Bad Day (Hard Rock Roots)

“Talk about havin' a bad day. This shit is stale. And real fucked up. Here's to new beginnings.”

C.M. Stunich

Sarian Royal

Bad Day

Copyright © C.M. Stunich 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

For information address Sarian Royal Indie Publishing, 1863 Pioneer Pkwy. E Ste. 203, Springfield, OR 97477-3907.

www.sarianroyal.com

ISBN-10: 1938623681 (eBook)

ISBN-13: 978-1-938623-68-4 (eBook)

Cover art and design © Amanda Carroll and Sarian Royal

"Optimus Princeps" Font © Manfred Klein

"El&Font Gohtic!" Font
© Jerome Delage

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, businesses, or locales is coincidental and is not intended by the author.

this one's simple.

for my readers.

because you mean the world to me.

*Authors Note: Welcome back dear friends, beloved readers. Welcome to a world of music, sex, drugs, and blood splattered hearts. If you're just joining us, you might want to backtrack and read the first three books in the series. Otherwise, all of this pain and angst and drama might not mean much. I've included the reading order below, just in case. Happy reading! ~CM

“Hard Rock Roots” Reading Order:
Book #1: Real Ugly; Book #2: Get Bent; Book #3: Tough Luck; Book #4: Bad Day

~CM

There is blood fucking everywhere.
Everywhere.
I mean come the fuck on. It's dripping between my breasts, stuck in my ears, crusted in my hair. In my lap lies a white towel stained red. It's not enough to get all of this … this
stuff
off of me. Because it's not just blood. There are … other bits. Pieces of Turner's friend all the fuck over me.

I lean my head back and stare up at the ceiling.

Glug, glug, glug.

A water fountain starts up down the hallway. I turn my head to look and startle a man in scrubs who's staring at me like I'm either the most beautiful or the most horrifying thing he's ever seen. I've gotten both tonight. I throw him the bird and kiss the tip of my finger while he scurries away, sliding down the hall and around the corner before he gets in trouble with one of the security officers or cops standing nearby. Oh, yeah. We're in big time lockdown now. Big time.

The sound of a gunshot, the feeling of wetness behind me, screaming, the fences caving inward.

I shut my eyes tight, squeeze them so hard they hurt.

“Ugh.” I drop my chin back down and stare at Lola Saints sitting across from me.
The enemy,
my mind hisses. But that's not true, not anymore. She told us everything she knows which is a hell of a lot more than we had before. Not that it stopped what happened tonight. Who woulda thunk? Who the fuck would've, huh? The cops asked so many stupid ass questions, but I get the gist – they don't know who did it. Not some random shooter in the crowd, that's for sure. This was a planned hit from on high. Oh yeah, a professional job. That's great, just fucking fan-flipping-tastic.

I swallow hard and wait for Turner and Milo to come back. What else can we do? Can't go back to
that
hotel – too many reporters there now. Honestly, this is one of those moments in life where a barrel in the mouth sounds like a good idea.
Or a hit in the bathroom.
But I don't have any drugs with me. If Kash or Wren did, then I'm sure they've already used them. I glare at them snoozing in the chairs across from me. I only
wish
I could sleep. But I can't. Not knowing if Turner's best friend is …

“I'm sorry,” Lola whispers, her voice so soft I can barely hear it over the scuffle in the hallways. I don't say anything, just sit there and stare at her, dark hair falling over her face, skin pale as crack. Her lips are trembling slightly and her hands are falling over one another like they're trying to climb a ladder to nowhere. “I'm such a … ” She pauses, takes a deep breath. Her blue eyes bore into mine like ice. She leans forward and whispers to me, like she's afraid Dax might hear her. Far as I can tell, he's also asleep. “Such a bloody fuckface.” She runs her fingers through her hair and drops her elbows to her knees. I watch as the pair of guitar earrings she's wearing swing forward and sparkle under the parking lights from outside. The ones in the waiting area are dimmed, presumably to try and keep us all calm. Though how calm anyone could be after what just happened is beyond me.

I lift a hand to my face and see that it's shaking. I think I'm in shock.

Dropping to the ground, crawling forward, Turner screaming.

I have to resist clamping my hands over my ears to block out the sounds. I'll never tell a soul, but the only thing I want to do right now is take Turner in my arms and hold him tight, brush his hair back and tell him it'll be alright. Don't believe me? You should've seen his face when he saw Trey.

