Dare (The Dare Trilogy)

by Sara Frost

  He looked up towards the stage, suddenly distant. “Okay,” was all he said at last.

  She gripped his shirt and smiled at him, but he wasn’t looking at her now. “Hey,” she said softly, squeezing him a little closer with her other arm.

  Now he looked down into her eyes and, for the briefest instant, she clearly saw the irritation on his face. Then, realising what he was doing, he shook his head. “I’m sorry. I just got knocked back from our set.”

  “You were great,” she repeated, more sincerely this time. “And next time you won’t let them mess around with your sound. But... you might have had plenty of chances to see Optima, but I haven’t, remember. Let me see them and you can do whatever you want with me afterwards.”

  Her smile was infectious and at last he returned it with warmth. “Yeah, you’re right, of course,” he replied. “I’ve seen them enough. You wait here and I’ll get you a drink, okay?”

  She nodded and, as he pushed his way through the crowd again she returned her attention to the stage.

  A deep, booming beat began to sound from speakers above the stage, and dry ice poured onto the stage as multi-coloured lights flashed back and forth. The slender form of Darius led the way, his long hair down across his shoulders and a white shirt covering his chest, open almost to the waist, a kind of wasted chic that from this distance looked rather elegant. Behind him, Johnny swaggered into place, his stronger, more masculine form sending a thrill through her as it always did, while the other members took up position by their instruments.

  The lights suddenly rose upwards, forming a line of intense brightness before they flashed out just as the throbbing beat stopped, plunging everything into darkness and silence. Almost immediately, there was the crisper pulse of Optima’s drums, while the bass player hit a low series of notes that droned in the darkness. The timing was perfect, causing Dianne’s heart to stop for a second until recognition kicked in. Karma—from their new album. Without thinking, all reason was pushed out of her mind by a tumbling excitement of emotions and she leaped up into the air like a stupid schoolgirl, screaming as loudly as any of the crowd around her.

  The lights started to rise, a blue glow that cast an eerie sheen across the stage so that the band looked like dark ghosts moving through the gloom as Johnny’s guitar joined the pulse of drums and bass. Then a spotlight suddenly shone from the back of the cavernous room, picking out Darius where he draped himself upon a cruciform microphone stand, his body almost cadaverous and his face nearly featureless and white.

  “If only you knew how good retribution feels,” he began to sing, his voice impossibly deep for someone so slender and frail looking. “When I pull your hair tightly in my fingers.” The words were sardonic, heavy, and Johnny’s guitar was a malevolent low growl behind the words. In that instant all thoughts of Gary Johnson were dismissed from Dianne’s mind as her body rocked to the beat of the music.

  “You’ve always betrayed me, left me dangling on a thread. Now all I’ll tell you is how desire for revenge lingers.” At that moment, again timed to perfection, the growl of Johnny’s guitar became a roar and the lights flashed from below as a vivid and bloodthirsty red. Dianne danced and flung her body forward as others in the crowd crashed into her, and now she truly forgot everything. All that was important was that rhythm—driving her on, taking her over.

  Clutching his microphone, Darius wrapped himself around the stand, his shoulders hunched up and his face twisted in pain as he almost screamed the words—almost, but letting the sound of his voice form a violent and terrible music.

  “You were the sun to me, you were my deity—but now I rip it all apart and then you’ll know the force of karma!”

  It did not take long for Dianne’s body to be dripping in her own sweat as the crowd crushed her, a small, dancing figure locked in carnal delights with this morass of people. Her hips gyrated to the music, her body throbbing with pleasure, and strands of her own dark hair were plastered to her brow as she shook her head from side to side. Looking up, she saw the lead singer standing high above the crowd, staring ahead like some ruined prophet, one hand outstretched, fingers slowly clenching into a fist. He had an evil power over the manic souls heaving beneath him and for a terrible instant Dianne knew that if he reached down at that instant, lifted her up, there was nothing she would be able to do to deny him anything.

