We’ve barely made a dent in our journey, but I don’t know how I’m going to make it another six hours in this car. Not when I’m craving silence so hard it’s makingme feel sick.
It’s been months since we last did a gig or a practice session and I could lose myself in the music. Longer than we normally leave it, and I guess the past few weeks have pushed me to the edge of my limits for social interaction.
The next hour passes and I continue shifting uncomfortably. Add to that the now joint concern that’s pouring off both Sin and Iri and I’m about ready to throw myself out of the moving vehicle.
This is why we’re no longer touring. The gigs are a fix, but lately, they have become like a crutch, something Ineedand crave and I know if we carried on as we are, I could easily fall into addiction. The hits don’t last so long these days and it’s like as soon as we step off stage, the high fades and the noise creeps back in.
Even now, I make eye contact with Iri in the rearview mirror, and he nods. He can sense me spiraling and I know that he’s going to work on a fix for me.
I wish he didn’t have to.
I wish simply existing around other people wasn’t so damn hard.
“We’re not too far from Ashmont,” Iri says from the front. “We’ll stop there for today.”
I shift in my seat once again, my knees squeaking against the leather of the seatback. A wave of discomfort hits me just as my stomach growls and I can’t quite pick out if it’s my hunger or someone else’s I’m feeling.
We haven’t been on the road for half as long as we were planning and I know this stop is going to push us closer to four days on the road. There’s zero recrimination from my bandmates, though. We’ve spent enough years together to know how to make adjustments for each other. Sin’s curiosity feels featherlight on my tongue. I guess she can sense the growing tension in my body, and she probably wants to get away from me before I crumble.
I don’t blame her.
Ashmont’s a small city that we’ve stopped at enough times. It’s got a good music scene and enough fans for us to cobble together a very impromptu gig somewhere which I know Iri will be organizing as soon as we pull to a stop.
An hour later and we’re parking outside a hotel in Ashmont. The street and the hotel lobby are busy and I know as soon as we get inside, I’m going to need to grab the room key and get somewhere quiet fast.
Hotel lobbies are always a kind of hell for me. They’re a hotbed of frustration from both sides of the front desk. I jam my hands into my pockets as we wait in the small queue. I twitch at the sensation of lust pumping off a couple to my left while a family behind us is about to have a full on blow out. Someone behind the desk is close to tears and I feel like joining them.
I comb my fingers through my hair, desperately trying to self-soothe. Breathe through the emotions swirling through me, trying to pick each one apart and let them all just roll off me.
But my shoulders are tightening and the sense of irritation in the air is tasting increasingly acrid. My forked tongue flicks out, tasting the air, and I squeeze my eyes shut. I can feel another surge of curiosity and something that feels a lot like compassion.
I meet Sin’s dark eyes and blink, focusing on the lighter ring around her pupil as I push down the wave of panic threatening to overwhelm me. Cal claps me on the shoulder.
“Want to get some food now or decompress for a while?” he asks quietly.
If there’s anyone with a secret empath side, it’s Cal. He sees so much more than most people realize, and more than he lets on.
My head is pounding, and I need to get somewhere quiet. I briefly wonder if this place has a rooftop. It’s dark outside and getting late, so a walk in the park is only going to get memugged or worse.
I just need some place quiet to hide out, to escape from the noise for a little while. There’s a tingling on my tongue that tells me I’m getting close to being overloaded and that’s no fun for anyone. The last time it happened, I blacked out and woke up covered in sweat with a massive bump on my head and bruises all down one side of my body.
Sin says something, but I can’t make out the words. Can’t hear anything beyond the buzzing that’s growing in my ears.
Someone steers me toward an elevator with a gentle hand on my shoulder.
“Rooftop?” I gasp at the others, trying to catch my breath when it feels like someone’s squeezing my lungs in a vise.
Dorian shakes his head. “No dice, sorry, man.”
I nod and eye the sign as we step into the elevator, looking for somewhere no one else is likely to be.
“There’s a hotel gym on the fourth floor,” Iri says softly. “Bet you it’ll be empty.”
I nod and struggle to catch my breath.
“I’ll fix it, man,” Iri murmurs to me. “That bar down by the river is always heaving when they have a band on.”
The elevator dings and I stumble out with a halfhearted wave to the guys behind me.
