Get Bent

by C. M. Stunich

  I make it around most of the camp before I spot the champagne colored car from before.

  “Katie,” I whisper. I move up to the gate and show the guard my badge. He glances at it and then looks up at me with an irritated expression, rolling his eyes as he unlocks the bolt and unwraps the chain. Lucky for me, she's idling up on the side of the overpass outside the south entrance. Easy out, easy in.

  “You people have no work ethic, you know that?” the man says as I move past him. “You come and go as you please, smoke like chimneys, screw like rabbits. I mean, get a grip for God's sake.” I ignore his rant and hop the small stone wall at the edge of the lot, using the hardy shrubs that dot the highway as handles to climb the steep hill. When I reach the top, I climb over and hit the moist pavement just as the sky overhead crackles. Looks like the storm's following us. Raindrops splatter my face as I check the window and find that I was right. Inside the car, is Katie Rhineback. She rolls the window down.

  I put my hand in my sweater pocket and clutch the knife. I imagine that if Turner found out I was up here, that he'd be pissed. But he's not my keeper, nobody is. If I want to do dangerous shit, I'll do dangerous shit.

  “Get in before he sees you,” she whispers, and I can't help but glancing around. I figure she's probably talking about Eric, but who the hell knows? “Hurry,” she urges, eyes wide and forehead drenched with sweat. I check and double check, making sure the new cell Turner's manager got him is still in my pocket. If I need to make a call, he's got Ronnie's on him. Strangely enough, there's no doubt in my mind that he'd come running.

  I open the door and slide in, leaving my shades on and hood up.

  “How'd you know I'd be here?” I ask her as she eases onto the highway and gets in the fast lane. “Were you waiting for me?”

  “I was looking for him,” she says, keeping her eyes forward and her hands steady. Her head is shaved and her cheeks are hollow. I don't like the look of her, like something else has managed to come in and screw with her since we last talked. Her sorrow hasn't lessened, only gotten deeper. What the fuck? What did I do all that for? I want Katie to have a good life. She deserves it. Even if she is obsessed with me. I shiver, but I tell myself that she was never a threat. She kind of stalked me for awhile, called me her hero, but nobody ever knew why. Nobody but her. She knows I killed her parents and for the longest time, she worshipped me for it in the worst ways. I stare at her hard and try to get a feel from her, some sense that I'm in danger. I get nothing. If she really was trying to screw me, she wouldn't have let me go.

  “Eric?” I ask and she shudders, her pain almost palpable, hunching over the wheel and swerving the car dangerously. I reach over and grab the wheel, but she recovers quick.

  “No. Not Eric. Eric is gone. The Devil. I'm looking for him.” I raise my eyebrows. Okay, here we go. More of the crazy talk. Great. Just great. I watch Katie's lower lip tremble and then let my eyes fall to the plastic purse in her lap, the dirty dress. She looks like a character from a dystopian novel, wild and frightened yet somehow fierce, crazy but focused and determined, too. It's scary as shit.

  “You sent the video, didn't you?” I ask and her eyes fill with tears. Bingo. I knew it. One mystery solved, a thousand more to go. “Why?”

  “You needed to know who your friends were,” she whispers. I lean against the door and watch her face, the play of emotions under pale skin lined with blue veins. In the background, I hear a bit of jazz on the radio.

  “You really put me in an awkward position, Katie. Not fucking cool.” I pause and wait for her to explain herself further. She doesn't. Figures. “Are you stalking me again?” I ask as calmly and politely as possible. I can't imagine Katie as a murderer, but maybe she's responsible for the other stuff, the dead birds and the doll head, the hat and the guitar. Maybe there are two stories here intertwining? That would explain the convoluted shit hole I'm now swimming in.

  “Naomi, I wanted you to know who you could trust because he's after you. They all are.”