  “You were wrapped in sin, taking all my violence in—yet now I taste your blood, break your soul to show you the force of karma!”

  Beneath the roaring furnace of the song, Dianne was dimly aware of the screams and shouts of other members in the audience, moans and calls towards the stage—a dancing, moving, undulating pit of flesh. She lifted her own arms, losing herself in a kind of ecstasy and started to cry out his name, calling to him.

  When the song ended, plunging the stage into darkness once more, for the briefest second there was also silence and then, almost as a single, breathing entity, the crowd let out a huge roar, Dianne herself jumping up and down in a frenzy of excitement. All the pettiness of Darius was forgotten, the disappointments of Notre Dame banished.

  As the set continued, some of Dianne’s own heat began to cool: she was still filled with elation, but she also began to watch the stage in terms of appraisal. She loved Black Ark—a name that had meant nothing to her merely days before—and could see their potential, but now she was watching the real deal. Optima were tight. Every note had its place, nothing was unnecessary, and above it all stood Darius, perched on his preposterous stand in such a way that, bizarrely, he did not seem preposterous. Rather, he was a demonic imp, rousing up the crowd to renewed bouts of violent lust with his stagecraft.

  She danced and enjoyed herself, but a few songs in at last, with a slightly guilty start, realised that Cam hadn’t returned to her. She was confused by this, though perhaps he had simply seen her dancing and was waiting to one side as she danced before the stage. At the same time, she wanted to tell him to stuff the drinks, to drag him onto the floor and throw her body into a rage of motion that would be a prelude to their own fits of passion throughout the night.

  Pushing her way through the crowd, oblivious to her own condition—though to any observer she would have looked like a crazily beautiful demoness, eyes blazing and an almost feral grin on her face—she finally came to the edge of the dance floor. Cam was nowhere to be seen.

  Behind her, the light show continued to blaze through the darkness, and for a while she had to stand still, letting her eyes grow accustomed to the gloom. The crowd had thinned out here, with knots of people standing watching Optima as they launched into “Bind Me”, Johnny’s guitar lifting up into a familiar solo. One or two men looked at Dianne with frank interest but she ignored them as she began to walk, her eyes hunting for Cam.

  It was not long before she saw him at the bar—and when she did so her heart stopped in her chest. He was leaning on the surface of the bar, a couple of bottles left negligently beside his arm, his torso leaning in towards another woman and a smile on his face as he listened to her. He was much taller than her and presumably that was why he had to lean in so much, to hear her above the music.

  Dianne could not explain her feelings when she saw who the other woman was, the long-haired brunette who she’d seen in Darius’s company before. The woman was smiling and lifted her head up towards Cam’s ear, almost touching it as she spoke, her red lips moving less than an inch away from him. Her body was less full than Dianne’s, but she had a feline grace to her and was dressed in a black shirt and tight leggings, long, shiny boots reaching to her thighs. She finished speaking and Cam laughed, his eyes glittering as he looked at her and shook his head.

  As Dianne began to cross the floor to the pair of them, Cam glanced across and, seeing her, a slightly strange expression settled on his face. He stood up quickly and the other woman, frowning, followed his gaze. Seeing Dianne, she raised an eyebrow and said something to Cam, her hand lingering a moment on his chest.

  There we
re only a few steps between them now and the other woman started to move forward. Suddenly overcome with jealousy, Dianne glared at her furiously and this made the raven-haired woman smile slyly. Before Dianne could walk past her to Cam, the other woman grabbed hold of her and, with surprising strength, pulled her slightly off balance. “He’s quite a catch,” she said loudly so that she could be heard above Optima. “I won’t be surprised if a lot of women chase him.”

  Dragging her arm away, Dianne turned to say something to the woman but she had already gone, moving purposefully into the crowd and slipping between people, her hips moving sinuously as she walked.

  “Hi,” Cam said with a grin as he lifted a bottle and held it out for her. “You seemed to be enjoying yourself dancing so I thought a drink could wait.”

