Doll Face

by C. M. Stunich

  My heart breaks for my friend and the crowd responds in turn, the raucous roar quieting to an equally intense murmur. A split second later, Brayden Ryker is bursting back through the curtains with blood on his boots and an angry scowl stuck to his lips.

  “Don't tell the cops a feckin' thing,” he snaps at me, sweeping by, acting as if the sight of Lola's broken body means friggin' nothing to him. “Not a Goddamn feckin' thing.”

  “Ronnie.” It's Sydney, moving back around me and kneeling by my side. When she reaches out a hand and brushes it across my cheek, I know things are bad. I hug Lola tighter, and she grunts, forcing me to relax my grip. Our eyes meet again as Sydney speaks. “Help's on the way. I called 911.” She glances back and cringes at something, presumably Brayden or one of his men, dropping her voice to a whisper. “I have no idea what just happened here, but if I were you, I'd keep my mouth shut. Don't say a word about what happened, not even about who shot Lola.” Sydney stands up at the same moment I hear pounding footsteps. “He's dead,” she calls out, and I hope she's referring to that bald guy Lola shot. If it's Jesse, I … or even Milo. Fuck. “We need help over here.”

  “You're going to be okay,” I promise Lola as they drag her from my arms and try to inspect me for injuries. I bat away gloved hands and ignore mechanically asked questions as I try my best to keep my eyes on the love of my life. They load her up on a stretcher and carry her away, asking me if I'm family, taking my silence to mean no. At the last second, I tell them yes, but they're holding me back, and I think I'm screaming. I'm screaming and reaching for Lola, and she's disappearing into the back of an ambulance that's driving away before I can reach it.

  I run after it for a long time, too long, until I hear cops screaming at me to stop.

  When I do, I collapse to my knees and wonder how everything in my life has gotten so fucked up.

  Dunno, dunno, dunno.

  That's what I told the cops.

  Dunno, dunno, DO NOT FUCKING KNOW.

  I rock back and forth, head clutched in my hands as I try to force myself to breathe. Two feet away from me, Turner Campbell wails. No joke. Kid you not. Think he's a pussy for crying? Then you've never lost a loved one. Go fuck yourself.

  “Turner!” Milo's trying desperately to get his attention, shaking his shoulder, grabbing his arm, even slapping the side of his face. It's a gentle Milo sort of a slap, but a slap nonetheless. Under normal circumstances, Turner would be slapping – or probably punching – him right back. “Turner Campbell.” No response. Turner is sobbing right now, and I don't blame him. Naomi got shot, too. Apparently while trying to save the kid, Tyler Rutledge, from Poppet. This, supposedly, happened about thirty seconds before Brayden Ryker stormed back there and shot the woman right in the face, splattered her blood all over Naomi as she passed out, collapsing on top of a dead woman. This calls for a royal bout of cursing.

  “Fuck,” I growl under my breath, jerking my hands away from my face. We're sitting in a hotel room, but only because Brayden's men won't let us sit at the hospital. That's right. At gunpoint, we were escorted back here. To be fair, they tried asking nice first, but Turner exploded on their asses and now, here we are. Sitting on the edge of one of two queen beds and freaking the fuck out. The cops questioned us before we even got to the hospital and then, Brayden's people took over. Whatever the hell is going on, it goes deep because apparently, their rules trump the law. That's fucking scary. “Leave him alone, Milo,” I snap because shit, Turner has no idea if Naomi's even still alive. She was – just barely – when they threw her in an ambulance after Lola left, but life can change in the blink of an eye. Turner and I both know that oh so well.

  America Harding killed Travis.

  I close my eyes and swallow back a lump of pain and fear.

  It wasn't Stephen Hammergren that ran my best friend over with his car; it was Amatory Riot's manager. She killed my friend because he wanted his kid, because he was a better man than I was – than I am – and now he's gone. He's gone and his kid's been raised by a man willing to torture and kill people as part of some elaborate revenge plot against his ex-wife.

  “Fuck.” That's the only word I feel capable of speaking right now, the only thing that seems appropriate. I've been trying to wait for Turner to calm down a little, so I can ask for more details. All I know at this point are facts I've been fed from everybody else, from Jesse who's thankfully still alive. Josh. Milo.

