by Elise Noble
“Boots. Yes. Give me two minutes, and I’ll come and explain.”
Clothes. I needed clothes. An invisibility cloak would have been ideal, but I had to make do with pyjamas. Travis pulled on his jeans sans underwear, but when I handed him his T-shirt, one arm was hanging off, the stitching torn at the shoulder.
“It’s okay, I brought a spare.”
So he did, but it had a foot-wide parental advisory label on it, complete with a warning for explicit content.
“Could you turn it inside out?”
He glanced down at his chest. “Shit.”
“Lanie?” Zander called.
“I’m coming, okay?” I turned to whisper to Travis. “Stay here, and I’ll talk to him.”
“No way. This is our problem, not yours.”
Deep breaths. Okay, forget about the T-shirt. Travis was a rock star. It was almost appropriate.
Zander was leaning against the wall opposite my bedroom door when I opened it, his arms folded. He looked Travis up and down, assessing, then recognition dawned and his eyes widened in surprise.
“How long has this been going on?”
I said, “Two days,” at the same time as Travis said, “Three weeks.”
“Well, which is it?”
“I met Travis three weeks ago. He’s been staying here for two nights.”
“No offence, mate, but I’ve heard how fast you go through women.” Zander’s words were mostly civil, but there was no mistaking the hostility in his tone. “Alana isn’t one of your groupies.”
“I know that.”
“I won’t stand by and let you use her. Lanie, are you okay?”
“Zander, I’m fine.” I put my hands on my hips. “Better than fine. Travis isn’t using me.”
“He has a different girl every night. I’ve heard the stories from the guys at the office.”
“Had a different girl every night. Exactly like you did before you met Dove.”
“That’s different.”
“How? How is it different?”
“I don’t tour the world with women throwing themselves at me, for one thing.”
“No, just London and Northbury. Shall I recap?” I ticked off the girls on my fingers. “There was Kelsy, who got hold of our home phone number and called fifty times a day for weeks, and you kept making me answer. Nye’s weird second cousin Phoebe, who sent us an actual freaking pheasant she’d shot. That red-haired girl who used to sit outside on the steps for hours, and Sammi, who claimed you were the father of her baby.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Yes, I know that. I’m just making the point that you screwed a lot of girls and most of them were lunatics. Oh, and Laura. Who can forget Laura? I got into a fight with Laura after she kneed Zander in the balls,” I explained for Travis’s benefit.
“Did you win?” he asked.
“Of course I did.”
Zander’s frown didn’t ease, but he did at least unfold his arms.
“I don’t want Alana getting hurt.”
“Neither do I. She’s worth a thousand of any other girl. A million.”
“And what happens when your UK tour ends? You’re only here for another week.”
Travis and I looked at each other. That was the elephant in the room.
“I’m not sure,” Travis admitted. “There are some difficulties, but we’ll get through them somehow.”
He reached out to squeeze my hand, and I clung to him. I couldn’t lose him, not now. I couldn’t.
“Please don’t be mad, Zander. He makes me happy.”
“Ah, fuck.”
“And please don’t tell anyone. We’re trying to keep this quiet for now.”
Zander fixed his gaze on Travis, hard, unyielding. “If you do anything to hurt my sister, I’ll make your life hell. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“And if you cheat on her, I’ll remove body parts.”
“I won’t.”
“Bry and Max need to know.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
Finally, Zander pushed away from the wall. “Who wants coffee?”
The tension seeped out of me. We were okay. Zander wasn’t exactly overjoyed, but we’d got a grudging acceptance from him, which was as much as I could hope for at the moment.
Travis relaxed a little too. “Thanks, but I need to get back to the hotel before the others wake up.”
“I’ll drive you,” Zander said.
“I can take a cab.”
“No, you don’t get it. My priority is my sister’s happiness, which unfortunately seems to hinge on you right now. And since I don’t want people asking questions about your movements any more than you do, that means I’m driving you back to your hotel so you stay out of sight. Understood?”
“Understood.”
“We leave in ten minutes. Put some socks on. Lanie, I’m going straight to the office for a meeting afterwards.”
“Are you staying here tonight?”
“Yeah, so try and keep the noise down, would you? I don’t want to hear what you’re doing in your room with Ozzy Osbourne’s love child.”
“You don’t mind Travis coming back with me?”
“Better that you’re both here than camping out in some hotel. Just don’t eat all my bacon.”
“I’ll buy you as much bacon as you want.”
Zander tapped his watch, trying not to smile. “Ten minutes.”
I walked into the hotel at half past nine, slightly sheepish after this morning’s drama. Travis had texted to say Zander hadn’t tried to throw him over a bridge on their journey, so that was something at least.
Travis was sitting with the rest of the band this morning, but there was an empty seat next to Vina, so I grabbed a bowl of fruit and headed in her direction. Hotel breakfasts were ridiculously overpriced, but today, I’d get my money’s worth from the buffet because I needed to replenish my energy after last night. Travis was exhausting.
“Hey,” Vina said. “You didn’t get much sleep?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Your eyes are a bit puffy.”