  For a few seconds, Dianne stared at the bottle, suddenly unsure what to do. Taking it from his hands, she realised how thirsty she was and so took hold of it, draining a great mouthful of beer which also gave her precious time to compose her thoughts.

  “They’re good, aren’t they.” There was something a little wistful in Cam’s tone as he stared towards the stage.

  She nodded. “The best,” she said loudly. Cam winced at this, recognising the spite in her tone. He shrugged and took a swig from his own bottle.

  “What was that about?” she asked, coming to one side of him and placing her back to the bar, watching Optima continue their performance.

  “What was what about?”

  “You seemed to be having a good time.” Now she turned her face to look at him now.

  He looked a little embarrassed. “What? Elisabeth? She was just explaining what had happened last night—apologising for Darius, as it happened.”

  Dianne scoffed at this. “I can’t imagine Darius is the kind of guy who does much apologising—and you two looked rather cheerful for two people sharing bad news.”

  Cam opened his mouth once more to speak but then closed it and shrugged once more. His own eyes were fixed on the stage again. “Whatever,” she just about heard him mutter.

  The two of them stood there for a moment, watching the set as Optima finished “Bind Me” in a devastating crescendo. It was Cam who broke the awkward silence between them first. “She was asking about you,” he said at last. Still he didn’t look at her, but she turned her face to him.

  “What was she asking?”

  “She wanted to know what I knew about you, where you’re from, if you’ll be hanging around.”

  “Why did she want to know that?”

  Again he shrugged. “I don’t know—she wouldn’t say. I think... I think Darius has taken an interest in you.”

  His words felt like a stab in the chest, and Dianne glanced away from him, her eyes alighting on the stage again. For a painful moment, she remembered how she had felt barely half an hour before, down there in the mosh pit, jumping and screaming and dancing with the rest of them. In that instant, she had felt as though she would have done anything for Darius, but now, standing beside this tall, broad-shouldered man, the lead singer of Optima seemed more like a puppet, some angular marionette on stage. He had an evil genius, certainly, but watching him now Dianne felt there was something just a little too weird about Darius Optimus. She didn’t know how to put her feelings into words and so she said nothing.

  “And will you?” Cam’s words disturbed her reverie.

  “Will I what?”

  “Will you be hanging around?”

  She turned her face once more, looking up at him. His eyes, so blue and piercing, were staring down at her and she felt a strange sensation deep in her belly. He was watching her so intensely that she couldn’t endure it for a moment and so, with a show of bravado, turned back to face the stage, cocking back her head and taking a swig from the bottle.

  When she lowered it, she wiped her lips and nodded her head. “You don’t get rid of me that easily,” was her reply at last.

  Part III: Berlin

  Chapter Twelve

  Over the following days, Dianne saw a lot more of the White Ark than she had anticipated. After leaving Paris, Cam and the other members of Black Ark humped all their gear into the back of the van and made their way across the border into Belgium, coming to a halt in Brussels where another gig had been lined up that night.

  While she was beginning a tour that would end up with her seeing more of Europe than she’d had the chance to ever before, the schedule was a gruelling one. After Brussels, they zigzagged north to Amsterdam and then back down to Cologne, Dianne taking up her share of the driving—more so as she often preferred to be at the wheel instead of Dan, who attacked the road with the same aggression that he seemed to feel towards anything he encountered.

  She realised that Paris had been an exception in a number of ways, not least that there had been two venues arranged there. Usually they spent a night in one place and then were on the road the next morning, which abated her excitement to a degree: she was visiting more cities than ever before, but barely had enough time to see more than the hotel before they were onto the next stage of their journey. After only a few days of this—driving most of the day followed by a gig in the evening—the effort of touring was beginning to take its toll on the exuberance of even Tony.

  Dianne was feeling increasingly ambivalent about other aspects of this adventure, which had not quite turned out how she’d planned—insofar as she had made any plans. Although Elisabeth had not made any obvious advances towards Cam, it was hard for Dianne to completely forget the other woman, who sometimes gave her an enigmatic, even lewd smile whenever she saw Cam’s younger partner. In addition, she couldn’t quite shake the guilty feelings that she had experienced that last night in Paris, that for a little while at least it had, after all, been Optima that was the source of her excitement.

