Dissent (12 page)

I
nodded. “Yup.”

“I
swear to Christ, if you're not back here in two minutes, I will make
Burt leave you here!”

Dr.
Todd let the smile break across her face, big and amused. Almost
giddy. “Oh, this is going to be interesting,” she said.

“You're
supposed to be on my side,” I laughed.

“Right,”
she agreed. “But sometimes being on your patient's side means
hoping some female rock star gives them hell.”

“You'll
have to send me some studies that prove...”

“Where
the fuck are you?” Darcy's voice called, getting closer.

“I'll
let you go early so you don't get yourself fired and ruin this little
experiment,” Dr. Todd said, again smiling. “I'll talk to
you next week, Isaiah.”

I
had just hung up when Darcy broke through the woods, hands on her
hips in black jeans and a white wifebeater. “Have you gone
deaf?”

“Good
morning to you too, Darcy,” I smiled, getting to my feet.
Apparently if there was anything sexier than Darcy on stage, or Darcy
masturbating, it was Darcy angry.

“What
do you think you're doing sneaking off when there's work to be done?”

“Work?
Aren't we heading back on the road today?” I asked, slowly
getting onto my feet.

“You're
not only employed on the nights of shows. You work for me twenty-four
seven and...”

I
moved up closer to her, backing her against a tree, making her words
fall from her mouth. “Is there... some way I can be of...”
I looked slowly down her body, “service?”

It
didn't have the effect I had intended. I expected heavy eyes and
desire. It only achieved the kind of expression someone gets when
they get dropped in a bucket of ice water. Shock. Outrage. “In
fact,” she said, lifting her chin, “yes.”

I
smiled slowly at her, my eyes bright as I slowly lowered myself onto
my knees in front of her, reaching up toward the button on her pants.
“Yes, ma'am.”

She
looked down at me with unbridled desire for a long moment but as my
fingers started to press at the button, she shook her head slightly
and her eyes got small. Then her foot was out, landing in the center
of my chest and kicking me backward. I landed hard on my ass, looking
up at her like she lost her mind. “Wash the bus,” she
said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Wash
the bus? Seriously?” I asked, pushing myself up and getting
back on my feet.

“Yep.
Wash the bus. Then you need to scrub the inside. All the surfaces
including wiping down all the furniture.”

“Is
that all?” I asked, smiling slightly.

“No,”
she said, turning to leave, “but it will get you started.”

I
smiled at her retreating form before slowly following her back toward
the bus. So that was her plan. She was going to play the boss card.
Well, that was fine.

I
got all the supplies for cleaning the bus and had just started
scrubbing the second side when a window opened up above me and Darcy
leaned out. “Better clean that shit up. We are leaving in
five.”

“But
I just started to...”

“Then
I'm afraid you're just going to have to redo it all at the next
stop,” she declared, closing the window. I threw the sponge
back into the bucket, shaking my head.

It
looked like I had kicked a fucking hornet's nest. And the queen bee
was fucking pissed at me. It was going to be a long day.

Twelve

“No.”

“Come
on, Burt. Please,” I pleaded, turning in the passenger seat and
pouting at him.

“No,”
he said, keeping his eyes on the road. “We are on a tight
schedule. We can't afford any unplanned stops.”

“But
it won't take that long! Just a couple hours. I promise.”

“No.”

“Pretty
please,” I said, sticking my lower lip out and he glanced over
at me.

“You
know you're going to give in,” Jay called from the back,
looking down at the cards in his hand, “save us all from this
groveling and say yes.”

“One
hour,” Burt said, looking stern.

“An
hour and a half,” I conceded, “ish...”

Burt
let out a long-suffering sigh, shaking his head. “Thank God I
had sons.”

“Oh,
you love me and you know it,” I smiled, unbuckling and leaning
over to kiss his cheek. “Next stop: haunted insane asylum!”
I announced to the guys who took turns either rolling their eyes or
mumbling under their breath about how sick they were of
haunted-anythings.

“A
haunted asylum?” Isaiah asked, coming out from the bathroom
where I had instructed him to scrub every inch of it with a
toothbrush. A task he had taken with a complete lack of offense or
disgust.

Actually,
he had taken every job over the past five days with a nod and smile,
no matter how demeaning the task was. It was almost as if he thrived
on the manual labor. Which seemed at complete odds with being a
venture capitalist. Didn't people get jobs like that so they would
never have to mow their own lawn or do their own dishes ever again?

“Yeah,”
Jay told him, sorting his cards. “Darce has a fetish for all
things dark and creepy. Give her embalmed eyeballs in a jar and she's
purrin' like a kitten.”

Isaiah
looked at me, brows lifted, a smile toying with the edge of his lips.
“It sounds interesting. That is if all my chores are done for
the day,” he said with a pointed look at me.

“Let
Cinderella go to the ball,” Jay said. “None of us want to
go.”

I
shook my head at them. Who didn't want to get the bejesus scared out
of them every now and again? “You guys are no fun.” But I
wasn't going to let them ruin it. I had been looking through endless
sites online trying to find a place I hadn't seen yet that wasn't too
far off route. And then there it was: Murphy Asylum. I was positively
tingly with the excitement. “Fine, you can go. But ah,” I
said, looking sideways at Burt who, for all intents and purposes,
acted as our father figure, “you're alright with breaking and
entering right?”