  “Who?” I grind out, desperate for answers. My head is spinning with all of this crap. On the outside, I'm okay, but inside, I'm confused. Lost. Empty and bursting both. Things are changing around me faster than I can blink. My secrets are being spilled from my soul, taking away that reeking rot I've been carrying around for so long. But what do I fill those spaces with? Love? It's never worked out for me before, never been that healing balm that poets promise and authors employ for giggling fangirls. I've hated Turner from afar for so long and now … he's in reach and I'm not sure if I even want him. I press my hands to my face and try to breathe.

  “The demons,” Katie whispers, her voice almost lost in the rush of wind and water outside the window. I've always loved the rain, but for once in my life, I wish it was sunny outside. The weather is thick and heavy, bearing down on my already burdened shoulders. I press my fingers to my temples. Eric was right about at least one thing: Katie has gotten worse. But why. That's what I want to know.

  “Did you steal the scissors?” I ask her, figuring I already know the answer to that question.

  “Satan did. So he could bind you under his dark graces.” I drop my hands to my lap and push up my shades, so I can see her better. I'm probably fifty shades of fucked for getting in this car with this crazy woman.

  “And the dead birds, the message in blood, did you write that?” Katie bites her lip so hard it starts to bleed. She takes the next exit and goes under the overpass, getting us back on the freeway in the opposite direction. “What have you done?” I ask her, not wanting to give much more away, just in case. “Other than the video, what else are you responsible for, Katie?” She doesn't answer, just sits there and stares out the windshield with glassy eyes. I slam my fist against the dashboard, and she whimpers. “Goddamn it, Katie. I've never asked you for anything, but please, please, whatever it is that you know, tell me.”

  “This is big,” she says to me. “Much bigger than you and I. We're just fish, caught in a net. I sent the video, Naomi, but only so you would know who to trust. They kept your secret, didn't they?”

  “Who else did you send it to?” I whisper, thinking of Turner and America. She's right though. Even though they didn't have to, even though they should've gone screaming to the police with it, they didn't. Says a lot, doesn't it?

  “Dakota and America,” she whispers as she pulls into the parking lot of the venue. It's packed, but she manages to find a spot in the back and turns the car off, leaving us buried in silence. “That's it, I swear it, Naomi. I would never hurt you.” She turns and looks at me, eyes wide as marbles, lips quaking and chapped. Her whole body screams pain, pain, pain. She's cut so deep that she's bleeding inside and there's not a surgeon in the world that can save her from that. I hate to say it, but I don't think Katie will ever recover. I used to think so, but right now, I'm not so sure. “You're my sister, Naomi.”

  I give her a tight-lipped smile and reach for the door.

  “Foster sister,” I say, and then climb out into the eye of the storm.

  I head straight back inside the gated area and around to the back, moving in the door and crouching in the shadows, so I can listen to Turner sing.

  He is so on tonight that I get chills over my entire body when I hear his voice, can practically feel him crawling inside of me and splitting me apart, the most delicious kind of torture. He's singing that stupid One Woman song again. It's enough to make the audience swoon and flutter like a cluster of butterflies, desperate for a taste of his nectar. The word mine pops into my head and is dismissed immediately. I will not think that way. I told Turner no before. I have to stick to my guns.

  But then I watch him rip the stage up and destroy it. I see that passion in him that I admired before raging bright, that happiness and joy spilling out into the crowd and promising them that you can have everything if you just try hard enough. It's fucking mesmerizing. And it's all because of me? Or just the idea of me? The thought that he'd found love and then lost it? I hav
e no clue.

  What I do know is that when Turner walks offstage, smelling like sweat and cigarettes, I almost jump him.

  Instead, I wait stone still in my spot while I listen to the sounds around me dying down, fading away to whispers. Just as I'm about to go after him, get out before the last of the crew leaves me alone and in a vulnerable place, he comes up behind me and whispers in my ear.

  “Boo.” I jump, a little, and then chastise myself for not paying better attention, turning around to find him grinning like a Cheshire cat. I frown.

