You Won't Know I'm Gone Page 16

“I can take that VIP pass away from you, you know,” Cam says, pointing at the pass dangling around Anusha’s neck.

  “You would never,” she says with a smile, grasping the pass protectively between her hands.

  “Our passes get us backstage for a meet and greet before showtime,” Cam hollers over the loud bass. He looks down at his watch. “It’s like ten minutes until they’re supposed to go on. So want to give them a try?”

  “Hell yes!” Anusha practically screams.

  We snake our way through another small crowd of VIPs and make our way to the side entrance of the stage.

  “Do we have time to run back and just say hi?” Anusha yells in the bouncer’s ear, flashing her VIP badge.

  “Yeah, quickly,” he says, ushering us up the stairs and through a set of black curtains.

  Backstage, there’s a flurry of activity. Guys tuning guitars and checking lights. A few sit at soundboards, fiddling with levers and switches and knobs. The security guard leads the way, passing by roadies in dirty jeans and black T-shirts, their muscles tight against the fabric. We brush past a man and woman, both dressed in expensive tailored suits and nearly identical tortoiseshell glasses. They stand with their backs against the black curtains, trying to blend in but looking completely out of place.

  “Record execs,” Anusha says in my ear with disdain after we’ve passed them. “Only they would wear suits to a show.”

  We follow a line of white, glowing tape made to resemble arrows against a black painted floor to a back room where four guys and one girl are lounging on a pair of beat-up couches, smoking cigarettes and having a final drink before the show.

  “Couple VIP meet and greeters,” the security guard announces before disappearing out of the room.

  “Hey, come on in.” A man in his late twenties with shoulder-length dark hair waves us through the door and stands up from the scratched-to-hell chocolate-brown leather couch.

  Anusha rushes through and holds out her hand, which he takes. “I’m so excited to meet you guys,” she says, her voice an octave higher than normal. “I’m a huge fan. I used to come watch you guys when you played in clubs around Wicker Park.”

  “Awesome,” he replies, slapping her on the back and turning to the rest of the band. “We’ve got an original fan right here, guys. Where you from in Chicago?”

  “Bucktown,” Anusha answers even though I know she lived in a west suburb called St. Charles. Trying to up her cool factor. And it works.

  “Bucktown is where it’s at,” the girl in the corner answers and takes a swig of her beer, then holds her bottle in the air. “How rude of us. You guys want to have a preshow beer?”

  “Absolutely,” Anusha answers for us and they pass around bottles of a microbrew I’ve never heard of before. It tastes much more hoppy and bitter than the cheap Natty Light I occasionally sipped back in New Albany.

  The band makes easy conversation with us about what we’re doing in DC (we say college, of course), where we’re all originally from (Ohio, Chicago, Vermont), and how we like living in the nation’s capital (love it). We ask them about how long they’ve been together (five years), their influences (the Who, David Bowie, and Talking Heads) and where they’re heading next on their tour (Richmond, Charlotte, and Charleston).

  “Guys, it’s time,” a man says from the doorway. Forties with black-rimmed glasses and tired eyes, I have to assume he’s their manager. The band stands up from their lounging positions, shaking out their arms and stretching their legs, like they’re getting ready for a marathon. And I guess they are.

  “Thanks for the beer, you guys,” I say and set my half-empty beer down on the beat-up coffee table.

  “Yeah, it was awesome to meet you,” Cam answers, setting his beer down near mine.

  “You guys can totally watch backstage for a couple songs if you’d like,” the girl says, placing a pair of cat ears on her head and picking up a pair of drumsticks. A chick drummer. With a thick purple streak through her black hair and tiny star tattoos wrapped around her wrists. I kind of want to be her.

  “Really?” Anusha says, her smile wide. “That’d be fantastic.”

  “Yeah, just follow us and hang out by the curtains,” drummer chick answers, waving us through the door and into the darkness.

  We follow the white, glowing tape that leads us back to the stage. The houselights have dimmed, the stage lights and music have been turned off, and the crowd breaks out into frantic cheers, eagerly awaiting the band.