“Oh
for Christ's sakes,” Burt said, shaking his head.

“Of
course,” Isaiah said, sliding into the booth behind me.

“Good.
Burt is going to park the bus on a street called...” I looked
down at my phone. “Center Ave. Apparently it has a strip mall
or something. So it won't be obvious why we're there. And then we
will have to walk through the woods for like... ten minutes or so and
we will stumble right into it.”

“Sounds
good,” he said, looking completely at ease with the plan. Maybe
he wasn't such a bad addition to the crew after all.

About
an hour later, we were all piling out of the tour bus, the guys
intent on doing a little shopping and skirt chasing, Burt happy to be
able to take a little midday nap, no matter how much he originally
objected to the plan.

“Try
not to get arrested,” Jay called over his shoulder as we
started toward the woods, “again!” he added.

I
could feel Isaiah's eyes on me. “Again?” he asked and I
knew he was smiling. “Spend a lot of time in police custody,
huh?”

“Oh,
just a couple indecent exposure charges. A drunk and disorderly. Two
for trespassing. Nothing major,” I said, slinking into the
woods in, what I hoped, was the right direction.

“You
little felon, you,” he laughed. “Why do you keep looking
up at the sky?” he asked, easily keeping long-legged pace
beside me.

“I'm
trying to figure out... um... west...”

He
snorted, reaching out and placing his hands on my shoulders,
effectively stopping my frantic pace. He turned me to the left.
“There,” he said, certainly.

“You're
sure?”

“Yeah,
baby. I'm sure.”

I
totally did not feel a little jolt of desire at his easy use of that
pet name. Nope. Not at all. “Okay. So what? Were you a boy
scout or something?”

“No.
I... spent a lot of time in the woods with my father.”

“Cozy,”
I said, climbing up on a huge tree trunk then jumping back down. “My
father's idea of a vacation was booking us cruises and sending me off
in the care of some nanny.”

“You
come from money, I'm assuming.”

“Mmmhmm,”
I said, holding an arm out to push branches out of my face.

“Don't
like talking about your past, huh?” he asked.

I
was surprised enough to look over my shoulder at him. Did I do that?
Did I keep people away? I never really thought that about myself, but
he had a point. I talked to Jay and Todd and Mike, Joey, Burt. Those
people knew me as well as I knew myself. Better, even. But we so
rarely got time off of tour. So I never really got much of a chance
to spend with other people. I never got to the point where we were
supposed to share intimate details of our lives.

I
didn't want to be thought of as cold or closed-off. “It's
really not that interesting,” I said, looking ahead as I spoke.
“My father was a workaholic...”

“A
family trait,” he said, making me tense.

Because
he was right. I was a workaholic. If I wasn't pushing for the long
tours followed by recording, how often would the rest of the guys
want to work? Maybe that was something I needed to address with them.
“I guess,” I agreed. “My mother was a housewife. In
the way that she didn't work. She never did anything even remotely
wifely except nag my father and spend money. I went to private
schools. Did what was expected of me. I learned piano, I danced, I
cheerleaded...”

“Seriously?
A cheerleader?” he asked, sounding disbelieving.

“Yup,”
I said, looking at him to find him smiling. “What?”

“You
still got that uniform somewhere?”

“Shut
up,” I laughed, rolling my eyes. Were there any guys who didn't
want to fuck a cheerleader?

“So
how the hell did you get into metal music? Did you like... go through
a rebellious stage or something?”

“I
met Jay,” I admitted, a warm feeling spreading inside. It
didn't matter how much shit that man put me through, when I thought
about where I had been, where he had been, what we had both done
together to get to where we got in life... it made me almost
overwhelmingly thankful.

“Doesn't
exactly seem like the kid of some rich lawyer or banker.”

“He
was a waiter at a restaurant I went to with my parents.”

“Jay?
Jay was a waiter?”

“I
know,” I laughed, “it's hard to believe, but yeah.
Anyway, he slipped me a note to meet him at this venue. And I just...
did. And I never looked back.”

“That's...”

“Oh,”
I said, rushing forward, “there it is! Do you see it?”

“Yup,”
he agreed, following behind me.

“It's
huge!”

Murphy
Asylum was a massive three story white building with a basement. The
windows were all broken likely by local teenagers too chicken to
actually go inside. The white paint was chipped, peeling, and dirty.
Everything about it was eerie. “Come on!” I urged,
grabbing his hand and dragging him forward.

I
pushed open the front door, listening to its creaking with a thrill.
I dropped his hand, stepping inside. “Oh, this one is really
old,” I said, looking the crumbling walls, the leaves and dirt
all over the floor, the ceiling bursting open from animals burrowing
inside. I reached into my pocket, pulling out a pair of old leather
gloves and slipping them on.

“Came
prepared, huh?” he asked, smiling, tucking his own hands into
his pockets.

“Always.
You don't want to touch shit in here. Careful where you step. There's
glass everywhere. If you fall...”

“I'm
pretty good on my feet,” he said, glancing around with a sort
of detachment.

“Do
you believe in this stuff?” I asked, turning to him slightly as
we walked past what used to be the old reception area.