  “I almost shanked you,” I promise, which is true. At least my reflexes aren't complete shit right now. It's not easy staying away from the good stuff, the booze and the coke and the dope, especially not in a situation like this. But it's necessary, life or death crucial even. Turner just reaches out and tries to touch my lower lip. I push his hand away. I've seen that move pulled on a dozen or more girls since we started this tour. I'm not going to play that game. “And stop smiling so much. Don't you think people will find it odd if you go from mourning and pissed to happy and carefree in a day? Can you tone it down a little?” He reaches a hand in my hood, inked fingers tangling in a stray strand of hair.

  “Not if I pick up a new roadie girlfriend. That's more my MO anyway. Besides, I always thought you might be jealous of that chick.” I raise my eyebrows and take a step back.

  “The one you left with her panties down around her ankles, crying on the PA speaker?” Turner wrinkles his nose.

  “She was crying?” I shake my head and sigh. He's a rich, rock star, piece of shit, asshole cock sucker. He will never change. I have to keep that in mind when making my decisions. I look around and decide I don't like how quickly this place is emptying out.

  “Look, just forget about that. I don't want to be rammed over a speaker, alright?” I pull the morning after pill out of my pocket, pop it from the foil and swallow it. Turner watches silently, but for once, has nothing smart-alecky to say about it. “Let's just get the fuck out of here and get on the bus, so we can talk.” I start to move past him, and he grabs my arm. Again, I get this close to shanking his ass. “What?” I snap.

  “Dax left with Hayden, right after their set.”

  I shrug.

  “So?”

  “So,” he says, sounding annoyed. “You didn't let me finish. They left, but they didn't go back to the bus. They went out front. I followed them during the set change.” I don't like where this is going, Turner looks guilty as fuck. Why, I don't know. Maybe because he suggested we bring Dax in on this? I don't blame him for it. I said it was alright. Besides, we needed someone from Amatory Riot to check shit out for us. I'm starting to wonder if we should've picked Blair. “I didn't have time to chase them down, but I waited until they were almost at the end of the lot, near the street. It might not mean anything, but it could mean fucking everything. Thought you should know.” Turner gets a weird look on his face, two parts irritated, one part hopeful. He probably wants Dax to be a bad guy, so he's out of the picture for good.

  I turn away and breathe in deep.

  I want to end this shit, find out whose hands are in the cookie jar, but I don't want to lose all my friends and band members doing it.

  “Thanks, Turner,” I say instead. Since there's no way to know where they went, we'll just have to wait this one out, maybe send Ronnie over to Terre Haute's bus to see if they're back. Until then, I'm not making any assumptions. “This shit just gets weirder and weirder,” I mumble under my breath, moving out the door and across the rain soaked pavement. Turner keeps pace with me and doesn't let me get even a foot ahead of him. Inch for inch, we walk as equals.

  Dax and Hayden don't show up until right before we're about to leave, so we don't learn a damn thing. We don't bother to call him. It's hard enough to get privacy on our bus, let alone one with twice as many fucking people.

  “Must be fucking hell in the bathrooms over there,” I tell Naomi who's sitting half-naked in one of my shirts. Ronnie rolls a joint at the table between us. I don't know why he gets to sit closer to her than I do, but that's how she wants it. I have a bad feeling I'm not getting lucky tonight.

  “I don't want to make small talk,” she tells me, mulling over the information again. I want to kick her ass for getting into that car with Katie, but I settled for yelling. Didn't exactly go over well. Naomi is not the type of chick that likes to be bossed around. Good thing, though. I've been with some of those. The sex isn't nearly as much fun. She looks up from painting her nails and smiles meanly. “With you. I want to hear about Ronnie.” Naomi turns to my friend and continues coating her nails with black polish. It'll actually help her blend in better here, and believe it or not, actually makes her more androgynous. Half the fucking guys in the tour have black nails. Kinda comes with the territory.

  Ronnie smiles and pinches his joint between two fingers, leaning back into the cushions and scratching at the snake tattoos on his neck with his other hand.

