28. Chapter 20
This Ain’t A Scene, It ’s an Arms Race
Rain
My hand is ripped from the door and my vision swims. Doubly so when the back of my skull ricochets off the bus’s metal grill. I have no idea what’s happened until a too-familiar voice asks, “Where are you scurrying out from, my little rat?”
My vision is still blurred thanks to how hard I’ve been shoved, but I manage to shake my head.
Trey’s hand grips my chin and steers me until I’m looking right into his bloodshot eyes.
Any joy I’d held in the idea of newfound friendships is dead on impact, thanks to the man staring down at me.
After getting tossed from the venue, he must have waited, hoping to catch me alone, and I finally gave him his moment.
“Where were you? Fucking some little bitch? Or maybe repeating history with Cohen Brady? Never too fussy were you? Always willing to let anybody fill that empty hole inside you?” He chuckles cruelly, even as one of his hands cups between my legs.
Never have I ever been more thankful that my outfit tonight involved pants rather than a skirt because his grip is angry and possessive.
Still, I feel violated. More so as he leans in and forces his tongue past my lips, there’s a too-sweet taste in his mouth that I don’t recognize, and I do what I can to try to push him back, but it’s futile.
He’s stronger than I remember, and each second I resist just makes him push harder.
Eventually, he’s the one to end the kiss, robbing me even of the power of denial. His eyes are dark and bloodshot.
“Trey, are you high?” I ask. My voice wavers and cracks from the adrenaline still racing through me.
He doesn’t answer, not at first, not beyond a chilling smile.
“You don’t need to worry about that.” He presses ever closer. I’m so repulsed by the feeling of his hardness. I cannot believe I ever let this man touch me.
“What you should worry about is what I’m going to do to those boys if they touch what’s mine.”
His possessiveness and all these threats make no sense. In all the time we lived together, he barely gave two shits about where I was or what I did. Not that I can remind him as much when his hand grips my throat and squeezes.
In the right scenario, I’m actually very pro-choking. But this is far from the right scenario, and Trey is squeezing way too hard over my windpipe. I’m not just struggling to breathe, I’m battling for every scrap of air.
“Thing is, Rain, I didn’t realize what a special little prize I had until you left. And now there is nothing I won’t do to—”
He’s cut off by the old creaking and the gush of air that always accompanies the hydronic hinges of our bus door.
Someone is coming. That’s enough for him to drop me. I heave as oxygen rushes back into my lungs. There is no remaining on my feet while I try to catch my breath. It’s all I can do, using the bus as support, to lower my ass to the ground.
Trey watches, that strange smile still affixed to his face.
“See you soon, little rat,” he whispers before jogging around the corner and out of sight. I’m relieved that he’s gone, but I can’t move. Not at all. I don’t even turn when a voice shouts my name.
“Rainy?!” someone shouts. “Rainy?!” Dallas rushes forward and kneels at my side. “Rainy-girl, what happened? Why are you out here?” There’s a note of panic in his voice I’ve never heard before. “Rainy-girl, why are you crying?”
I didn’t realize I was, but considering his thumb swipes across my cheek and comes away wet, it’s the only plausible explanation.
Dallas’s blue eyes note every inch of my face, and as only he could, he puzzles the pieces together.
He might not know what happened, but he knows enough to see it was bad.
He doesn’t ask me any other questions as he helps me to my feet.
“Let’s go.”
He escorts me onto the bus. There still aren’t any lights on, and so my brain trips over the fact that he was supposed to be asleep. I know it’s bizarre, but the only thing I can think of to ask is, “Did I wake you?” My voice is that quiet, pathetic version of itself that I hate so much.
“Rainy—no,” he says solemnly.
“But the lights…” I reply. I hate how torn up my voice sounds. All I can hope is that it heals before the Calder show.
“I had them off so I wouldn’t disturb the guys. But then Kitten started freaking out. She was screeching and crying and ran for the door. And she didn’t stop until I got my ass up. I think she knew…”
It’s as if he’s summoned her, because Kitten runs for me.
She weaves herself between my still unsteady legs, purring and meowing quietly for me.
Dallas reaches down, scoops her up and pours her into my waiting arms. And when she melts into my shoulders, well, that’s when the tears really start to fall.
“Let’s get you both to bed.” Dax guards my back as I stumble down the bus’s narrow hall with Kitten still in my arms.
He stops at my bedroom door, and the absence of him at my back makes me shiver. So much so that I succumb; I give in to the lonely ache that Trey always leaves inside of me, and I fucking beg, “Dax, please…please, don’t make me sleep alone. Just…just…stay.”
Maybe it’s the way my voice cracks or the fact that my shaking is getting worse every second I stay upright, but he gives me one slow nod and steps inside, sliding the door closed behind him.
“What the fuck?!” I’m woken by Cohen’s angry voice.
There’s an unfamiliar heat at my back, that I only realize is Dax when he curses, “Oh shit,” and scrambles from the bed to chase after Cohen. As usual.
Kitten stays, she snuggles in harder, and we remain that way for the entirety of the drive.
It lasts two days. And just like the first leg of this fucking fiasco, I periodically hear the guys on the other side of the door throughout the drive from Watosk to Calder.