  She was mulling over such thoughts again as she sat behind the driving wheel, following the autobahn from Frankfurt to Hanover on the third leg of the German part of the tour. After tonight, they would travel next to Berlin and spend a couple of nights there with a short break before they made the exhausting drive southwards to the Czech Republic. This, Cam informed her, would begin Optima’s tour of former Soviet countries in an attempt to break open the eastern market which had showed considerable promise in recent years.

  Dan, as ever, was grumbling in the back of the van beside Tony and James while Cam sat in the front next to her, frowning at his phone as he attempted to make sense of the timing of their trip.

  “It’s going to be tight,” he said. “According to this, we get to the venue at four o’clock, which gives us a couple of hours to set up and do a sound check. The place opens from six-thirty or seven, so we can grab a bite to eat then hit the stage.” Dianne saw him smile across at her from the corner of her eye.

  “Then we have to fucking get up at the crack of dawn and do it all again,” moaned Dan.

  “At least we’ll have a few days in Berlin,” Tony added, attempting to cheer up the mood although even his voice was beginning to show signs of strain. He called out to the front: “Hey, Dianne, you ever been in Berlin before?”

  She shook her head, not taking her eyes from the road.

  “Cracking city,” he said. “I’m planning on taking young Jim out to show him the ropes. Who knows, he might lose his virginity this time.”

  All of them laughed at this, including Dianne, who could also hear scuffling noises as James took a minor revenge on his friend.

  Dan was not to be distracted from his theme for too long, however. “Well, let’s hope we don’t have to settle for another shithole, like that one in Paris. Come to think of it, that place last night was a real fucking dump.”

  She felt Cam tensing up beside her—as indeed they all did when Dan was in full whining mode. Simply being around the morose Mancunian had taken some of the pleasure from this road trip, and Dianne suddenly had a vision of being locked up in this van for weeks on end, confined in close proximity to the miserable bass player. Unable to cont
rol herself, she thought of someone else from Manchester and began to sing quietly: “I was looking for a job and then I found a job, and heaven knows I’m miserable now...”

  Overhearing her, Tony snorted at this and Cam chuckled beside her. Dan, however, was not as impressed. “Tell your fucking bitch to shut it,” he snarled at Cam, who turned in his seat and glowered at the bass player.

  “Watch your mouth, Dan!” he said. “Actually, over the past few days I think she’s been a damn sight more useful than you.”

  “She’s certainly done a lot less complaining,” interjected Tony. “Mind you, that’s not hard.”

  “Fuck you!” Dan burst out. “All we have to do is squeeze up so Cam can bring his bit of totty along.”

  “Dan, I’m warning you...” Glancing across, Dianne could see Cam’s face turning red with anger and she reached across with one hand to calm him. As she did so, an impish thought came into her head.

  “Anyway, just to let you know,” she said, a smile on her face. “If the worst came to the worse, I can play bass too.”

  “Like fuck can you,” Dan muttered.

  “Hey, that’s not such a bad idea,” James added. “She could drive and play bass, then we wouldn’t have to listen to your constant whining.”

  “Aye,” Tony chipped in. “And she’s a damn sight better looking than your ugly mush, too.”

  “Fuck off,” was Dan’s only reply as the others began to laugh at him. “She’s just a mouthy bitch, that’s all. You lot fucking need me.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Tony said with a sigh. “How we ever manage to make it from one day to the next without your genius to guide us is a constant source of amazement to me.” He leaned forward to place his head between Dianne’s and Cam’s. “And do you have any other talents, young lady?” he asked. “I mean, any that don’t involve this fella’s gigantic cock, and all that. Though come to think of it, if I don’t get laid soon, I probably wouldn’t mind looking in on those sessions if you know what I mean.”