Chapter Six

Shane awoke to Chris standing over him, pouring cold water all over his face. He sat up straight in his bed, swearing. “What the fuck was that?” he demanded. It was dark outside the bus, the dark stillness of early morning.

Chris crossed his arms over his chest. “You aren’t answering your phone.”

“What time is it?” Shane wanted to know.

“We were supposed to be on the road an hour ago.” Chris didn’t look happy. “Mandy’s been calling you and calling you. You aren’t picking up your phone.”

“Sorry,” muttered Shane. He scooted off the end of the bed, picking up a pair of jeans from the floor and wriggling into them. “I think I turned my phone off last night.”

“Great,” said Chris.

“Is Mandy pissed?”

“Everybody’s pissed,” said Chris. “Including me. I don’t know what the fuck is going on with you, Shane.”

“Well, I’m up now. I’ll drive the damned bus.” Shane rubbed his eyes and felt in his pockets for some coke. He thought he had a bag in these jeans...

“Good,” said Chris. He turned to go.

“Should I call Mandy?” asked Shane.

“Dude, no one is going to talk to you right now except me,” said Chris, without turning around.

Shane’s pockets were empty. “Damn it,” he muttered. “I need a bump.”

Chris turned. He fished a vial with a small spoon in it out of his pocket.

“Thanks,” said Shane, unscrewing the lid to the vial and snorting a little of the white powder.

“Who’s the chick?” Chris asked.

Shane turned. He’d practically forgotten Lark was there. She was curled into a ball on one side of the bed, her long black hair tangled around her face. She was still wearing her clothes. Apparently, she was still asleep. “She’s a chick,” said Shane. He sure as fuck wasn’t about to explain the situation to Chris.

“Well,” said Chris. “Don’t you need to wake her up and get her off the bus?”

Shane just stared at Lark. She was a pretty girl. He guessed there were worse things than being stuck living with a pretty girl. He did think it was kind of weird that she didn’t want to have sex. But it was okay. Shane hadn’t really had a lot of interest in sex lately. It had started to seem like a chore. So he’d stopped doing it.

“You want me to wake her up and tell her?” Chris asked.

This was a courtesy the two used to perform for each other, when they’d made a particularly bad drunken decision the night before. It dated all the way back to when they lived in Tennessee and were just local musicians trying to get laid. The girls seemed to take the message to get lost better from someone who hadn’t slept with them the night before. Shane smiled, remembering the kind of camaraderie he and Chris used to share.

“No,” he said to Chris. “No, it’s cool. Let her sleep.”

“You’re taking her to the next city?”

“She follows us. She’s going there anyway,” said Shane.

Chris looked at him as if he were crazy.

“What?” asked Shane. “It’s not like she’s ugly or something.”

Chris shrugged.

Shane handed him back the vial of coke. “Maybe I wouldn’t mind some company,” he said.

“Company? I thought that was exactly what you didn’t want.”

Shane shook his head. Why would Chris think that? Of course, now that he thought about it, he had spent a lot of time isolating himself lately. Ditching the groupies was just part of it. When The Wrenching had first gotten popular, he used to live in the tour bus with the rest of the band. He used to go out with Chris. They’d get trashed, scam on women. Hell, he and Chris used to write songs together. None of that had been happening lately. But...that was before the rats. Before he’d understood what was going on. Still, he missed Chris. He didn’t realize how empty things were. “Look,” he said, “we should hang out sometime. You and me. We haven’t—”

“Dude, whatever,” said Chris. “Just fucking get the bus going, and let’s get the hell out of this city.”

He’d forgotten that Chris was pissed off at him. Well, maybe he’d have to try to mend the bridges he’d burned later. Obviously, his old shit wasn’t going to fly anymore. “Sure,” he said. “Let’s get on the road.”

Chris left the bus, and Shane started it up. They got “the hell out of this city.” Shane didn’t want to disappoint people. Hell, part of the reason he’d become a rock star was that he lived for making people happy. He loved being able to play for people, take them away from their lives for a while, pull them into the world he’d created and entertain them. He got drunk on applause. He existed for it. And in his personal life, he’d always been a pretty affable guy. He didn’t like to rock the boat or piss people off. At least, he’d never used to. Lately, not much had seemed to matter to him. He’d begun to feel trapped by his life. He couldn’t do the things he wanted to do, because he was Shane Adams, the lead singer of The Wrenching. Okay, that wasn’t exactly true. This was all he’d ever wanted to do. And he still wanted to do it. It was just that what he was doing was getting people killed. And Shane didn’t really want any part of it anymore. But it was as if he couldn’t get out of it. He didn’t know how to stop. When he tried, he seemed to hurt the people he cared the most about.