  Dead.

  That's also an important distinction to make here. Who didn't make it through that concert is just about as important as who did.

  Stephen. America. Joel, the bald dude. Poppet.

  Four dead people, several injured.

  Blair. Cohen Rose. Honesty, the bassist for Ice and Glass as well as their guitarist, Chris. KK, Lola's manager. And most important of all: Naomi and … Lola.

  “Go away, Milo. Can't you fucking see he doesn't want to talk right now? Go get us something to eat, Jesus Christ.” I grab a pillow and chuck it at my manager, not in a playful way either. It's just, I gotta throw something, so it might as well be something that doesn't kill the guy. My mind is spinning and the only thing I can think about besides the violent shit storm that just occurred, is meth. I want a hit so bad I can taste it. How else am I supposed to survive this? There are so many elements to what just happened that are liable to destroy my life.

  Lola shot Joel. She killed him.

  Prison for life, anybody?

  Oh, and let's not forget that the girl my best friend fell in love with, Naomi, she shot someone, too. America. She fucking killed her. In front of a crowd with numbers in the tens of thousands. Add that to the footage exploding across the Internet, taken on cell phones and captured by raucous media members, and you've got some serious, serious problems.

  I can't think right now. I want to lie down and sleep until there's news about Lola. But I can't. I glance over at Turner who's shaking and staring into space like he's not even home anymore. I recognize the look, and I can't let it go on. I've been there, done that before. Asuka, please God, help me through this, I need your strength.

  I slide off the edge of the bed as Milo retreats and scoot on my knees to sit beside my friend. I have to snap my fingers several times to get his attention.

  “Turner,” I whisper, knowing a scream won't work any better to break through that trance. “Hey. You in there, bro?” Nothing. Not even a blink. At least he's not screaming anymore. I get the pain, but I don't know if I can hold myself and him up at the same time if he keeps wailing like that. The sound cuts straight through my head and into my brain, eviscerating me from the inside out. “Turner Motherfucking Campbell, wake your ass up.”

  “Go away, Ronnie,” he drawls, leaning back, smashing into the bed with a shudder. “Leave me the hell alone.” I watch as he curls in on himself and starts to shake. Shit. I rise to my feet and look around the room. It's just us in here, with two of Brayden's men. I don't know where Amatory Riot is – or anyone else for that matter. Jesse, Josh, Sydney. Milo says he's seen them, that they're okay, but it's kind of freaking me the fuck out. Why separate us all? Hell, why put Turner and me together? I don't get it.

  I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

  Lola. God. Even though I've showered, I can still feel the stain of her blood on my hands. The warmth of it. The consistency. And then, as if that wasn't enough to fuck with my addled brain, I start to think about Asuka. About her blood. I start imagining that I have the crimson color of both girls splattered on my hands.

  I open my eyes and shake my hands out, trying to get a hold of myself.

  “Turner,” I repeat, grabbing his leg and trying to roll him over, away from the headboard and towards me. “HEY!” I shout and he startles, flipping up to his feet and slamming his palms into my chest.

  “WHAT?!” he screeches, shoving me again. “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!” I let him yell, getting at least some small thrill of pleasure from watching Brayden's guards shift uncomfortably.
I force myself to smile at my friend.

  “You can still scream like nobody else,” I say as he rolls his eyes and thrusts an arm across his nose, wiping away the tears like they were never there. I watch as he visibly tries to contain himself. Same thing happened when Travis died. Not the wailing, not really. I mean if he did that in private, I don't know, but this gathering of the spirit that he's attempting, I saw that happen. Thing is, it didn't really work. Turner ended up drowning himself in sex and drugs and alcohol. He never really recovered, not until Naomi Knox showed up. I've got to protect this man the way I didn't protect Travis. My heart shudders in pain. “And I'm pretty sure it was that raging screech of yours that saved Naomi's life,” I say, trying to be optimistic. Ask any of my friends: optimism has not generally been my strong suit. But I'm trying to change here, trying to fight for something I had once and never thought I'd have again. Love. Fuck. Let's just get through this, get Naomi and Lola out of the hospital, start the fuck over again.

