Doll Face

by C. M. Stunich

  The woman turns away like she's not going to answer me and then pauses with her hand on the door, glancing over her shoulder with sympathy. I know before she even says a word that it's going to be bad.

  No.

  “Your sister's dead.”

  In the movies, hospitals always shut down at night, and it's real fuckin' easy for the characters to sneak out of their rooms and prowl around. I don't even make it out of bed.

  “Miss Saints,” the nurse exclaims when she comes in to check on me and finds me collapsing to the white linoleum floor. “What on earth are you doing?” she growls as she moves up behind me and hits her hand to a button on the wall. Within fifteen seconds, two more of the bitches appear and drag me back into my bed, upping my medication while I scream slang phrases at them that I'm not even sure I understand.

  “Go suck pond water, you buggering bushies!” I wail as I let them hook me back up to the machines. I don't even fight. Why bother? A drugged up bitch with a bullet wound is hardly any match for these crazy ladies in their teal colored scrubs, faces hard as stone. I thought nurses were supposed to be nice? “You think you're the cat's pajamas? You're nothing but a cattle duffer,” I growl at one of them. She gives me a look and a raised eyebrow. Yeah, I know I'm not making any sense, but I just found out my sister's dead, and I'm hyped up on God only knows what. I ain't making any excuses. I spit at one of them and she jerks back, mouth agape. “Put that in your juice box and suck all over it.” I kick my legs, but the motion only causes me pain, so I quit that pretty quick. “I want to see Ronnie,” I tell them, but they're not listening to me anymore, not even when tears begin to fall down my face and soak into the neck of my hospital gown. “My sister's dead,” I tell them, but they're already on their way out. “I'll make sure to leave something good in the bedpan for you, you scum dog bitches!”

  I sink into the pillows and squeeze my eyes shut, fully prepared to spend a miserable night alone.

  “Lola?” My attention snaps to the door and a smiling face belonging to Sydney Charell. She slips inside and moves over to the edge of the bed. I don't know the woman all that well, but I like her, enough that as soon as her fingers curl around mine, I start to sob. “Shh,” she whispers, brushing back my hair. I wonder how the hell she got in here. At this point, I'm well aware of the guards that are sitting outside my door. I decide not to even ask. Who cares?

  “Ronnie?” I ask her as she tucks my head against her chest and pats my cheek.

  “He's fine, everyone in Indecency is okay,” she ventures, and I know she's thinking about my sister, too. “Naomi's just been moved out of surgery, but she's still in critical condition.” I close my eyes and try not to think worst case scenario.

  “How many people are dead?” I whisper as Sydney takes a step back. I feel like a smashed crab next to her, snot pouring from my nose, hair tangled, bare foot and dressed in an ass-less hospital gown. Sydney's makeup is perfect, lips rouged in a purple red, tattoos hidden by a long sleeved black sweater and some tight jeans with crazy amazing purple heels.

  “Four,” she says and then rushes to fill in the blanks. “Stephen, America, Joel, and … ” She doesn't bother to finish her sentence. She doesn't need to. We both know what name goes in that particular blank. Poppet. My heart constricts and squeezes a few last tears down my face. I promise myself after that that I won't cry anymore. What's the fucking point? Poppet was dead long before she physically passed away. Hell, the girl I knew shriveled away in France before she ever showed up here. Can't give Stephen/Tyler all the credit. “I came here because I knew they were probably keeping you in the dark.” Sydney looks around at the shadowed room. Stupid bitch nurses turned the lights off on me when they left. “Didn't know that was a literal thought.”

  “Give it to me, babe. All of it. Tell me what special brand of shit's been smeared across the wall of my life. I want to hear it.” I sniffle and wipe my arm under my nose. Sydney sighs and looks around for something to sit on. There's an ugly chair in the corner, clean but covered in a fabric that I'd label baby puke pink. She drags this over next to the bed and sits down with a sigh, pulling off her heels and tucking her legs up by her side. “I wasn't going to ask, but fuck it, I want to know anyway. How'd you get in here?”

  A smile lights Sydney's lips, but not a happy one, a twist of her mouth that says she's resigned to her station in life, even if she really does want something better.