Chris, for example. When they were kids, he and Chris had been inseparable. They’d played music together. They’d partied together. They’d made plans together. They’d spent three-quarters of their lives in each other’s presence. If anyone asked him who mattered most to him, he would say Chris, without much thought. Sure, he loved his family, but he and Chris had a bond. And he knew that Chris wasn’t at all happy about the way he was behaving. He knew that Chris thought he’d lost his mind. Maybe he had. Maybe he’d just done too many drugs and they’d warped his brain. After all, there wasn’t any rational reason to believe what he believed about his music. But Shane believed it anyway. He knew what he’d done. He knew what was going on. If he weren’t so weak, he’d stop playing, whether it made Chris hate him or not. Whether it made people think he was letting them down or not. But he was weak. He was so weak. And he couldn’t. He didn’t know what he’d do if he weren’t doing this.

Outside the windows of the bus, the interstate flew past him. Exit signs. Billboard advertisements. Other cars, their rear lights red like blood. Shane sniffled, wishing for more cocaine. The sunrise splintered the sky, and Shane drove on.

It was hours before Lark woke up. When she did, they were more than a hundred miles away from the previous venue. Shane told her that. Told her she could watch DVDs on the TV if she wanted. Then he remembered that normal people usually wanted to eat when they woke up, and he asked if she were hungry. Lark wasn’t. She’d been following a rock band around on tour for quite some time. Food wasn’t any more a priority for drugged-up fans than it was for those they were fans of. Shane mentioned that he’d thought he had some cocaine somewhere, but that he couldn’t find it, and so Lark said she’d look for it. She was in the bedroom for a really long time, but came back empty handed. Then she started to search the living area of the bus. It was then that Shane realized that while Lark searched, she was also cleaning. When she had finished, she had not only found the cocaine, but had turned the bus into a halfway decent place to live.

Lark and Shane both did a line of coke.

“Thanks,” he said. “For finding it and for cleaning the place up. You didn’t have to do that, you know.”

“Actually, I was hoping it wouldn’t bug you,” she said. “It makes me feel more comfortable this way. So I hope it’s okay.”

“It’s awesome,” he said.

The coke had made Lark chatty. She settled in, sitting cross-legged on one of the seats in the bus, and started asking questions. “How come you dress up as Death Man?” she asked.

“Um, I guess I just like the idea of not always having to be Shane Adams all the time. It gives me freedom. It’s like an escape.”

“I guess I can see that. But why are you telling all your fans to go home?”

Boy, she really went for the jugular, didn’t she? But for some reason, Shane didn’t feel as if he had to hide things from Lark. He liked having her around. He liked her, even if he didn’t know much about her. She was different than other fans he’d encountered. More grounded, he guessed. “It’s not safe for people to keep following me around,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that kids from the Entourage keep disappearing.”

“Like Tina?”

“Who?”

“A girl I know. She went out for a walk one night and never came back. Her boyfriend was really freaked out.”

“Yeah,” said Shane. “That sounds about like what’s happening. It’s my fault. If I stopped playing...”

“Well, I don’t think so. It’s not your fault. Besides, she probably decided to go home or something. Or she ran into some people she knew and decided to ride with them. Or...anything. We don’t even know if anything bad happened to her.”

“Something bad happened to her.”

“How do you know that?”

Well. He couldn’t tell her that. Not exactly. Because she’d think he was nuts. “I just know.”

“So, what is it you think happened to her?”

“She’s dead. And it’s my fault. So I have to tell people. I have to warn people.”

“Are you going out and killing people in the Entourage or something?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Then it’s not your fault. And I don’t think you have any proof that anyone is dead.”

“There have been more disappearances than your friend.”

“And they found bodies?”

“There aren’t bodies to find.”

“Again. How do you know that?”

“I...can’t tell you,” he said. Because he liked Lark. He wanted her to like him. So, he needed to keep as quiet about all of this as he could. He tried to change the subject. “Why don’t you have someplace to stay?”

“Why can’t you tell me? Do you have something to do with the disappearances?”

“I...” He trailed off. He did have something to do with it. He was the reason it was happening. But even if he told her what had happened, she wouldn’t believe him. She’d try to reassure him. Tell him he wasn’t thinking clearly. Tell him it was all a coincidence. All a hallucination. And he knew differently. He didn’t need empty reassurances. He needed to find the guts to stop playing. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.

Lark was quiet. “Okay,” she said finally.

