I heard Pixie and Bear talking. Someone was in the bathroom—likely Rick, who liked to shower before everyone. Terry and his smoker’s cough were awake. I closed my eyes and drifted back to sleep. I had plenty I didn’t want to think about when I was conscious—and I did a pretty good job of avoiding it too. But my subconscious didn’t play by the rules.

I woke up from a dream, screaming.

In the dream, the stepbeast had found me. He’d kidnapped me, duct taping my hands together, feet too. At first I was in the trunk of a car. Then he took me out and I could breathe. It felt so good to suck in the night air, even if the piece of duct tape he tore off my mouth hurt like hell. In the dream, I was crying, begging him. He didn’t say anything. He just kicked me and I fell. Like Alice down a hole, I fell and fell and then THUD, I hit the ground. Then he was filling the hole with dirt. He was burying me alive. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move.

When I woke up in the enclosed space of our little bed, I screamed. For a minute I couldn’t tell what was dream and what was reality. And everyone came running. Pixie got there first, yanking my curtain aside, her dark eyes wide. I grabbed the blanket, pulling it up to my chin. I didn’t usually sleep naked, but last night, after sex, I hadn’t put my t-shirt back on. I hadn’t wanted to disturb Dale.

“Are you okay?” Pixie asked.

“Someone being murdered in here?” Chelsea. “Who was that?”

“Sara,” Bear told her.

“Bad dream,” I whispered, swallowing hard as more people appeared. Chelsea and Bear, frowning and looking in at me. Rick, his hair wet, appearing on the other side. Then Terry with his morning cigarette, blowing smoke out the side of his mouth. The gang was all there. Except Dale—and he was the one I wanted.

“Just a bad dream.” My voice was stronger now. The dream was fading. “Sorry guys.”

That was our excitement for the morning.

I went to take a shower. I’d seen the inside of Dark Wing’s tour bus and it was far more luxurious than ours—but for a bus, I couldn’t complain. Our shower door was glass and there was a massaging showerhead. I washed my hair, massaging my scalp like I could scrub the dream out of my head. It mostly worked. By the time I was out, dried off and dressed, most of the dream had dissipated, leaving only a lingering feeling of dread.

The crew meeting assembled outside. The busses parked together, configuring a large square in the middle, leaving only a narrow space in or out—Bear had to squeeze—guarded by security. Sure, a fan could slip underneath one of the busses, but we were in a segregated parking lot on venue property. They’d have a hard time finding us in the first place. They stayed that way until we had to leave and we could go hang in the square—we called it the square—whenever we felt like some down time outside without any danger of being swarmed by a mass of fans. It was quite ingenious really, the busses all snuggled up like that. It gave us all a sense or feeling of safety, and I think Chelsea knew it.

She was one smart cookie.

Dale squeezed in just as the meeting was starting. We made a big circle, either standing or sitting, while Chelsea went over the day’s schedule and plan. Dark Wing didn’t have to attend morning meetings. Technically, the opening band didn’t either, but we spent so much more time with the crew, we kind of felt like one big family, so we went.

I spotted Dale sneaking around the circle, making his way toward me. He wrapped his arms around me from behind. I could smell him, that musky scent of sweat, and it reminded me of the night before. His shirt was damp and I could hear Nirvana still playing over his headphones. They were down around his neck.

“Some day we’re going to be in the big bus,” he whispered. “We’ll have our own private jet. We won’t have to listen to Bear getting laid.”

I giggled at that, then sobered quickly when Chelsea glanced my way.

“We won’t have to attend meetings.”

I shrugged, whispering back, “I kind of like the meetings.”

“Weirdo.” He pulled my hair aside, nuzzling the back of my neck. “I heard you had a bad dream.”

I stiffened. News traveled fast!

“I’m fine.”

“Don’t want to tell me?”

I shook my head, shushing him.

“Why don’t you tell all of us?” Chelsea snapped. I loved Chelsea, but when she got mad, she took you down. There was no warning and no wiggle room.

“I’m good.” I flushed, elbowing Dale in the gut, hearing him go “oof!” I waved at her. “Go on, go on.”

“Thank you.” She eyed me for a minute then shook her head, looking back at her notes.

Dale was laughing. I couldn’t hear but I could feel it. I went to elbow him again and he grabbed my arm. I tried to jerk it away but he had too good of a hold. And before I knew it, he’d leaned in and hefted me over his shoulders.

“Dale!” I hissed, still being quiet, like the whole damned crew—not to mention the band—wasn’t watching and cracking up.

“Going somewhere?” Chelsea had reading glasses on and they made her look older. She pulled them down to look over at them at Dale carrying me around the outside of the circle.

“I’m going to take her back to the bus and fuck her brains out. Okay with you?”