Sometimes Dutch, less so Dallas, but most of all Cohen, who shouts at the other two for no good reason that I can understand.
Even when we arrive in our hometown, I can’t bring myself to leave the bed. Or look at myself in the mirror, since there are probably bruises around my throat. Not until Tina’s head pokes through the door.
“Dutch called me, babes. It’s time to get up, dust yourself off, and tell whatever asshole is currently living in your head to get fucked, even if it’s only metaphorically.”
With her help and encouragement, I eventually manage to get up, take a shower.
Then I let her and the Double Ds treat me like a paper doll.
They dress me and paint my face. But they also brew me honey-and-ginger tea to soothe my throat.
There’s not much Tina can do about the bruises, but that’s where Dexter steps in, fastening a lacy, Victorian-style collar around my neck.
Together, they remind me how strong I am, how much I am capable of and, best of all, promise me more spicy popcorn and chick flicks after the show if I can only scrape myself together.
Which I do. Barely. Sound check comes and goes. I pretend I don’t notice, but there’s no denying the way all three of my bandmates eye me warily as if I might crack, or worse, as if my voice will.
Yet, singing has the opposite effect. My voice starts smaller than normal, sure, but with every note, it gets stronger, and by the time we’ve run through the full set list, I’ve shaken off the last of Trey’s hold on my psyche.
Still, when the actual show starts, rather than embracing the love we receive from our hometown crowd, rather than taking in the cheers and the homemade signs spelling our names, I find myself scanning the crowd for any sign of him.
Vetruviut Stadium is the biggest show we’ve played to date.
It’s not quite as big as our largest show ever.
That was at Rothus Arena at the end of the Skids Tour.
Still, it’s damn huge, and there have got to be more than 10,000 people in attendance.
That’s the kind of crowd we’ll need to get used to again ahead of Deviant Dreams.
Normally, a crowd this big would be awe-inducing. Instead, I’m terrified. My pulse skitters and jolts with every movement, because I’m certain that Trey is here somewhere. With so many people around, he could be anywhere.
This is the size of venue where one man could easily slip through the cracks, glide into places no one would ever think to look. But if I think about that, my voice will retreat completely. I focus instead on the crowd.
From the side of the stage, I visually pick out a girl and her group of friends in the front row.
She looks young, or younger than me at least. She can’t have been more than thirteen when our first album came out, but she’s wearing a T-shirt with my face on it, artfully done in neon purple, that was only sold during our first tour.
Together with one of her friends, they are holding up what looks to be a hand-painted sign that says: WE HEART YOU RAIN!
It’s their faces that give me the courage I need to walk on stage.
The lights go dark, and the whole stadium is plunged into black until Dutch’s drum beat counts us in and everything, myself included, is lit in purple.
I find their faces again. And hundreds of others like them.
Some holding signs with the guys’ names instead of mine.
Many wearing older Preaching Pistols merch or waving whole albums in the air.
I sing for them. For this moment, for all the kids and adults in the audience who heard these songs all those years ago and recognized a touch of themselves in my words or Cohen’s music, in Dax’s low humming bass or in the anger that Dutch only pours into drumming, so it doesn’t explode elsewhere.
These people, they may not know us, but we have the music, these songs in common.
Those girls in the front row, they sing along to every goddamn word. And by the time we get to the last song, ‘Breathe Together’, I sing it for every person in that stadium.
It used to be about Cohen and me, about how we couldn’t quite breathe whenever we were apart.
Tonight, it’s no longer the love song written about first loves.
It’s no longer the song I hate on every jukebox and dread hearing on the radio.
Now, it’s my love letter to them. The people who kept our music alive in our absence.
Who sang our songs long after we stopped.
Who called into radio stations and made requests.
The fans. We were nothing without them then, and we wouldn’t be standing here without them now.
I’m seconds from diving into the bridge, gratitude buoying me up, when there’s a ripple of awareness to my left. After the past two hours, the crowd is a single organism, moving and shifting as one and for the first time all night, their focus isn’t on us.
Thanks to the stage lights, I can see when the girls’ attention shifts.
I follow their stares to the side of the stage.
From behind the rigging, from out of the dark shadows where only the crew should be, comes Trey.
He walks across the stage, like he’s supposed to be there, and my voice dies.
Literally dies, mid-song. Followed by a screeching sound as Cohen’s hands abandon the chords.
There’s a violent thud as Dax drops his bass.
Worse, there’s a deafening silence where there should be a drum beat, and I feel Dutch panic.
What is he doing here?
Even the crowd holds its breath as I ask, “What are you doing?”
He’s mic’d up. How he got that way, I can’t begin to fathom, but when he speaks, the whole crowd can hear.
“I’m here to do something very special, Rain. Something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.”
He says it with a smile. That same God-awful smile. He steps closer. We’re nearly as close as we were the night he assaulted me. Only this time, I know he won’t do anything that horrific because there are too many people watching. Instead, he does something worse, something incomprehensible.
He drops to one knee and pulls a velvet box from his back pocket.
“Rain Gamble, will you marry me?”
I gasp. Fifty thousand people gasp. To my right, a guitar smashes. Behind me, a cymbal clatters to the ground. And in my head, a wall I’ve spent the past few hours, hell, the past few years, rebuilding, shatters in an instant.