“So why did you need someplace to stay?” he asked. “Did it have something to do with that guy who was calling you names last night?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.

Fair enough. “Are...are a lot of the guys that follow us around like that?” he asked. “Do we have a bunch of asshole fans? Because I don’t think it’s cool to treat women that way. To treat humans that way.”

“I think,” said Lark, “that there are a lot of guys that are like that period.”

Whoa. She sounded pretty bitter. Shane wondered what had happened to her in the past. He’d bet even money she didn’t want to talk about that either. Shane knew what kind of kids liked to listen to his music. He’d never written what anyone might classify as cheery music. So he knew that most of his fans were, well, melancholy. But it had never really occurred to him that many of them probably had better reasons to be melancholy than he did. And for a group of kids to start following his band around, it probably meant that they didn’t really have much of anything better going on in their lives. “Yeah,” he said. “Well, not all guys are like that.”

“I know,” Lark said.

“I’m not like that,” said Shane.

Lark didn’t say anything.

“What? You don’t believe me?”

“I don’t know you,” said Lark. “It’s just that you haven’t had a string of really healthy relationships exactly.”

Wow. That was kind of harsh. Shane didn’t think he’d had unhealthy relationships. Well. Now that he thought about it. In the first flush of fame, there had been several models and an actress. All of which had been awful relationships. Shane had soon discovered that he couldn’t handle hanging out with women that were more insecure than he was. People who also lived to entertain other people. Those women weren’t happy unless they were making him happy. And he wasn’t happy if he wasn’t making them happy. So it didn’t work. “I’ve been busy,” Shane said. “I don’t have time to be...serious. Besides—” He couldn’t resist— “it doesn’t sound as if your relationships have been so healthy either.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“You didn’t.”

“Then why did you say that back to me then? You weren’t trying to offend me back?”

Shane laughed. “I... I’m sorry, I guess. But, I don’t call women names. Not those kind of names.”

“No, I know. I listen to your lyrics.”

“Right.” It was weird. It was as if this girl knew him better than he knew himself. He knew that his music was kind of a window into his soul. He basically laid bare his most private, most intimate thoughts to the public. It was funny, though, because no one he’d ever interacted with before seemed to have studied him in such depth. Sure, he’d hung out with groupie fans before, but those women had always been obsessed with superficial things about him. The way he looked. The way he held his guitar. The sound of his voice. Lark didn’t seem to think that kind of stuff was very important. Shane liked her.

“I think you’re afraid of women,” Lark continued. “I think that you think you don’t understand them and that they don’t understand you, and I think you’re afraid that no one really understands you or that if they did, they wouldn’t want anything to do with you.”

Yeah. That was pretty much exactly it. “You think that’s bad?”

“I understand being afraid,” she said. “I understand having secrets.”

Okay. Well, now they were right back where they started, weren’t they? Neither of them was probably going to open up about that stuff, were they? “Is there more coke?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “Good idea.”

* * *

When they reached the hotel where The Wrenching was staying the night, Lark tried to convince Shane that it was fine if she slept in the bus. Shane wanted her to stay in the hotel. The bus wasn’t comfortable, and the hotel would be much better. “Is it because of the sex thing?” he asked. “Because I wasn’t trying to pressure you into doing anything. You know that, right? And there will be two beds.” So eventually, she caved in. She wondered what Rainey would say if she knew that Lark wasn’t jumping on the idea of having sex with Shane Adams. Rainey would probably think Lark was nuts. And Lark would have done it, if it had seemed as if Shane really wanted her to. But she didn’t think he did. She didn’t think it was really that big of a deal. And sleeping in a hotel with a rock band was pretty cool. She seemed to have gotten herself into a pretty awesome situation. She wondered if she should send Matt a thank-you letter or something.

So she and Shane rounded up the rats, put them in carrying cases, and loaded them into the hotel. She and Shane were staying in a suite. It had a living area, a kitchenette, and a bedroom. It wasn’t as opulent as some of the things she’d seen on TV shows about the lifestyles celebrities led, but it was pretty amazing. Lark felt a little like a fairy princess. It was mid afternoon. The show wasn’t for hours. Once they were settled in the hotel room, Shane went back to sleep. Lark was too wired from all the coke they’d snorted, so she hung out in the living area and watched cable TV. It had been a long time since Lark had watched cable, and she found herself really enjoying it, even the ads, because they were all new to her.

When Shane woke up, they ordered room service. Lark felt bad, because she didn’t want him to pay for her to eat. She was used to paying her own way. That was why she sold her clothing. But Shane said, “I have more money than one person really needs. Eat the food.” And she did, because she was hungry, and because she decided that what Shane had said really did make sense. She told herself that she wasn’t a charity case for him or something. But later, when she told Shane that she didn’t have a ticket for the show that night, because she hadn’t been able to afford one, he insisted she come hang out backstage.

