“Graham,” I called and trotted after him. He wasn’t much over six feet tall but he covered a lot of ground with his long, tattooed legs that were poking out of his black workman shorts.
He didn’t stop and neither did I. I reached out for his shoulder just as he was about to go in the bathroom.
“What?” he snarled, whipping around to face me with hate-filled eyes. I never liked being this close to him. His skin was tight and pale, almost waxy. He was considered handsome and dark by some girls, but all I could see was a black cloud billowing deep behind those dark eyes, always watching, always spiteful. An upside down crucifix hung from his necklace, swinging along his tattooed collarbone. Always playing the part. Wasn’t he?
I swallowed hard and took a few steps back. “I just wanted to ask you a few questions.”
“Can it wait till I’m done pissing?” he snarled.
I nodded, a bit scared. I didn’t know what I’d been thinking, ambushing him just before he went into the washroom.
He shook his head, cursing me I was sure, or damning me. He went toward the door, his hand out to push it open.
“I just wanted to know about your psycho groupies,” my lips said before I even had a chance to think. Talk about poking the bear.
I clamped my mouth shut but wasn’t prepared for what happened next. In a whirl of black and limbs, Graham spun around and grabbed me, his nails digging into my arms. The next thing I knew I was being slammed against the wall and he was holding me against it. His body was strong from years of wielding drumsticks and I didn’t have a fighting chance to get loose.
“What the fuck is that any of your business?” he growled, his face mere inches from mine. His breath smelled rotten. His eyes flashed from within, going from a dark brown to a burning red, like it was being lit from the inside. I held my breath in fright.
“You don’t even know why you’re here,” he uttered slowly in a raspy, wet voice and brought his face even closer. The back of my head where it hit the wall began to throb and my arms ached from where his grip cut into the muscle. “But I do. You better forget about this story and go home. You aren’t going to save him. You’re not going to save any of them.”
“Let me go,” I said, squirming. His eyes began to go from a lit red to all black, and his pupils began to widen until his eyes were one deep hole from corner to corner.
“What the fuck are you?” I cried out, feeling horror spreading through my lungs and heart, seizing me, paralyzing me.
“A debt collector,” he snarled through a mouth that began to widen to a gummy, shark-like grin, his skin cracking along the edges, blood dripping down toward pointed teeth.
Around the corner we heard the door to the bathroom open, and I took that opportunity of distraction to push Graham back enough to knee him straight into the balls.
When I was nineteen, I was attacked on campus by some potential rapist or mugger. I fought him off the best I could, but it wasn’t until I kicked him right in the junk that he fell to the ground in pain and I was able to run off and call the police. I was counting on that reaction.
Graham did not fall to the ground. He didn’t even register any feeling except surprise. And amusement, because the demonic fucker just smiled even more. I was living a nightmare.
“What the fuck?” Sage’s voice boomed down the dark hall and in seconds he was shoving Graham off of me. Before Graham had a chance to react, Sage punched him right in the face. Graham’s normal, nasty face. Whatever thing I thought I’d seen was gone and now Graham was on the ground, clutching his nose that was dripping blood on the linoleum.
Sage turned to me, holding my arms..
“Dawn, what happened? Did he hurt you?” he asked frantically. A vein pulsed on his tense throat.
I shook my head no, then yes, then no, and feeling a torrent of tears building up inside me, I shrugged Sage’s hands off and ran down the hallway, leaving him behind to yell after me then say to Graham, “You fuck, what did you do to her?”
I pushed my way past the crowd in the lounge, getting a few looks of concern and sympathy. I looked like nothing more than a girl who was tripping or crying over a rock star’s rejection, and in seconds I burst through the back doors, past security and all the way into the parking lot. The bus was the last place I wanted to be, so I booked it past the main security gate, my vision blurry with tears, and ran out into the open road, where a few late concertgoers were trying to find parking on the grassy curbside.
I ran blindly for a few meters and then collapsed underneath a cherry tree. I was lucky the venue was a bit out of the city and I didn’t have to face too many curious passers-by. I leaned back against the tree and let it all out, everything that had been cooped up in my heart for the last week. The fears, the shame, the feelings of inadequacy, the confusion. The feeling that I was in way over my head, alone on the road with no one I could really trust. Everyone seemed to have an agenda, and I was the only one open and honest about mine. I was scared, scared to the bone. I was scared about failing. I was scared of the unknown. And I was scared I was slowly losing my mind. There was another two weeks left of the tour. How on earth was I going to survive? When was I going to throw in the towel?
I cried, ugly and bawling, for who knows how long. I didn’t come up with any answers. I just missed my dad, my brother, and Mel more than anything in the world and felt an ache spread in my stomach.
“Hey,” I heard a voice say in the darkness and the sound of flip-flops that followed.
I looked up and wiped my eyes,. Sage stood above me for a looming second before he crouched down to my level. He looked me over with quiet concern, then took his hand and stroked my hair softly. “I’ve been looking for you.”
I closed my eyes and leaned back against the tree. I felt him sit down and lean against the tree beside me. It would have been a funny sight for a concertgoer, the guitarist of the opening band sitting on the side of the road with his trademark open black shirt and flip-flops.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.