  “Yeah? Well, it's also sold millions of records and scored me countless chicks.” Turner sniffles and then looks away, pain flashing over his features like lightning, a jagged slash of brightness that hurts the eyes and promises bad things to come. “But none of that is even half as important as this.”

  I reach out and touch my friend's shoulder, giving it a squeeze that I know'll piss Turner off, but will also hopefully distract him. When he doesn't call me a flaming faggot and slap my hand away, I know he's even worse off than I thought.

  “You saved her, Turner,” I tell him, still keeping hold of that fragile thread of optimism. She could still die, sure, but until I know for sure Naomi's six feet under, I'm going to keep telling half-truths to my friend's puffy face. Turner Campbell doesn't look like a mega rock star badass right now, but like the boy who used to stumble from his mother's trailer, dripping blood across the dusty pavement, tears streaming down his face. You should've seen him the day she microwaved some of the crappy ass plastic McDonald's toys he used to cart around. They were all he had, other than that one-legged G.I. Joe of course. “Shit, who knows how many lives you saved? I could hear the crowd from backstage, bro. If you hadn't calmed them down, there'd be a dozen or more people out there just as upset or worse than you are right now.”

  “I don't care about any of them,” he snarls back at me, but I know that isn't true. He cares, and he knows he did the right thing. Turner jerks away from me and stalks over to Brayden's bodyguards. One of them jerks back the hammer on his revolver but leaves it sitting in his lap like a threat. Huh. It's going to take a hell of a lot more than a gun to deter Turner Campbell. “What I care about is that the love of my life, my fiancée,” Turner says, stressing the word, “is lying bleeding in a hospital bed. I want a phone to call the hospital. Fuck, I want a car, so I can drive my ass over there. Hell, I'll even let you goons come with. Whaddaya say?” I turn and give Turner's back a raised brow. Fiancée, huh? Either he's just doing his usual posturing or something happened between the two of them last night after they disappeared. I glance up at the curtains, at the streaming shafts of light that penetrate the dirty fabric. This is no fancy ass, golden sheets, ass licking employees kind of hotel like we've been staying in. This place is a shit hole. I really don't care since it's kind of what I'm used to, but the light outside does remind me that last night is a relative term. Technically, that was the night before last when Turner disappeared.

  “I think you should sit down and wait for Brayden,” the man says, his plain-Jane face peering up at Turner with little interest. Since America's dead, where does that leave us with these assholes? Milo doesn't even know anything about our security detail. That blonde bitch handled everything. “That's about all I can say right now.”

  “At least look it up for me,” Turner growls out, leaning towards the guy, close enough that he's making him nervous. “Google her ass. See if she's still alive.”

  “Sorry, no can do,” the man says, letting his eyes drift from Turner to the hotel room door. A moment later, it swings open and Brayden Ryker himself storms in, dressed in baggy black work pants and a short sleeved shirt. He lets the door swing shut behind him and puts his hands on his hips, looking between Turner and me with a tight pursing of his lips.

  “I'm sorry about the way that all went down,” Brayden says as Turner spins to face him with a poisonous look spreading across his face. “It was never my intention to let it go this far.”

  “Oh, aye,” Turner says, lifting up his hands in frustration as he imitates Brayden's Irish accent in a mocking tone of voice. “It twasn't me fault. I guess I just lost some of me lucky charms.” To his credit, the man doesn't react, moving his hands from his hips and folding them across his broad chest. The sleeve of floral tattoos he has stretching across his massive bicep is a little disconcerting, giving Brayden this soft edge that I know is one hundred percent for show. Those green eyes, the tattoos, the accent that makes American girls curl their toes, it's all a front. I imagine if he wanted to, Brayden could snap Turner's neck in like a second.

  “Are you done then?” Brayden asks as Turner sags, the hot air going out of him faster than a popped fucking balloon. “'cause if you are, I've got some good news for you.” My friend's head snaps up as I take a step closer and fall into line beside him, mimicking Brayden's pose by crossing my arms over my chest. “Lola and Naomi are both alive.” My friend's body begins to shake as I close my eyes and let out a stale breath I hadn't realized I was still holding. “Miss Saints has been moved out of surgery and is in stable condition.” I open my eyes back up and meet Brayden's moss colored irises, running my tongue across my lower lip and fighting to keep my emotions to a minimum while I wait to hear about Naomi. “Miss Knox is still in surgery, so I can't report much beyond the fact that she's still breathing.”