  “A wad of green I got from cashing one of my brother's checks plus breast implants and some sweet talking equals free entry. And that's just for the hospital staff. Brayden's people let me in without taking a dollar. Somehow though, I feel like the price I'm going to pay is a hell of a lot higher.”

  “No hand jobs? Got in pretty easy then. I must not be as important as I thought. Damn it, ego, you lied to me.” Sydney laughs, and I smile, but it doesn't last long. Poppet's face flashes in my brain, but not the new Poppet with the crazy eyes and the blonde hair, the old one with a snippy attitude and a head of rich brunette, like yours truly. Her hair was always prettier than mine though, like coffee without cream. Mine's the color of a stale Tim Tam, one that's been left under the sofa for weeks before you find it. Granted, I'd still gobble it up, but then that's just me.

  “Well, if that's the case, then I'm shit on the bottom of your shoe. Nobody gives a flying fuck about me.” Sydney doesn't even sound upset when she says this, tucking some of her blonde hair behind an ear.

  “Not even Dax?” I ask, liking the direction this conversation is going. I don't want to talk about the concert or my sister or Stephen or anything else for that matter. Sydney snorts and then sweeps both her hands over her hair, pushing back the pale strands as she sighs.

  “I don't know. I mean, we just met. Sure, we had some chemistry, but what the hell does that really mean other than great sex.” She shrugs like she doesn't give a shit, but I'm an expert when it comes to smellin' crap. “Granted, we only got to do it once … ” Sydney taps her nails on the arm of her chair and then forces a smile. Her blue eyes meet mine and we share one of those looks, the kind chicks always get when they're talking about men. It's a look that says hey, we like your penis but your attitude could use some fuckin' work. “Anyway, why are we talking about Dax again?”

  “Because I really don't want to talk about anything that matters.” My chest gets tight, and I imagine my sister, holding one of our lorikeets on her arm. The bird's bright colors clashed with the ugly tie-dye crap she was wearing, her teeth too white against her dry lips as she smiled at me and I threw a tube of lip balm at her face. It's not a memory that means much, has no real significance, no epic music playing in the background, but it's stuck there in my head on a continuous loop. I look away from Sydney and focus on the floor. “So. Sex once. That sucks.”

  “Yep. Once. In the back of a strip club. He was a little buzzed, I guess.” Sydney growls under her breath, drawing my attention back to her with a smile. I like a woman who knows what she wants. I can tell Miss Charell here wants Dax and his ding-a-ling, even if she won't admit it. “And then we found his dead friend and Hayden killed herself, so … ” Sydney shrugs. “Let's just say budding romance hasn't exactly been in his vocabulary.” She looks up at me. “But you. You're in love with Ronnie.”

  I wet my lips.

  I haven't admitted it out loud, so I struggle with my response for a moment.

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah?” Sydney asks and I give her a look and a raised eyebrow.

  “What do you want me to say: yes, of course. Yeah, yeah, I think I love him.” Sydney rolls her eyes to the ceiling and starts rubbing her feet with her hands, giving herself a foot massage. I get it. Wear heels enough and you'll start doing it, too. It's something men never fuckin' understand. No, you can't park down the Goddamn block. No, it's not just a short, little walk to me, asshole. You like the way this butt looks in these shoes? Drop me off at the fucking door.

  “You mean you know you do.” She leans over and I think
about the hazy image I have of her, grabbing my gun, holding off … somebody from behind Ronnie and me. Without her, he might've been killed. I don't know what happened, but I owe her a thanks anyway, even if she's starting to piss me off. “I saw you choose him over you.”

  “I chose to let myself get what I deserved.” I point at my stomach. “Which is ten times worse than this. I put on a mask, hopped Naomi's bus and helped beat a girl to death. Is there any making up for that crime? Don't think so.” I sigh and lay back into the pillows. I'm happy to be alive because that means I get to see Ronnie again, but I almost think it might've been easier if I had died. No matter what might've happened – heaven, hell, rebirth, the river fucking Styx, or even total blackness – it would've washed the guilt away. I could've started fresh. Even if I ended up shoveling coal in some magma pit in the center of the earth, getting the Devil's horns shoved up my ass day in and day out, at least there'd be the sense of atonement. I could know that the girl I wronged, she was getting her revenge.