“No way,” Lark said. It was too much. She was perfectly happy in the hotel room. This whole experience was beginning to feel more like a dream. She was afraid she might wake up. She didn’t need to sleep in a posh hotel room, eat expensive room service, and get a free backstage pass. “I can’t,” she said. “I would owe you, and I could never pay you back.”

“Whatever,” said Shane. “It’s not a big deal. Besides, I’m always backstage by myself. Sometimes I bring the rats, but I get lonely.”

“Don’t you hang out with the rest of the band?”

“No,” said Shane. “Not anymore.”

“I just can’t.”

“Think of it as a favor to me. It’ll be fun. Come on,” he said.

So Lark ended up backstage in Shane’s dressing room with him. Shane tuned an acoustic guitar, ran through a couple of songs. Then he took a few shots of whiskey.

Lark felt out of place, because, as usual, Shane was sort of pretending she didn’t exist. She thought it was weird. He had asked her to hang out with him, but then he didn’t even acknowledge her presence. She perched on a couch in the room and hugged her knees to her chest. Shane had covered all the lamps in the room with black sheets. He hadn’t told her why he did this, but he did it with the kind of efficiency that let Lark knew it was a ritual.

Shane offered her the whiskey bottle wordlessly.

Well. At least he knew she was there.

Lark took it. She didn’t say anything, but she took a long swig. She gagged at the taste of it. She handed it back.

There was a knock on the door.

“What?” Shane demanded.

“It’s Rob,” said the person on the other side of the door.

Shane got up. Opened the door a crack. Talked with the man there for several minutes. Lark couldn’t hear what he was saying, because his voice was too low. Finally, Shane closed the door. He held up a baggy.

Oh. Coke. Of course. Shane had been getting drugs. Shane did a lot of coke, didn’t he? Well, he’d said that he did a lot of drugs. Shane took a mirror off the wall, set it on the floor and knelt beside it, cutting up lines.

“You want a line?” he asked.

“Um...” Lark bit her lip. “Okay.” Coke was a really hard drug to say no to. She joined him on the floor.

After they’d each snorted a line, Shane rocked back on his heels. “I’m nervous,” he said. “I get nervous every night. Silly, huh?”

Lark shook her head. “No. I’d get nervous.”

“I’m always fine once I get on stage. But right before. I get kind of nervous.”

“You’ll do fine.”

“Yeah. I know.” He bent his head to the mirror and did another line. “Hey, thanks for coming here with me. It’s cool to have somebody here.”

“Sure,” said Lark. Did he really care? What was she to Shane Adams anyway, except another fan?

There was another knock on the door. Shane didn’t respond to it. The knock came again, more insistent this time.

“Do you want me to answer that?” Lark asked.

Shane shrugged. “If you want.”

Lark stood up. Went to the door. Opened it. It was Chris Dearborn. Wow. The only other original The Wrenching member. She was speechless.

Chris looked her up and down as if she were a really disgusting bug. “What are you doing here?” As if he knew who she was...?

“Answering the door,” said Shane from behind her.

Lark turned. Shane was standing up, rubbing a hand across his nose.

“What’s up, Chris?” Shane asked.

“We’re on,” said Chris.

“Okay,” said Shane. He started forward. “Come on, Lark, I’ll show you where you can sit during the show.”

Chris moved away from the doorway. Let both of them by. Closed the door after Lark. Followed them. They wound through the hallways of the venue. There were some chairs on the side of the stage. A few people with press passes sat in them.

“You can sit here,” said Shane. “Is that cool?”

“Yeah,” said Lark. “Awesome.”

“Cool,” said Shane and went to get his guitar from one of the roadies.

Chris was still standing next to her. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he growled in her ear.

Lark started. “I...” She turned, but she could only stare at him.

“Listen,” Chris said, “I don’t know who you think you are, but whatever your plans are for Shane, they aren’t going to fly.”

What the hell was he talking about? Lark made a confused face. “I don’t have any plans for Shane.”

“I won’t let you use him for whatever it is you want. I won’t let you get his money or use him so that you can get famous.”

“But...I don’t want anything like that.”

“Give it up, bitch. I see right through you.”

Lark wanted to shrink into the chair next to her. She wanted it to swallow her up. Why was Chris so angry with her? What could she have possibly done that could make him talk to her this way?