Oh he was going to get it. I beat on his back with my fists but he acted like it was nothing. The entire crew was laughing and they started making remarks, giving Dale advice on how to get the job done right.

“Whatever floats your boat.” Chelsea shook her head, but she was smiling as she went back to her notes. Dale carried me through the narrow way—barely squeezing through.

“I am going to kill you when you put me down,” I informed him through clenched teeth as he headed toward our bus.

“Guess I better never put you down then,” he made an about-face, heading the other way.

“No!” I cried. “Where are you going?”

“I thought you were going to kill me.”

“I am.”

“Well, I guess I better keep moving.” He started forward and I howled. He stopped again and asked, “What?”

“The bus.” The words were barely audible.

“What’d you say?”

“The bus! The bus! Okay, let’s go back to the bus!”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“No.”

“What are you going to do to me?” he asked, sounding genuinely curious.

Two could play this game. “I’m going to tie you up.”

He snorted. “Good luck.”

“And then I’m going to unzip your jeans.”

“I’m liking it.”

“And take out your cock.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And run my tongue allll around the head.”

“Mm. Getting hard to walk here.”

“Good.”

“It’s not good if I fall and take you with me.” He laughed.

“That just means I get your cock in my mouth sooner.”

He groaned. “I should have gone the short way.”

He was at a light jog now.

“It makes me wet just thinking about your cock in my mouth.”

And that’s why I was giving Dale a blowjob when Chelsea was telling the crowd she had the night off. If she’d been there, I don’t think what happened would have happened at all. But I was oblivious, and Dale, who made sure, unbeknownst to me, that Chelsea knew everything—everything—about us she needed to in order to keep us, and especially me, safe, was reaching climax just around the time the meeting broke up.

So neither of us knew Chelsea had the night off, which under normal circumstances wouldn’t have been a big deal. But we were in New York, near home, near family and friends, people who knew us, some who loved us—and some who hated us. I think we both thought we were safe. We had layers and layers of safety nets in place. Chelsea was just one of them—but she was the most important, I think. When she was gone, it created a huge hole.

But we didn’t know.

We spent the day like any other day on tour. Tomorrow we would go back to New Jersey and visit. I’d talked to John and Aimee the day before to make plans. I was excited for the New York show—“home town” shows were always the best. And I would be there, front and center. Until then we waited. Our morning sexcapade started at the front of the bus, christening the dining table and our sitting area before ending up in the bathroom. But even that only shaved an hour off our waiting time. We took a nap. We listened to music. We watched Bear and Pixie play a mean game of chess. And we waited.

We went on like it was any other day because we thought we were safe. We’d built walls around us, a fortress. We were untouchable. Like the illusion of the busses making the square, we were in a place we could gather and let our guard down.

We let our guard down, trusting the circle to hold, and we didn’t know it until it was too late. Someone had been waiting for us to come home.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

It was two hours before the first New York show when Greg Richer called to tell us the news .We were backstage, waiting, as usual. I was sitting on one of the sofas reading a well-worn copy of Pride and Prejudice I found on a shelf marked “Free Library.” It was a meager collection, ten or twelve classics, a few self-help books and two copies of Moonwalk, Michael Jackson’s autobiography, which had received a lot of press the year before. Now they were apparently giving away copies.

Dale had his head in my lap and he was playing Tetris on his new Gameboy. All the band members got one as soon as they came out, a nice perk, a gift from one of the venues. I think it was in Georgia—or maybe Virginia. The boys loved them and played them constantly. I tried a few times but they made my eyes feel buggy and gave me a headache.

Chelsea came into the room, waving her mobile phone over her head. If it didn’t have an antennae attached, I would swear she looked like she was going to throw a brick at someone’s head when she did that. It would be one more hour before Chelsea left for her much deserved two days off, but no one mentioned it. I had no idea, and Dale later said

“Got Greg on the phone, guys! He’s on speaker!” She hit a button on the phone and then said, “Go ahead, Greg. I’ve got them all rounded up for you.”

We were all there. Bear and Pixie were in the corner playing chess. Rick was on the other sofa, a ball cap pulled low on his head, napping. Terry was methodically removing the tabs off all of the empty soda cans and stacking them in a pyramid on the counter.

“Hey Black Diamond!” Greg called.

“Hi Greg,” we chorused, almost in sync.

“Got great news for you boys. I Will Always Come For You went double platinum this week.”

Dale sat bolt upright, staring the phone like it was an alien. Terry was so surprised he knocked over his entire soda can pyramid and they clanked to the tile floor, scattering everywhere. Rick sat up, gaping in Chelsea’s direction, cap in hand. Only Bear didn’t react. He was concentrating on the chess board.

“There’s more!” Greg sounded positively gleeful. Maybe he was in the market for a new Porsche and was wondering if he could buy it with his twenty percent. “Your album, Black Diamond, has gone platinum.”