  “I'll tell you all about Ronnie,” I say, giving him a look that says get the fuck out, so I can have some alone time with this girl. He sees it, registers it, and ignores it. He's not interested in her, thankfully, or I'd have to kick his ass, but I think he does like her. So he's going to play cock blocker and stick around. Fine. I sigh and watch his joint with hungry eyes. I can smell it. Naomi can, too, but neither of us accepts it when he offers. “He's a hopeless romantic turned whore. He loves to drop acid and he has like sixty kids. We've been friends for over a decade and he still doesn't remember my middle name.”

  “First of all,” Ronnie says, taking a hit and holding the smoke in his chest as he continues. “I have four kids.” He blows the smoke out with a sigh. “From four different mothers. I'd rather be a hopeless romantic than a hopeful cynic, and I'm pretty sure your middle name is a state. Arkansas? Nebraska?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Oh, it's a curse word. My bad.” Ronnie throws the joint at me, and it hits me in the chest. “It's Dakota, you fuckin' asshole.” Naomi laughs and smiles. But not at me. At Ronnie. Guess she's still pissed about my freak-out. I mean, come on though, anybody could've been in that car. Or waiting outside those gates. Or shit, for all we know, Katie is almost completely and utterly responsible for all this shit. Naomi said at least one guy was involved, but he could be working for Katie. What do we really know about this chick?

  “Tell me about your kids,” Naomi says, watching as I toss the joint in the ashtray and pretend I'm not trying to breathe in as much secondhand smoke as humanly possible. Ronnie rubs his chest and shakes his head, dark hair falling into his face as he stares at the tabletop. That melancholy is back again, flitting briefly behind his eyes. I don't know where it's been going lately, but I hope it stays gone. This whole murder mystery thing is working for him, giving him a purpose. That, and I think he's sort of living vicariously through me, falling in love all over again. I hope this cures him, or at least helps. Marta's death will have saved Ronnie's life in that case. “Convince me why I should or shouldn't have any.”

  Ronnie looks guilty as fuck and plants his elbows on the table, reaching tentative fingers for the abandoned joint.

  “I couldn't say either way really,” he tells Naomi honestly. She doesn't blink, just sits there and stares at him while her nails dry. I wonder if she's thinking of our almost-kid, imagining what he or she would've been like. I know that I fucking am. And as soon as I have a kid, I know I'll be a better father than Ronnie. I sit and listen anyway, wishing it was just me and Naomi and a can of fucking whip cream in this room. I could show her some fun stuff. “I've only met three of the four. The youngest was just born a few months back. The mother doesn't want anything to do with me, so what am I gonna do? Take it to court? I don't stand a fucking chance.” Ronnie looks down at the tabletop and starts to fade away into that ghostly otherworld where he's spent the majority of his adult life. “I'm not saying I don't want to know them. I just … haven't found anything in myself worth knowing. I don't
want to saddle them with this shit.” Ronnie looks up sharply and slices me with his gaze. I know some deep shit is coming. When he looks like that, it always cuts hard and fast. I get ready to bleed. “What I do know, but that nobody tells you, is that I wish I'd had my kids with a woman I loved. I mean, I imagine that it would make a world of difference. I'm no good to them as I am. I should be a rock, but I'm just a stone, sinking faster than I can blink.” Ronnie takes a hit and drums his knuckles on the table. “I wish I'd treasured Asuka more when she was alive, and I wish I'd died right along with her.” Naomi gives me a look that I return. She doesn't know all the lurid details of Ronnie's past, but she will. I'm going to tell her everything I know about everything. No secrets. No fucking secrets. “But since that's not an option, all I can do is wander and hope I find somebody half as good. I want to fall in love again. There, I said it.” Ronnie takes a deep breath and stands up, giving me a look that plainly says move. I glare back at him, but he's not in a place to be messed with. I could punch his skinny ass out if I wanted, but it's not worth screwing with him when he's this fragile. I swallow my pride and get out of his way, so he can make a quick exit. “I know you didn't ask for it, but I said it.” He moves to the door and pauses with his fingers outstretched and reaching. I imagine that's a position he's metaphorically been in for a long time and hasn't even known it.