  “Stand right there,” the girl shouts over the noise of the crowd, pointing with her drumsticks to a corner, covered by more black curtains, near the front of the stage. She smiles and disappears into the darkness with the rest of the band.

  “Ladies and gentleman,” a voice comes over the loudspeakers and the crowd cheers even louder. “Please welcome for the first time to Washington, DC … Last Night in Sweden.”

  Bright lights flood the stage and the band immediately launches into their first song. Anusha jumps up and down, pleased by their intro selection. The lead singer launches into the lyrics and I’m surprised by how crystal clear his voice is despite the fact he’s jumping up and down on the stage, his exposed arms in his sleeveless shirt beginning to glisten with sweat.

  A song later, I’ve finally let go. I’ve forgotten about Luke and our fight and the threat of Torres. I’m clutching Anusha and swaying my hips to the sound of the electric guitar. The crowd is cheering and screaming and so at first when I hear a louder scream, I think it’s just someone who’s really into the music. But then I hear it again and know that someone in the crowd is screaming out of fear or pain. Or both.

  Anusha hears it too and pulls back the curtain. A fight has broken out at the front of the stage. Two men, one dressed as Batman and one as Superman (how’s that for irony?) are punching each other while a girl dressed as Malibu Barbie tries to step in between them and break them up.

  Oh no, no, no. Stop, girl. What are you doing?

  The girl immediately gets thrown to the ground by the man dressed as Batman, and Anusha turns toward me, her eyes wide and eyebrows raised as if to say, What should we do? I shake my head at her, not wanting to get involved quite yet. After Superman lands a hard right jab to Batman’s chin, the man dressed as Bruce Wayne’s alter ego pulls out a knife.

  Shit.

  The band’s song begins to slowly sputter into miscued drumbeats and guitar plucks as people turn their attention toward the violent fight in front of them. Batman brings his knife up, closer to his face, and as it shines against the stage lights, more people begin to panic and scream. But the crowd is so tightly packed in, there’s nowhere to turn. Nowhere to run. The man lunges toward Superman with his knife. He plunges the knife toward his chest, but Superman dodges out of the way just in time, the knife slicing at his arm and drawing blood.

  “We have to stop this,” I say and move toward the edge of the stage. “Someone’s going to get killed.”

  Batman lunges again with the knife, this time making contact with Superman’s stomach, sending him stumbling backward. Batman pulls the bloody knife out of his flesh and steps forward, like he’s ready to finish the job. I jump off the stage and between the two men as Superman falls to the floor.

  “Put down the knife!” I scream over the scattered music, holding out my hand, trying to stop this lunatic from killing this guy.

  “Fuck off,” the drunk Batman screams at me, the knife dripping with fresh blood.

  “Put down the god damned knife!” I scream again but he pulls his hands into an exaggerated shrug.

  “Make me, little girl,” he yells, the knife growing loose in his drunk hands. Too easy.

  I kick him in the groin as I simultaneously hit his hand with the knife, sending it spinning across the stage. Then I grab him by the neck, pull him toward me, forcing his knees to give out, and slam his tall body to the ground.

  “Holy shit!” someone in the crowd screams out.

  I turn around. Superman is spraw
led out on the ground, blood gushing from a gaping wound in his stomach.

  “Somebody call 911,” I call out and run to Superman’s side. I pull his cape off from around his neck and try to press it into his wound to stop the bleeding.

  “Reagan, we’ve got to get out of here,” Cam yells, now off the stage and behind me, his voice shaking, and I know why. If the police come, we’ll get questioned. They’ll want to know who we are. How I knew how to disarm this asshole and knock him to the ground. Our cover could be blown. The Black Angels publicly outed. We might as well pack our bags. He’s right. We have to leave.

  “Somebody, help me,” I cry out and a group of bouncers and concertgoers jump to help the bleeding man and hold down his assailant.

  I look back at Anusha and Cam, their eyes so wide I can see the white around both of their irises. My muscles are tingling, nerves firing, fresh panic settling into my chest. I don’t want to leave him. But we have no other choice.

  With one nod from me, they slowly begin to walk back up the stage steps.