  “Okay, okay, fine. Your self-sacrifice had absolutely nothing to do with Ronnie McGuire.” Sydney sighs and shakes her head. We might not have known each other all that long, but I can see she already gets exactly where it is that I'm coming from. That bitch. “So do you want to keep talking about Dax or should I fill you in?” I groan and turn my face away, but I know have to hear this stuff sooner or later. Might as well be sooner. Maybe the drugs the nurses gave me will help disseminate the information through my brain?

  “Out with it then,” I groan, feeling my lashes flutter. Getting shot makes a bitch tired like nothing else. “Commence the breakdown of the sinister plot, complete with cackling. Can you gleefully rub your hands together while you do it?”

  “If it'll make you feel better, I'll try,” Sydney says with a small chuckle. The amusement in her voice fades quick as it came though, right about at the moment she starts to tell me the sordid tale.

  Here are the plot points as I see 'em: America killed Travis because she was a crazy bitch, Stephen thought the kid was his and raised it until America decided to hit him over the head with the truth, demanded Stephen relinquish said child to her, and then the two of them set into destroying one another in the most maniacal, egotistical, sociopathic ways possible.

  That about sum it up? Any fucking questions?

  I groan and clamp my hands over my ears. If only Cohen Rose had died along with Joel, then at least there'd be some good news coming out of this. I hope he gets his tiny penis stuck in a door and it falls the fuck off. It's so little, it'd be almost impossible to find. The thought's almost enough to make me smile, at least enough to make me drop my hands to my lap.

  “So why are you here anyway, at the hospital I mean?” I ask when Sydney finishes and a tense silence settles over the room. I listen as she shifts in the chair and then yawns. I follow up with one of my own. In a minute here, I'll be drifting off to sleep, drowning in a blissful blackness that better damn well not include anymore octopus penis monsters.

  “Brayden Ryker spirited away the other bands. I'm not in a band. I got left behind and ended up wrangling a ride to the hospital on Naomi's ambulance. I told them I was her sister.” I laugh, but Sydney doesn't echo the sound, coming over to stand next to me with a solemn expression in her blue eyes. “Whatever you say or do around Brayden's people, be careful. I can't tell if they're the good guys or the bad guys. Since I don't really believe in either, I'd say, take them with a grain of salt.” I'm instantly reminded of Poppet. Lola, this isn't about good versus evil. There's no such thing. It's just about us versus them. “Sleep tight, lady,” Sydney says, giving my hand a squeeze before making her way out of the room and closing the door carefully behind her.

  The whisper of it snapping into place is the loneliest sound I've ever heard.

  Three days in a crappy ass motel with dirty water and barely fucking there basic cable. Sounds like many a long weekend I've spent shooting up and passing out, only to wake up and start the process all over again. Here's the thing though, take that equation but subtract the drugs and add Turner Campbell in a melancholy rage and you've got my weekend splattered in shit across a public toilet.

  “Man, can you please sit down?” I beg him, glad that the guards are finally gone, leaving us to our own personal hell. I guess they figured, hey, they're ten stories up and there are bars on the windows. The only way out of here is to take turns drowning each other in the dirty ass toilet. Even then, only one of us would be lucky enough to jump ship. “Pacing the raggedy ass carpet isn't going to get you more information.” I flip through our limited selection of fuzzy TV channels, looking for some sort of news station. I find a few, but the sound's so fucked up that all I can do is read the blurbs that flash across the screen every now again. The ticker on the bottom still says the new lead singer for rock band Amatory Riot is still in critical condition at UCLA Medical Center. After that flickers by, there's some football news, political mumbo jumbo, and a story about a dog who saved his owner from a house fire. Fascinating shit. “I will tell you the instant I see anything new to report.”

