didn’t have time for his tantrum because I’d fixed my sights on a permanent solution to the problem.
Without another word, I stormed out of the bus, focused on a gathering of people on the other side of the parking lot.
“Hey, Tatum, what’s up?” Brock, Blood Dirt’s drummer, asked as I stomped past.
I didn’t acknowledge him because the target of my fury had just stepped into sight. Wrapped in red leather and balanced on six-inch stilettos, Lainey looked like any red-blooded man’s fantasy. Without hesitation, I stepped up into her space and drove my fist into her face with a satisfying crunch.
Maybe I should have felt bad for the sucker punch, but the adrenaline coursing through my veins just chanted loudly to hit her again.
“What the fuck?” she squealed, cupping her eye and backing away from me.
Strong arms banded around my waist, hauling me off my feet as I cocked my arm for the next punch.
“You fucking cunt. You almost killed him.”
“I didn’t do shit.”
Brock’s fucking caveman arm tightened around me as I lunged for her.
“Let me go! No needles. Everyone knows the rule. You sold him shit that almost killed him. I’m taking that out of your ass. No one hurts my band.”
Brock’s hold tightened until my ribs creaked, and I wheezed in pain. I whipped an elbow back, then grunted in frustration as he caught it easily.
“Take your hands off her right now.” The voice was cold. Menacing in a way that shouldn’t have made my heart skip a beat. He stood close enough to take matters into his own hands if Brock didn’t listen. Tobias stood half a step behind him, pale but alive.
“She’s trying to kill my bassist.”
“I haven’t decided yet whether I’ll let her.” Calix’s eyes were fixed on Brock’s arm around my waist, and after a moment, his grip loosened enough for me to wriggle free.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t,” I growled, taking a menacing step toward the bombshell drug dealer.
“Because I didn’t sell it to him.” Her eyes flicked to Calix. “You know I wouldn’t. I told him no.”
I still really wanted to hit her again, but when I glanced back at the twins, Toby gave me a small nod.
“I bought it off one of the roadies.”
Then I’d find him and make him pay. Before I could charge off again, Calix gripped my shoulder. “Easy there, killer. How about you let me handle this?”
I glanced between him and Lainey, whose eye was darkening into a satisfying purple.
“I’m not apologizing.”
He huffed a laugh. “Didn’t ask you to. Just go back to the bus with Tobias and let me deal with this.”
It felt wrong to walk away. Wasn’t it my job as their manager to solve these kinds of problems? Although, if I were being honest, giving the supporting act a black eye probably wasn’t the best way to manage things.
I still wasn’t sorry.