  “Come on,” I say, pulling at Anusha’s wrist, my hands sticky with the stranger’s blood. “Let’s go.”

  We sprint into the darkness of the backstage, out the back door, and through the narrow alley. The cold fall air pierces my already heavy chest as my legs carry me down a crowded sidewalk. We hear sirens rushing down M Street but don’t stop running until we reach our car, three blocks away.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The three of us walk in silence through the underground garage, down the secret elevator to the compound, and toward the dorms in the South Hall, our hands in our pockets, our teeth digging into our lips. We’ve ditched our masks at a gas station on our way back to CORE. I ran inside the bathroom, washing Superman’s blood off of my hands while saying a silent prayer that he’d live. That he’d be okay.

  Cam’s hacks worked flawlessly, getting us through the gates and into the garage without anyone giving us a second glance.

  “I’m gonna go wash my face,” Anusha says quietly, bypassing our dorm room and walking toward the girls’ bathroom. “Maybe take a shower. Clean some of this night off me.”

  “All right,” I answer and grab her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  “I guess,” she says and shrugs. “I’ve just never seen anyone hurt like that. They prep you for it in the air force and everything. It’s just … it’s different when it actually happens. You try to put up those barriers, but it breaks through and I can’t help but feel scared for that guy. I can’t stop seeing all that blood.”

  Her eyes look past me, vacant. I pull her body into my arms. I’ve seen far worse than Superman bleeding out on a club floor. But witnessing violence, facing death, it doesn’t get easier. That’s something I learned from my mother. You’ll never truly become immune. As much as you try to hold missions away from you, as much as you try to turn your emotions off, they still seep into your skin, rattle you when you least expect it. No wonder she barely slept. I would hear her footsteps in the hallway. I’d fall back asleep to the sounds of her insomnia: a lamp switching on, the buzz of a TV, the clank of a coffee cup in the kitchen. The darkness she buried rose up in her dreams, jolting her awake at all hours of the night.

  “Take a shower. Go watch some mindless TV,” I advise, rubbing my hands up and down Anusha’s arms. “That may help.”

  “Okay,” she says quietly before disappearing into the bathroom.

  When I open the room to the girls’ dorm, Luke is dressed in pajamas and sitting on my bed. He stands up when I walk in.

  “What are you doing in here?” I ask, my voice thin and tired. I don’t have the energy to argue with him anymore.

  “I was waiting for you,” he answers, carefully sitting back down on the bed, unsure if he’s a welcomed guest.

  “Were you waiting in here so I could tell you that you were right?” I ask, tearing off my black jacket and flinging it on top of my dresser. “That we never should have gone. It’s okay. You can say it. I know you’re dying to say ‘I told you so.’”

  “No, I wasn’t,” Luke says, shaking his head, his eyes growing concerned. “I don’t know what you’re even talking about. What happened? Is everyone okay?”

  “We’re fine, I guess,” I answer, zipping off the boots I borrowed from Anusha. I pull them off of my feet, each one landing with a thud on the concrete floor. “A fight broke out at the club we were at. First, it was just a fist fight. But then a guy pulled out a knife and stabbed the other guy and I had to jump in between them to stop them from killing each other.”

  “Jesus, are you okay?” Luke answers, his eyes following me as I walk around the room, grabbing a sweatshirt and socks.

  “A little shaken up,” I say and cross over to the small mirror above my dresser. I pull my makeup remover out of my tiny makeup bag. I dab the clear liquid on a cotton swab and rub it across my eyes, my mascara melting off in long, black streaks. “But I’m okay. I don’t know about the guy that got stabbed. It was scary. That guy was going to kill him. You could just tell.”

  “You saved his life,” Luke states quietly from my bed.

  “I don’t know,” I answer with a sigh. “I should have jumped in sooner. We were all wearing masks, but still, I didn’t want to risk blowing our cover, you know? I just hope he’s okay.”

  The image of him lying in his Superman costume comes back to me. The pool of blood, growing with each heartbeat, at his side. People screaming. His chest heaving with desperate breaths.