“I really believed you and Turner were the only targets scheduled for … you know.” Lola sits back and sniffs, glancing around the room like she expects to see some of the members from Ice and Glass come around the corner. But they all left on the first bus, with Burning the Bleeding and Terre Haute. Little Lola here just happened to be onstage pounding the shit out of her kit with me and Turner and the rest of the fucking gang.
Damn you, Turner. Why did you have to open your big mouth?
“I'm such an idiot.”

I try not to get too angry with him. He is, after all, paying the ultimate price for his words. Then again, we have no way of knowing this
wasn't
pre-planned. The hit may have already been set to go
before
the show even started. In fact, the more I think about it, the more sense that makes. How easy is it to get a hit man up in a nearby building with an hour's notice? Not all that fucking easy would be my opinion.

“And now all I can think about is Poppet,” she says, slumping in her chair, fingering the edges of her skirt with nervous hands. “Fuck me swinging. God, Poppet, I hope you're alright. Please be alright. Please, please, please be alright.”

“This is fucking bullshit!”

Turner.

I stand up so quick, I startle Dax from his sleep.

“You can't do this to me!” Turner storms out of an office with his hands in the air, moving past a pair of security guards. As soon as he gets out of range of them, he swipes his hand across a metal cart, knocking various instruments to the floor. “You can't fucking keep me from seeing him. He's my best friend.” Turner slams his palm against his chest and there, in the corners of his eyes, I see the tiniest flicker of tears. “He's my best Goddamn friend.”

Milo comes out after Turner and puts a hand on his shoulder, patting him gently. The other members of Indecency file out, all except for Josh who's off somewhere with Hayden and Blair, getting checked for minor injuries. Fuck, we're all lucky we didn't get killed. The crowds nearly crushed us. If it wasn't for the bodyguards, the fencing, the van, we may have been trampled to death.

Ronnie slumps back against the wall, face a lot cleaner than it was when I last saw it. He was covered in blood, just drenched in it. His eyes though, God. I look over at Lola and see that she's shaking twice as hard as she was before. I can tell she wants to go to him, but doesn't know their boundaries as a … couple or whatever. I tuck my own hair behind my ear and try not to think about that either. Instead, I just watch as Jesse walks slowly towards us, swaying a bit on his feet. He's not crying now, but he was; they all were. The sobbing of those boys pierced through my head. It keeps playing on a continuous loop in my brain, drowning out everything else. They really, truly fucking love that guy. It's hard for me to comprehend since I've never had a family like that, but Indecency – at least the four original members – really do care about each other. Kind of surprising for such loser drug addict, womanizing fuckwads.

I feel water stinging my eyes and look away.
Poor Turner. Poor fucking Turner. Turner fucking Campbell.
I look back over at him and stay where I am, feet twitching to step off this carpeted area, clack across the linoleum floor, so I can throw my arms around him.

“I want to see Treyjan. He doesn't have any fucking family left. He grew up three trailers down from me.” Turner points his arm down the hall and swallows hard. His jaw is clenched tight and the muscles in his arms are quivering. “Except for his piece of shit stripper sister, there's nobody. Come the fuck on.” I watch in tense anticipation. Turner looks like he's about
this
close to taking off down the hallway and trying to find his friend, whether they like it or not. Whatever the doctor says, I can't hear, but Turner spins away, putting his head in his hands and storming down the hall towards me. My skin starts to prickle and my throat goes dry. I can
feel
his pain thrumming through my body, can still hear his voice as he scrambled to his knees and crawled over to his friend's broken body.

Trey got shot. Trey got shot. Trey got shot.

Turner repeated himself over and over again as he held his hands over his friend's bullet wound. I want to hate him, but I can't. Especially not right now.

When he gets closer to me, I take a step back. The energy crackling between us is so strong it almost hurts, like a really bad case of static. I touch my hands to my jeans, rubbing my palms across the denim. He's still looking at the floor, focusing on the space where the shiny white linoleum becomes dull blue carpeting. Like me, he's got blood crusted on the back of his neck, his shirt, his hair. I can't even
believe
that Trey is still alive. Obviously, that was not the intention of the shooter. Somebody is going to be pissed when they find out. Well, if he makes it. There's still a chance he could die.