No, Trickster didn’t owe Rob jack shit. “As soon as we hit Nashville, you’re gone. Got that?”
Rob flashed a grateful smile, seemingly having come down from his dangerous high. “Thanks, man. I won’t give you reason to regret this.”
“You better the hell not.”
Ace brought Rob a blanket. Rob nodded thanks and proceeded to dry his face.
Ace and Elliot returned to the back of the bus and resumed playing cards, though Elliot stared at Rob a moment too long for Killy’s liking. Oh, well. Another few hours and the asswipe who used to be their drummer became someone else’s problem.
They’d never see him again.
Killy settled back into his seat and let his eyes drift closed. He opened them every so often but, true to his word, Rob sat opposite of him, hands in his lap, staring straight ahead.
Killy leaned his head against the cool glass of the window. Maybe a nap wouldn’t hurt. After all, he wasn’t a hard sleeper. If Rob so much as breathed heavy he’d wake Killy up.
“You cheating sonofabitch!” jolted Killy awake. What the fuck? He’d been that much asleep? For a moment he fumbled. Where the fuck was he?
The bus driver stomped the brakes, nearly standing Killy on his head.
Rob screamed, “You slut! You fucking slut!” He had Elliot around the throat, banging his head against the bus window.
Ace lay slumped half in and half out of his seat, blood gushing from his nose and trailing down his white band shirt. His gun lay on the floor.
Hell the fuck no! Time slowed. Like slogging through molasses, Killy fought his way to the back. Elliot! Elliot!
Rob met him halfway, shoving Killy aside and storming up the aisle. “Get him!” Killy yelled to the driver. Elliot. He had to get to Elliot.
Should he grab the gun?
No. First things first.
Elliot lay so still. Killy grasped his brother’s face in his hands, hot tears scalding his eyes. “Elliot?” He pushed two fingertips into El’s neck.
No heartbeat. No breath. Fuck. Killy yanked Elliot onto the floor, jumping astride his still body and assuming the position he’d been taught to revive overdose victims on his mother’s tour bus. One, one-thousand.
He tuned out yells and shouts, hearing nothing but his own breathing, the roar of blood in his ears. “Don’t leave me, Elliot. You can’t leave me.”
He vaguely registered the bus moving, hauling ass. Good, get Elliot to the hospital. But was driving so fast on a slick road wise?
If it saved his brother.
The hum of tires on pavement stopped. Total quiet ensued.
Falling. Down, down.
The world lit up in white hot pain.
6
“Trickster… killing all onboard.”
What the fuck? Mike pulled over on the side of the road and turned up the radio, straining to hear over the music from another station bleeding through the newscast.
Nothing. He tried another channel, and another, finally tuning in enough to hear: “Brothers Killian and Elliot Desmond, Richard ‘Ace’ Corelli, Robert Cassen, and bus driver Ian Jordan, were leaving their last concert of the tour, bound for Nashville. Officers on the scene believe the driver lost control of the vehicle in heavy snow, plunging over an embankment. All five men were declared dead at the scene…”
Mike only caught a few words after that, so numb he barely stayed upright. “… killed on impact” and “coroner’s office” and “their manager”.
What? Trickster gone? He’d hoped to see them live one day. They’d probably heard a million times from fans touched by their music, but Trickster gave Mike enough hope to keep going—and likely saved his life.