  “So what are you doing in here?” I ask again, looking back at Luke in my small mirror. He’s still beautiful to look at, but I don’t remember his skin looking quite this colorless back in New Albany. His pale blue eyes are dulled, and he looks like he’s aged about ten years instead of one since our perfect kiss back at Templeton.

  “I couldn’t go to sleep without apologizing to you. I said some … some…” He stammers and looks down at his hands. “I’m so sorry for what I said to you. It wasn’t fair. And it wasn’t true.”

  “Maybe it was,” I answer, wiping my face clean and walking across the room toward him. “Sometimes the truth comes out when we’re backed into a corner and angry. So maybe that really is how you think of me. Cold and cruel.”

  “But you’re not cold or cruel,” Luke says, grabbing my hand. I let him pull me onto the bed next to him. “I don’t know why I even said that.”

  “Because it’s probably at least partially true,” I reply, turning my face away from him, scared of what may be written in my eyes. “I know I’ve changed, Luke. I know I’ve hardened. But I don’t know how else to be. I don’t know how to go back. It’s like the moment he killed her, he flipped some type of switch. And I’m left with all these broken pieces. An angry heart. And I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry I humiliated you during our test. I’m sorry I lash out at you. I’m sorry I’m not the girl you—”

  “Reagan, it’s okay.” Luke interrupts my shaky voice, moving his body closer to me. His fingertips reach for my chin and only when he touches me do I realized it’s trembling. He pulls at me gently, bringing my face toward his.

  My eyes catch his and I can’t help but want to cry and scream and kiss him all at once. He traces my jawline with his thumb and my body begins to tingle.

  “You’re still the girl I fell for,” he whispers, his cool breath creating a tiny tornado on my inflamed lips. My face instinctively moves toward his, magnetic and familiar, and a flood of happiness and helplessness rushes through my body as my lips move closer and closer to his.

  The door on the other side of the room swings open, hitting the cinder block walls with a bang, pulling Luke and me apart. Anusha crosses the room in her robe and grabs a second towel. She eyes us and it’s clear she knows she interrupted something.

  “Sorry,” she says sheepishly and scurries back out of the room with her eyes focused on the floor. I move away from Luke, scolding myself for getting lost in the moment. We were lucky it was Anusha on the other side of the doo
r and not a senior leader or trainer or a tattletale trainee.

  “Reagan,” Luke says lightly as I push myself off the bed and farther away from him. I turn around, wanting so badly to press my aching lips on his sweet mouth and let my world spin into darkness.

  He looks up at me, his eyes pleading, his fingertips still lingering on my wrist, sending tiny bolts of electricity through my already buzzing body.

  “We can’t,” I whisper and shake his touch, along with those tiny lightning bolts, away. But I immediately miss it the moment my fingertips slide past his.

  Before he can say another word, I turn back around and walk out of the room. I can’t bear to watch his face break. I can’t bear to hear him say something sweet, something so “Luke.”

  I hurry down the hallway, away from the dorms, away from Luke, away from all the feelings in that room. The warmth I felt next to him begins to fade and as my blood returns to its chilly temperature, I wish for a different life. I run my fingers along the cinder block walls, wishing they were part of a college dorm. That my class schedule was Biology 101, Modern European History, and Advanced Play Writing instead of Surveillance Tactics, Advanced Hacking, and Threat Elimination. That Luke and I could actually be together. Or at least try.

  I turn the corner and pass by the wall of fallen Black Angels. I usually walk by the wall quickly, never wanting to take in what those black stars really mean. But tonight, I slow down. I look. I let my hands run across the white marble, my fingers tracing the latest dark star as I wonder which one is for Mom. Each star is blank. No name or label to pay homage to those who died in the line of duty. Their heroism, secret and silent, even in death.

  A tear breaks free and I push it aside before it has a chance to run down my cheek. The scar tissue around my heart flares, its stitches pull tighter. And I remember why I’m here. What Torres has done. And why Luke and I must stay apart.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “Shit, shit, shit, shit, you guys.” a voice stirs me from a sleep I swear I just fell into. The overhead lights flick on, pulling me out of my dreamless state.