  Turner groans like he's been punched in the stomach, stumbling over to the bed and sitting down hard, curling his torso over his knees as he struggles to breathe through the rush of emotion.

  “You'll have to stay here for a while while I sort things out. If you want to leave, you're free to do so, but I can promise you that the police will be waiting. If you want me to sort this out, give me some time.” I open my mouth to ask one of the hundred questions I have crouching inside my chest when Brayden shakes his head, just so, and turns away, leaving the room and letting us drown in the silence of our own confusion.

  I wake up with a start, tubes hooked into my arms, latched onto me like the sea creature that was plaguing my dreams. Fucking octopus, all bright orange and leering, with penises instead of tentacles. Fuck a Goddamn duck, that shit was bloody terrifying.

  I reach up to start ripping needles from my skin when a woman's hand clamps over my wrist and draws my attention up to her face. I recognize this chick as one of Brayden's people, some Amazonian lady with too much muscle mass and small little titties. I jerk my arm from her hand and press it against my chest. I'm still alive. The emotion overwhelms me, crashing down on my head and making me dizzy. Or maybe that's the bullet wound that stupid scrag of a sister gave me.

  “Glad to see you're awake,” the woman says, her hair like shadow in the darkness of my hospital room. I look around, but there's nobody else here. No Ronnie McGuire. My stomach clenches with pain and sends a tightness to my throat that I have trouble breathing around. I reach a hand down to touch the area where the bullet hit me, but it's buried under the blankets and the hospital gown, under bandages, probably stitches. I have no idea because as of right now, I can't really feel the damn thing. Must be all the morphine, huh? I get shot and wake up fried. Can't say I'm complaining about the second part of the equation. “Do you remember what happened, Miss Saints?”

  “Uh,” I drone as I scope out the room. It's so empty and sterile, no fuckin' flowers or nothing. I must not have been out for all that long. Eh. And after all those sappy, end of the world thoughts? Fuck me runnin'. “I shot Joel,” I begin and the woman hisses under her breath, drawing my gaze back to her stran
ge ass eyes. Pale as the fucking vodka I spend half my days slamming. I wrinkle my nose.

  “No. That is not what happened. When the police come in to question you, you'll tell them the truth.” I raise a brow at the weird chick with the butch cut hair and the creepy eyes.

  “Listen up there, twat-waffles, I know what happened there. I can see it in my mind clear as day. I don't know what you're smoking, but I really did shoot Joel. And then Poppet shot me, and … ” I swallow back the fear. If I let it, it'll overwhelm and consume me. “Ronnie,” I venture, but the woman's already rising from her chair.

  “No, Lola. You're confused. A lot happened back there, so it's easy to see why you might not remember the exact sequence of events. Poppet shot you, yes, but you didn't shoot anybody. You were lying on the floor bleeding. Do you understand that?”

  My heart is beating like a drum, like one of Ronnie's songs. What if he's dead? Nah. Nah. I was awake until … well, my last few memories there are hazy ones, but I know I remember Ronnie's face looking down at me, his words filling my head and promising that everything was going to be okay. Guess the crazy bloke was right, wasn't he?

  “I … ” I think I get what this chick's trying to do. This here's my story and I better stick to it, kind of a thing? “I guess,” I hazard a weak affirmative to her intense stare and she curls her lip at me. I lift my hands up in a placating gesture. “Okay, okay, calm ya tits, lady. I didn't shoot anybody. Now can you please tell me what happened to Ronnie McGuire, the drummer for Indecency?”

  “I know who Ronnie McGuire is,” the woman tells me in a deadpan. Um, 'kay. That's great. Now how about the whole 'alive' part of the conversation? I swallow hard and stare into the wide spots of darkness that make up her pupils, pleading, one woman to another. “He's fine.” I let out a sigh of relief, and then cringe. Okay. I lied. Even with the morphine, I can still feel the spot where that little fucker pierced through my stomach. “What about my sister? Did she get arrested?” I ask, thinking of the kid clutched in her hand, the crazy gleam in her eyes. That wasn't at all like the Poppet Saints I knew. Wonder what dad would have to say about that one?