“Shit.”
“Was it…?” She cut her eyes in Travis’s direction.
“That and my brother came home early this morning and woke me up.”
“Have you got much to do this afternoon?”
“Just a session of photo editing, but I thought it’d look weird if I turned up late. I got some nice shots of you yesterday, but I want to make the colours pop more before I hand them over.”
“I’ve got a desk and a spare bed in my room you’re welcome to use.”
“Are you sure?”
“As long as you don’t mind me doing a Facebook live chat with my fans later on, but that should only take about half an hour.”
“I don’t mind at all. Is it me, or is it quiet in here this morning?”
“Vendetta and Styx and Stones are both off making public appearances, and the crew’s gone to set up at Wembley.”
“Gary?”
“Shopping. He took Courtney and Jeanne to carry his stuff. I honestly don’t know how they put up with him.”
“Me neither. I’d have snapped by now.”
As soon as I’d shovelled down the fruit plus a fry-up—which I felt was totally deserved—I sleepwalked to Vina’s room, set my alarm for two hours’ time, and curled up on the bed. This thing with Travis was amazing, but we’d need to find some way of fitting in sleep along with everything else or we’d both die of exhaustion.
At eleven in the morning, as I drifted off, an overly horny boyfriend seemed like my biggest problem.
How little did I know.
A scream ripped through my world for the third time in as many weeks, and I bolted upright as Vina ran out of the bathroom. At first, I didn’t connect the two events, assuming she’d heard the cry too and come to help.
Then I realised the awful noise was coming from her mouth as she clawed at her face.
“What’s wrong?
Vina, what happened?”
Her eyes were closed as she stumbled around the room like a zombie on speed. I leapt towards her, my heart thrashing at my ribcage, and up close, I saw her skin had turned red and begun to blister. A burn? What from? The hospitality tray sat untouched on the desk, the kettle unplugged.
Stop overanalysing, Alana. A burn needed cold water, and it needed it now. I turned her back in the direction of the bathroom, propelling her forward, and now her hands were red and angry too. Whatever had caused this, it was on her face.
Which meant I had to avoid touching her skin. I grabbed a handful of her bathrobe and half lifted her into the bath, then slammed on the shower and turned the temperature as low as it would go.
“Vina, stay under the water, okay. Keep your hands away from your face.”
She didn’t answer, just wailed, an inhuman sound that made every hair on my body stand on end. I pulled the showerhead out of its holder and aimed it at her face. She hadn’t opened her eyes, not once. Were they damaged? Or had she screwed them shut in a desperate attempt at self-preservation?
“It’s okay, sweetie. We’ll sort this out.”
What had caused the problem? And could it hurt me too? I looked around the room, and my gaze alighted on a glass jar of white gloop on the countertop, its lid lying on the floor by the toilet. Had Vina been using it? Was that moisturiser?
Whatever, I didn’t have time to think too much about it at that moment. We needed help.
“Can you hold this?” I tried to put the shower attachment into her hands, but she screamed when it touched her skin. I had no choice but to clip it back into place above her while I grabbed my phone.
A call to the emergency services came first, and once the ambulance was on its way, I dialled Travis with trembling fingers.
“Vina’s hurt. Room three-twelve.”
“Hurt how?”
“Burned, I think. Can you come?”
“Leave the door open.”
Back in the bathroom, Vina hadn’t moved from under the water, but the blisters were still spreading. I gently grasped her wrists to make sure the stream covered her hands as well.
“Help’s coming. Just don’t move, okay?”
“It hurts so bad,” she gasped.
“Was it the cream you put on your face?”
She nodded, then began to sob.
I heard running footsteps outside and quickly tugged Vina’s gaping bathrobe closed. Two seconds later, Travis burst in with Rush behind him.
“What happened?”
“She got burned by her moisturiser.”
“What, this stuff?”
Travis moved to pick the pot up, the idiot.
“Don’t touch it!”
He peered closer instead. “It looks like she hardly used any.”
“However much she used, it was too much.” Was this some crazy allergic reaction? I shuddered as I remembered what happened to Jae-Lin, although her anaphylaxis had been a known issue. “Can one of you go downstairs and show the ambulance crew where to go?”
“I will,” Rush said.
“What should I do?” Travis asked. “Hey, your phone’s ringing.”
“Who is it?”
“Your brother.”
“Can you tell him what’s happening? He monitors my phone, and if nobody answers, he’ll drop everything and come racing over.”
“He monitors your phone?”
“Just answer it!”
Of course, telling the story made little difference with Zander. Once he found out what was going on, he raced over anyway. He turned up just as the ambulance crew was strapping Vina onto a stretcher, her face twisted in agony even after painkillers. The paramedics said I’d done the right thing by getting her into the shower straight away, but she still looked like Deadpool on his day off.
“Lanie, what the hell happened this time?” Zander sat on the bed where until forty minutes ago, I’d been sleeping peacefully. “The control room’s started a pool on how many more times you’re gonna dial 999 this month.”