“And,” Chris continued, “don’t even think about trying to do something stupid like getting pregnant with his kid or something, because we have lawyers that never lose and ways to keep that kind of shit out of the papers.”

Wait. Did Chris think that...? “Look, Shane and I aren’t like together or something,” said Lark. “He’s giving me a place to sleep. That’s all. It’s totally platonic.”

Chris snorted. “Whatever. As if he’d let a chick stay with him if she wasn’t even putting out.”

Was that really true? Should she have slept with Shane when he’d asked if she wanted to? Even though she’d sort of manipulated her way into staying with Shane, she didn’t want to piss him off. She wanted him to be happy with the arrangement. If he wanted to... “Well,” Lark said, “we aren’t having sex. But I guess if he really wants me to—”

“I’ve known Shane for a long time,” said Chris. “So you aren’t fooling me with this little act. But Shane’s been messed up lately. He’s vulnerable. He could let some little gold digging whore like you really fuck him up. Luckily for him, I’ve got his back. I’m his best friend.”

“I don’t want to hurt Shane.”

“I know your type. I know what you’re doing. Just remember that I’ve been through more with this guy than you could possibly ever imagine, and if he trusts anyone, he trusts me. So do yourself a favor and leave now, before it gets ugly. Because I’ve got no qualms about doing whatever I can to make you disappear.”

Was Chris nuts? Was everyone in The Wrenching a psychotic head case? God. Lark didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything.

“Get out while you can, bitch,” said Chris, and then he stalked off, joining Shane in the wings. Lark looked after him, unsure of what to make of what he’d said. She guessed it was normal for Chris to be protective of his best friend. But why had he jumped to so many conclusions?

* * *

“Whitney?” said Ryan, peering into her office. Whitney looked up from her game of solitaire. What time was it? Was it time for Ryan to be home?

“Hi, babe,” she said. “How was your day?”

“How was yours?” he asked.

“It was good,” she said. “Tim O’Doole from Crunch promised to call me back, and he hasn’t, but other than that...”

Ryan stepped into her office. He looked around the room, a concerned expression on his face. Whitney followed his gaze, realizing her desk was littered with empty rocks glasses that had once been filled with liquor.

“You didn’t come to bed last night,” said Ryan. “When I left this morning, you were asleep at your desk.”

She knew this. Why was he telling her this? They’d both been here last night.

“You haven’t changed your clothes since yesterday,” he continued.

Was he going somewhere with this, or did he want an award for being Mr. Observant?

“I’ve been busy,” she said.

“Playing solitaire?” he asked. “Drinking?”

God. Not this again. “I’ve been working,” she said defensively.

“On the Shane Adams article,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“But nothing else?”

God. Ryan was so starting to get on her nerves. He just harped on the same shit over and over again. This was the reason she didn’t bother to go to bed anymore. As if she wanted to hear him go on and on about what he thought was wrong with her. “Look, what do you care? It’s not as if you depend on me for financial stability or something,” she said. “This is what’s important to me right now. It’s my career. I have the right to pursue it however I want to.”

“You can’t see what’s happening to you, can you?” said Ryan. “I don’t know what happened to my girlfriend.”

“I’m right here.”

“But you’re not. You’re always only thinking about that damned article or about that fucking band. I’m so sick of watching it eat you alive. I’m so sick of hearing you talk about Shane Adams.”

“God, Ryan, it sounds as if you’re jealous.”

Ryan laughed. It was harsh and brittle. “Yeah. And a man shouldn’t have to be jealous of his girlfriend’s job. He shouldn’t have to be jealous of a guy in a band his girlfriend likes. That’s crazy. But you’re acting crazy, Whitney. I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

Whitney was flabbergasted. She didn’t have time for this. She didn’t have time to deal with Ryan’s temper tantrums. He was being ridiculous. God. “I’m the same person I always was, Ryan. Maybe you just never really knew who the real me was.”

Ryan just shook his head. “Is the real you an obsessive drunk?”

That was it. She didn’t have to listen to this anymore. She didn’t have to take this kind of abuse. Ryan was being a total asshole. “Fuck you,” she said. “Get out of my office.”

Ryan looked stunned at the force of her response. “Are you sure you want me to do that?”

“Do I sound sure?” Whitney thought she sounded pretty damned sure.

“If I leave now,” said Ryan, “I don’t know if I’m ever coming back.”

“I don’t want you hanging around in my office, anyway. This is where I work.”

Ryan shrugged. He started to say something. Stopped. Turned. Left.

Whitney returned to her game of solitaire, viciously moving the Ace of Spades to the top tier. Fuck Ryan. He didn’t understand. At all.