Dead Serious (12 page)

“Okay, so … where is the child now?” I think I already have the answer to my question, but I have to ask. I just have to hear her say it.

“Well,” Katie says, looking at my high heels and smiling. Her gaze travels up to the
Real Ugly
tattoo on my belly, the broken heart on my chest. “If I tell you this, you have to promise to keep a secret.” I'm already shaking my head.

“I don't do secrets, not anymore.”

“Not about Cassie or Hayden or Eric, but about yourself. Naomi, it doesn't matter what Eric did to me. I murdered him in plain sight and I'm done for. But you, you have possibilities.” I hate hearing Katie talk like she's ninety-five and dying of some incurable disease. She's in her twenties for fuck's sake!

“Tell me where Cassie is, and then I'll figure out who I should talk to. A lawyer or something. Hell, maybe America can represent me.”

“Naomi!” Katie screams, her voice like needles, cutting into my ears and bleeding me out on the table. “Shut your mouth and listen to me.” Katie leans forward, calming herself just enough that the guards pause on their way towards our table. I touch my fingers unconsciously to my
Real Ugly
tattoo. Never were truer words spoken. How else can I describe the situation we're in here? It's fucking disgusting. I hate that I'm even sitting here having this conversation. “I'll tell you what happened to Cassie and then you'll leave. You'll walk out that door and go on with your life.” I glare at her, but she just stares at me, waiting for a confirmation I guess. I can't give her one. I
can't
do this. “You think you're being strong for me, but you're actually weak, Naomi.” I gape at her, but she doesn't stop to let me speak. “I'm not going to have this baby, Naomi, but I can't live with myself if I murder an innocent either. Do you see where I'm coming from?” I have no clue, but my heart is ringing so loud I can't hear anything else. Murder an innocent. Don't
even
get started with me on that whole abortion debate bullshit – I don't care what anyone else thinks. I did what was right for me. What was right for fucking
me.
Doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt, that hearing my sister talk like that doesn't cut me to the core. I choke on my own heart and can only pray that there's no blood running down my lips.
I've
only ever loved three things in my life, and none of them worked out for me.

Katie's stopped talking, so I force myself to say
no
in the world's quietest whisper, in a voice laden with regret but simultaneously weighed down by hope.
Oh God. Things are not going to work out well for me, are they?

“I won't bear my brother's rape baby, Naomi.”

“Okay.” What else am I going to say to that?

“But I hear angels calling.”

My heartbeat picks up – didn't think that was even
possible
– and I actually consider flagging one of the guards. Katie has that dangerous edge to her voice again.

“Angels?” My mind flashes to Turner, to his sleeping face that night on the bus, to his blue-black hair glimmering onstage. I think I might be on the edge of a panic attack, but I'm a strong person and I fight the fuck out of those emotions, hit them back with raging fists and well-placed kicks. I won't give into this world. I
refuse
to let it get me down.

“Yes, angels,” Katie whispers, looking up at the fluorescent lights hanging above us. Her face has that rapturous beauty etched into it again. I feel like I'm going to pass out. I start to rise from the table, fingers curling around the edges like I'm holding onto a sinking life raft.

“Who has Cassie, Katie? Who adopted her?”

“Stephen,” she says and I nearly drop to my knees on the floor. “Stephen Hammergren.”

And then suddenly there's this bit of metal in Katie's hands, gleaming bright, reflecting back the glare from above and temporarily blinding me to the reality of what's happening. Before I can stop her, she's lunging at me, swinging the knife and cutting me right across my belly, across the
Real Ugly
tattoo. I stumble back out of surprise and even though the cut's not that deep, the blood running down my belly and into my jeans causes me to collapse, fall right to my ass on the floor.

I look up at Katie as the guards come running, watch as she places the blade to her throat and smiles at me.

“I love you, Naomi. Enjoy the rest of your life.”

Standing above me, bald head limned in golden light, a broken angel falls from heaven in a spray of red.

“Katie!” My scream echoes around and around inside my own skull as the shard of metal slides across my sister's throat. Red spills down the front of Katie's orange jumpsuit, sprays me in the fucking face, and yet it's
nothing
at all like it is in the movies. It's worse. So, so, so much worse. “Katie!” I screech again because I'm effectively paralyzed. That voice I'm so proud of, the one that supposedly trumps Hayden's, that touches people's souls, it's the only weapon I have left. “Katie!”

My sister slumps forward, her wrists catching on the handcuffs until she's twirling like a ballerina and slamming into the side of the table, dangling there like a morbid fishing lure. A temptation that the world's worst predators could not resist, not until they'd damaged her irreparably. Her eyes are so faraway now, pale and empty, but her lips still smile as she gurgles and thrashes, red splattering me as I shake and tremble. In my mind, I call myself a coward for not standing up and helping Katie. In reality, I know that there's nothing I can do for her. So I lay there in a pool of warm blood and accept the world's most precious gift.
Life.
But is a life bathed in death and pain really worth anything at all?

Hot salty tears eat at my face as the guards unhook Katie and lay her flat on the ground. She's twitching and shaking, but still smiling. The world around me goes silent, blocking out the sounds of the guards calling for a paramedic, of the desperate gasps my sister makes as she chokes on her own blood. And that's how it happens. Katie doesn't bleed out; she drowns. In doing so, she seals my fate.