  Turner keeps pacing, ignoring me for the third day in a row. We're basically prisoners in here – despite the fact that Mr. Ryker promised we could leave at any time. The asshole hasn't been back since his initial visit and only Milo's allowed to come and go. He drops food off, brought us our bags full of fresh clothes, but that's about it. According to the guards out front, we leave or break their shitty ass rules and it's hashtag game fucking over. Lola shot Joel; Naomi shot America. I don't know how they're going to escape this mess without any jail time, but if hanging out here will give them a shot at it – and it will, according to these assholes – then it's worth the pain.

  I sigh.

  I haven't been able to figure out what's going on and nobody seems willing to tell me, so I sit here and watch the news and wait for the sound to come back on, reading the miniscule amount of text available to me for information. Our latest fuckup – a concert that's achieved international attention – is on every Goddamn station, so it's not hard to find someone that's talking about it. What's hard to stomach is the misinformation and half-truths that are floating around. Poppet's being played off as a stalker, a girl who joined her sister on the tour and then fell in love with Stephen Hammergren – the CEO of Spin Fast Music Group who was so personally interested in Amatory Riot and Indecency that he decided to show up for the concert at America's invitation. I mean, now that word's gotten out, it's well-known that they used to be lovers who had a child together. The media has spun this tale, turning Poppet into a crazed girl so desperate for Stephen's affections that she was willing to kill for them.

  This leaves … a lot to be desired in my opinion. A lot of people were hurt, several people died, Naomi was seen leveling her gun at America and pulling the trigger. None of the media stations talk about this part of the equation. I can't get online, so I have no idea what the social media shit storm looks like, but I can't imagine it's any good.

  I groan and let my arm flop over my eyes.

  Really makes me miss the early days of driving from gig to gig in our van, begging free overnight stays at the houses of fans, peddling our crappy ass demo to anyone that would listen. Back then, Asuka was with us, so was Travis. I thought I hated it then, but I know now that that was fucking heaven.

  “Turner, please,” I beg because I can't take it anymore. His negative energy is creating this vortex of emotion that's pulling my soul into the center of the room, ripping it straight from my body, limb by limb. I feel sick to my stomach. “I can't watch you do this to yourself. I don't know how long we're going to be stuck in here, so can we please make the best of it?”

  “They can't keep us in here, cut off from the fucking world like this,” he growls, but he has yet to test the assholes and see if they really will just let us walk out. If it's bothering Turner that much, we can go, but I feel like if we're going to get even an iota of truth out of the situation, we have to stay. If
it means sitting here on this mustard yellow bedspread and staring at a TV set from 1992, I'll do it. And I'll do it with a fucking smile on my face. For Lola.

  I turn the TV off and sit up, watching Turner pause just long enough to glare at me before he gets his shit together and shakes his hands out with a grumbling sigh.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” I ask, and he scowls at me.

  “No, Ronnie, I don't want to frigging talk about it. I really, really don't, okay? Stop being such a fucking girl and act like a man. Clam up and refuse to show any emotion except anger.” I laugh, but Turner doesn't even smile. Guess he wasn't trying to be funny. “Nice that you can find humor in the situation,” he snarls, moving towards the edge of the bed and leveling his glare on me. Turner's brown eyes are bloodshot from lack of sleep, and his hands are shaking like he's on a freaking comedown.

  “I'm not trying to make fun of you, man. I'm not poking fun at your pain, you know that.” I touch a hand to my chest and sit up as Turner slumps down to the edge of the bed and drags his hand down his face.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. I just … ” Turner sighs and drops his hand to his lap, looking over at me with a sad-sack expression I'm more used to seeing in the mirror. Shit. “I'm no good at sitting idle. I'm nobody's fucking prisoner.”

  I push myself to my feet with a groan. I am now officially, one hundred percent clean and sober, and it sucks. I would kill for some dope right about now. Shit, I can practically feel it in my blood, stirring up the dopamine in my brain, tellin' me that hell yeah, I'm happier than a fucking crocodile in a room full of sheep. But it's not real, and it won't change anything in the long run. Trust me, I know. For ten years I've self-medicated and fucked around and for ten, long ass years, I've been living under a cloud. Lola's like the sunlight that burns away the fog. Turner might call me a douche for saying that, but in his heart, he'd know it was true.