Page 52 of His Greatest Muse
“Anything else?” I ask.
She rolls her eyes. “Be careful on your way out. I have a security team ready to leave with you and a car waiting, but the media has migrated to the back door. They’ve drawn a crowd too. This could wind up being a PR nightmare, and unless you want Garrison to become even more of an overbearing nuisance for the duration of this tour, I need you to be smart and ignore them.”
“How long will it take for them to clear out?” Tinsley asks, almost hesitantly, as if she’s dreading the answer. We both are.
Sparks grimaces. “Longer than I would like.”
“Great.” All of the work we’ve put into avoiding the media was fucking pointless. They’re sharks with the scent of fresh blood, and Sparks has tossed me overboard with a bloody nose. “We’re leaving now, then.”
Tinsley glances at me, chewing anxiously on the inside of her cheek. “Are you sure? We can wait. Isn’t it better to be fashionably late to a party? Especially your own?”
“You might take them by surprise if you leave right now. They’ll be expecting you to try and wait them out a bit,” Sparks says, agreeing with me for once in her life. She turns to wave at the three guys waiting off to the side of the backstage area. The biggest of the three tips his chin at her and then says something to the other two before they all head our way.
With a brief introduction and lesson on following rules, the glorified mall cops lead us away from Sparks and toward the side door we used earlier. Shouts from outside assault the door, the volume of them surprising.
The big mall cop with the wannabe punk-rock hair faces us, his back to the door. Expression stoic, he barks orders at the other two guys whose names I don’t care to remember and then turns to me.
“Stay between the three of us out there. It’s not just reporters out there; there are fans too. Head down, mouth shut. Clear?”
I swallow my agitation at his tone. “Do your job and we’ll be fine.”
“What he means is that yes, we’re clear,” Tinsley cuts in, running a hand up my back. A warning? If it is, I want to ignore it just to see what she’ll do to me.
Mr. Wannabe straightens his shoulders and nods. It’s the last look at him we get before he pulls open the door and leads us outside.
I nearly trip. The press is everywhere. Screams, questions, and flashes come from every direction. I think fast, tucking Tinsley beneath my arm and plastering her to my body as we push through the crowd. My heart beats heavily in my chest. Too many people. Too fucking close.
There’s been no time to come back to earth after the show. I’m still high on adrenaline, still slipping back inside my body. How did all these people get back here?
We’re sucked into the crowd with only one bodyguard in front of us. I don’t know where the other two are. It’s too loud to try and listen for them.
Someone shoves me from behind, and I tighten my grip on Tinsley as we stagger forward. With a whip of my head, I have a man with a camera pinned beneath my stare, my lip curling with silent warning. I want to hurt him for threatening Tinsley’s safety. Make him drop to his knees on the filthy pavement and apologize.
“Don’t. Keep moving!” she shouts at me. I dismiss the man and focus on her, nodding.
But the rage doesn’t go anywhere. It grows with each touch and picture taken against our permission as we push through. My chest constricts, refusing air into my lungs. Anxiety scratches at me the longer it takes to get free.
“Noah, are you a naturally angry person?”
“Please take a photo with me!”
“Are you on drugs again?”
“Where is your father tonight?”
A muffled cry coming from my arms turns my blood to ice. I look down at Tinsley and find a foreign hand too close to her. Find three light pink lines running down her forearm, red pooling from within them.
My mind goes quiet. Still.
And then, it’s too loud. Everything in me screams that something isn’t right. I don’t realize I have the man’s shirt in my hands until I’ve pulled him so close I can smell the liquor on his breath. There’s interest in the eyes that stick to Tinsley despite my closeness to him. I shake him violently, even as arms begin to tug me back. A savage snarl escapes me when he continues to ignore me, watching what’s mine.
I can hear the voices of people I know screaming at me to let him go. They tug at me harder, their efforts beginning to pay off. I’m jerked to the side, and I bring him with me. Every feature of the man before me has been memorized, locked away for safekeeping. The dirty grey hair and odd-coloured eyes. Too bright. Too blue. He’s slim and tall. Old enough to be my parents’ age.
When I feel someone yank on my arm hard enough to elicit a hiss of pain from me, the man finally looks me in the eye. I recognize the way they glimmer, brimming with the two most dangerous feelings one can feel.
Obsession.
Lethal rage.