I will never,
ever
forget that fucking smile.

I know something's wrong the moment I see prison guards streaming past me like fangirls heading towards my tour bus. I stand up, but I can't seem to make my feet take a step.
Naomi's dead.
That's the first thought that hits me, and it knocks the air from my lungs.
Katie's killed her.
I don't know why that's my first response to the situation – maybe this has nothing at all to do with either of them? – but I just know that's not the fucking case. When have I ever been so lucky?

“Cock and balls,” I snarl, startling an old lady napping in the corner. I run my fingers through my hair and pace in a circle. Naomi is
not
dead. I can't start thinking that every time something happens. I guess I'm still traumatized after the incident on the tour bus, seeing those blonde bodies coated head to toe in blood.
Ugh.
“Excuse me, doll,” I say, putting on the full force of my swagger as I approach the front counter. I lift my chin to indicate the doorway Naomi left through. “What's going on in there?”

The woman behind the counter doesn't even bother to look at me. I guess whatever drama's unfolding back there is more important than a sexy guy with tattoos, than a rock star. I scowl and step away, my eyes catching on a pair of paramedics as they rush past me and disappear around the corner.
No, no, no.
God, I want to go in there so fucking bad. I eye the prison guards at the door. They're still standing in the same places they were before, but I can tell they're almost as interested in the situation as I am. I look over my shoulder at the two bodyguards that came inside with Naomi and me. They're hanging out on separate benches. One of them's reading a newspaper and the other is playing frigging Candy Crush on his phone. Candy Crush. Fucking Goddamn piece of shit
Candy Crush.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I snarl at him, ripping the phone from his fingers and dropping it to the floor. I crush it with my boot and wait for the man to look up at me. I don't know how Brayden picks his employees, but one of the requirements must be to look as plain and boring as possible. I wouldn't recognize this guy from a hundred others I've seen on the street. Still, I get no reaction. These fucking assholes are like robots or some shit. “Naomi's in there!” I point back at the door, at the metal detector. The man keeps staring at me with his plain brown eyes, scratches at the stubble on his chin.

“What do you want me to do about it? The boss warned you, didn't he? I can't go in there anymore than you can.”

“FUCK!” I scream, picking up the man's phone and tossing it as hard as I can against the opposite wall. Great.
Now
I get the attention of the prison guards.

“Sir!” One of them moves towards me, and I'm about three seconds away from trying to get an elbow in his throat, so I can run past him when I see Naomi stumbling towards me.

Covered in blood.

Covered. Head. To. Toe. In. Blood.

“Naomi!” I'm stumbling forward, tripping over my own feet as I struggle to close the distance between us. My Rock Goddess's face is broken and desolate and there's a bandage running across her midsection. What the fuck? What the fucking fuck of all holy fucks? One of the guards stops me just outside the range of the metal detector and I'm forced to wait a painful few seconds for Naomi to get to me.

My arms go around her shoulders, pulling her to me, pressing her blood covered body against mine. I lay my head atop Naomi's and squeeze as tight as I'm fucking able.

“Are you okay?” I whisper against the sticky clumps of blonde hair pressed into my cheek. “Are you hurt?” It takes her a second to answer, but when she does, her voice is rough, like broken glass and gravel.

“Not really,” she croaks and then pauses, taking a breath that I can feel reverberating against my own chest. When Naomi next speaks, she sounds a hell of a lot more in control of her emotions. “Not physically anyway.” One of the paramedics says something to her, but she waves him away, eyes shimmering with rage and confusion. “Don't fucking touch me. I'm fine.” The man holds up his gloved hands and takes a step back.

“What happened?” I ask, but Naomi's already gritting her teeth and shaking her head.

“Two suicides in as many days. This oughta been a fun fuckin' week. Can't wait for the concert on Friday. Cannot fucking wait.”

There's not much that happened at the prison that Naomi can expound on, considering it was all on video. She gives her statement, cleans up best she can with a towel and storms out the doors like a tempest, fury radiating off of her body in waves of heat that threaten to knock me to my knees. Or bring my cock to attention.

Aw, fuck, Turner, come on, man.

I keep my libido in check – it's so inappropriate right now that even
I'm
aware of it – and sit across from Naomi, trying my best not to pepper her with questions. She's not keeping secrets; she's just waiting for the right moment to speak. Or maybe it's that she
can't
speak right now. I wouldn't blame her.

Two suicides, two days, huh? It's like that fuckin' Christmas song, except instead of getting two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree, we're getting double suicide and an un-lubed dildo up the ass. I focus on that thought, puzzling things through my mind, just so I don't have to stare at all the blood crusted on Naomi's body. Fuck. But if it isn't killing me. I can't stand the sight. It brings back images of the bus, of those awful days when I thought she was really dead. Katie was the one that lead me to her then, and now she's dead, too. Like Hayden. Like Shannon and Chelsea. Like Trey nearly was.

A pall settles over my shoulders, pushing my head down between my legs as I struggle to breathe.
Not fair. So not fucking fair.
I fought off my step-daddies and their wild fists, my fucked up bitch of a mother, threw off the trailer park, worked my ass off, just to see it end like this? Hell no. No. No freaking way.