“I was asleep when she screamed, and when I got up, her freaking face was dissolving. I thought she’d burned herself at first because she’d gone all red, but it was her moisturiser.”
“A chemical burn?”
“I guess.”
“Where’s this moisturiser?”
“In the bathroom. None of us touched it.”
“Why didn’t this happen the last time she used the stuff?”
When someone’s skin’s melting off in front of you, you tend not to think about those little things.
“I don’t know.”
Zander got up. “Where is it? This white stuff by the sink?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm. Looks like she just started it today. The box is next to it. When you get that fancy shit, you don’t keep the box after you’ve opened the jar, do you?”
“No.”
“And this isn’t moisturiser. It’s skin-lightening cream.”
“What? Why would she need that? She has beautiful skin.”
“Peer pressure. From social media, the music industry, fashion magazines, society as a whole. Half of these creams are illegal, and most of them are nasty.”
“How do you know?”
“Dev picked up a case last year where a girl had been using one of them. First her face got scarred, then her kidneys failed. She bought the stuff over the internet.”
“Vina’s skin was darker last year,” Travis said. “I just figured she’d been somewhere sunny on vacation.”
“So you think this cream’s from…what? A bad batch? A dodgy supplier?”
“Take your pick. But at the very least, we need to get the police and Trading Standards involved.”
“Do you know who to call?”
“I’ll deal with it. But they’ll want to talk to you as a witness too. Who was the girl?” Zander turned to Travis. “Was she with your lot?”
“She’s a singer. She’s supposed to be on stage with us tonight.”
“That’s not gonna happen, mate. What time’s the show?”
“The support acts start at seven. Fuck, someone needs to go to the hospital with Vina.”
“What about her family?”
“I think it’s just her mom. She came to some of the TV shows last year.”
“What TV shows?”
“Sing! Live.”
“Zander doesn’t watch much TV,” I explained. “It was a reality show where the contestants performed songs in front of a live audience with only fifteen minutes’ notice of what they had to sing.”
“It was fuckin’ karaoke,” Travis muttered.
“Do you know how to contact her mother?” Zander asked.
Travis shook his head. “Is the number in her phone? Can you get it from there?”
“Depends if it’s locked.”
“Otherwise I’ll have to ask Gary.”
“Who’s Gary?”
“The asshole in charge.”
“You don’t get along?”
“He’s the kind of person who makes coffee by yelling at the machine until it complies.”
“Want to borrow some body armour?”
Travis tried to smile, but it was the same forced expression he used when signing endless autographs. I was starting to learn his moods better now. The grit of his teeth that meant he was holding his temper in check. How his eyes softened when he was truly happy. And like now, the way he chewed his lip when he got upset.
“Wouldn’t make any difference. Gary attacks with words, not weapons. Just look after Alana, okay?”
Zander nodded. “Always.”
CHAPTER 23 - ALANA
ZANDER INSISTED ON picking Travis and me up in the evening. The show had gone on, as it always did. Meredith offered to sing Vina’s part, but in the end, the guys switched back to the original set list and sang alone.
“Replacing Vina after a tragedy’s disloyal,” Travis had said, and the others agreed with him.
“They washed everything off, and now Vina’s got a dressing over her whole face,” she reported.
“Did they say how bad it was?”
“No one would tell me much because I’m not family, but the doctors all looked kinda shifty.”
Which meant the news wasn’t good. And worse, nobody knew where her mother was. Gary’s HR person had her contact details, but she didn’t answer when Travis called, and nobody wanted to leave a voicemail in that situation. Zander said he’d track her down, and not for the first time, I felt an overwhelming gratitude towards my brother.
Zander had borrowed one of Blackwood’s SUVs, and I curled up against Travis in the back seat. Until then, I’d held it together, but as his arms tightened around my torso, all the pent-up fear and stress washed out of me.
“Shh, don’t cry.”
“I can’t help it. Vina’s been nothing but nice to everyone, and she didn’t deserve this.”
“Why the hell does this shit keep happening? Marli, Jae-Lin, Reagan, Vina. This fuckin’ tour’s jinxed.”
“I don’t know. It’s either really bad luck or…or…”
Or it wasn’t. And I couldn’t decide which prospect was scarier.
“Or what?”
“What if all these accidents aren’t accidents?”
Travis stared at me, his eyes showing a hint of horror as my words sank in.
“Who are Marli and Jae-Lin?” Zander asked.
“Friends of Travis. Marli died of an overdose a few weeks ago, and Jae-Lin went into anaphylactic shock at a party right after I started with the band.”
“I read about the overdose. Why didn’t you tell me about the other girl?”
“I didn’t think it was important.” And I also hadn’t wanted to freak Zander out. “She had an allergy to shellfish, and she carried an EpiPen.”
“She ate shellfish even though she knew she could die from it?”
“She didn’t eat anything at all,” Travis said. “I spoke to her afterwards, and she stuck with rum and Coke that night. Coke the drink,” he added hastily. “She thought it must have been cross-contamination on her glass. The hotel kitchen’s doing an investigation, but so far, they’ve basically denied it was their fault.”