It Was The Roar Of The Crowd That Gave Me Heartache To Sing

“This crowd is huge!” Anna yelled in my ear. We were in Vegas now, and Escape The Fate was getting ready to play the second show of the night.

“I know!” I yelled back.

“Did it get bigger?!” Lindsay yelled. It was loud, even backstage, that everyone had to yell if they wanted to be heard. Or, if someone didn’t feel like yelling, they could always whisper. For example, I can see Angel and Jeph from the corner of my eye, and their heads were bent towards each other. I knew nothing too bad was going on, and I hoped it stayed that way. I closed my eyes and thought back to this morning, before any of the concerts started.

“So, you want to double security?” I asked Angel. We were standing outside of the bus, me sipping a coffee and Angel pacing.

“Yeah, I’ve got a bad feeling about today. It’s not going to end good,” Angel said. My face might not have shown it, but her words scared the shit out of me. I was used to getting bad feelings, I’ve always had them. As for Angel, she rarely had them. When she did, they always came true.

“Are we talking really bad, or just kinda bad?” I asked.

“We’re talking about worse than bad this time,” Angel said.

“Okay, so you can double the security, and we’ll pray that nothing bad happens tonight.”

Avenged Sevenfold had just walked off not too long ago, and now Escape The Fate was starting to play. I loved hearing the familiar music once again, and so did the crowd. I had been to a few concerts over the years, and I couldn’t remember the crowd ever looking like that. I think they were all in hiding. These kinds of fans are reserved only for the deserving bands, apparently…

“What the hell is that?!” I yelled as I jumped. I heard a laugh from behind me, and I glared over my shoulder at Sam.

“It’s your cell phone,” Sam said with a wide smile.

“I know that,” I said and reached into my pocket. My phone was on vibrate for the time being, and it scared me every time it rung. I slid the phone out and noticed that I had a new text message. I flipped the phone open and started reading. It took two tries for the words to sink in, and then I scanned the place behind me for Angel. Unfortunately, she was nowhere in sight.

“You okay?” Sam asked me.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” I asked.

“Because I haven’t seen you that pale since I met you,” Sam said. I had met Sam right after I moved to California, and I had been extremely pale back then.

“Just…I think I’m going to be sick,” I said and turned to run. I felt my phone slip through my fingers, but I couldn’t around to pick it up. I slid outside of the venue and hung onto the side of the building, but nothing came up.

“You’ve been getting sick a lot,” Sam said.

“Why aren’t you inside?” I asked and turned to look at her.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay, and I picked this up,” she said and waved my phone in the air. I went to grab it, but she held it out of my reach. I raised my eyebrow at her, and she mirrored my action. The look in her eyes told me that she had seen the text, and I had a feeling that she wanted an explanation. I wasn’t sure if I could give one yet though…

“Hey, Tara, I haven’t heard from you in a while and I was starting to get a little worried. you’re not still mad, are you? C’mon, you know you can’t stay mad at me forever. Well, I’ll be seeing you soon, very soon. We’re going on tour again! I know we just got off, but they want us to start again. So I’m sure we’ll be bumping into each other. Love, Kel.”

“I didn’t realize it was that long,” I said with a small smile. He had always hated that ‘stupid chat-speak shit’, so I wasn’t too surprised at how long it was. It was just longer than I had first thought.

“Who’s Kel?”

“Kellan?”

“Kellan who?”

“Are last names really that important?”

“Kellan who?!”

“Fine! It’s Kellan Morrison!” I slumped back against the building, and I could see Sam’s eyes flashing with rage.

“You said things were over with him,” Sam said and turned to look at me.

“Things with him are over, completely. Kel just thinks that I’ll come running back to him, but I’m not. I’m more worried about the tour he’s going on,” I said and looked up at her. Sam’s mind seemed to switch from rage to hard thinking, and her eyes held a faraway look.

“Do you think the management is up to something?” Sam asked after a good five minutes.

“I think it’s possible. You saw some of the magazines; the ones talking about how much of a success we’ve had so far. I think they’re going to try and mess things up,” I said.

“How’re we on security?”

“Angel doubled it this morning.”

“And all the employees, you checked them?”

“I did background checks and everything, yeah. I personally interviewed everyone.”

“I think we should go back inside.” I nodded my head, and Sam handed me my phone back. I slipped it into my pocket and followed Sam back into the building. I looked over nervously for the rest of the show, and I kept expecting certain people from my past to jump out at me. Sam caught my eye a few times, but we didn’t say anything. It was so loud that we would have had to yell, and I didn’t think that was a good idea yet.

“It’s the last song!” Anna yelled.

“And one of my favorites!” I yelled back. Craig stepped up to the mic and started to sing…

I'm on the verge of a breakdown
I'm on the brink of an epic meltdown
I'm on the way to a flat line
Oh oh yea

A chorus of screams erupted from the crowd, and I felt myself go cold despite the summer heat. I watched as one of the high metal beams, that held the lights, fell towards the ground. I knew everything that happened couldn’t have taken more than ten seconds to actually happen, but it felt closer to ten minutes.

“Max!” I heard someone behind me yell. All four band members were laying on the stage instead of standing, but Max was the only one not moving. One of his legs was caught under the metal, and there was broken glass all around him.

I felt someone pull my arm, and I let whoever it was pull me back. I could hear muffled yells from the building behind me, and then I realized that I was about to go into shock. I shook my head and rubbed at my eyes. I finally looked over at who was pulling me and saw a flash of black and burgundy hair.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Bus, for now,” Aiden said. She glanced back at me and gave me a quick smile, and I quickened my pace to match hers.

“We need to go to the hospital though,” I said after I had caught up with her.

“We will. Didn’t you hear Matt?” Aiden asked and looked down at me.

“I wasn’t really paying attention to anything.”

“It’s okay. Matt went with Max in the ambulance. He’s going to call us and let us know which hospital they’re at, and then we’ll go.” Had I really missed that much?

“Aiden!” I turned to see two figures jogging over to us, and I looked up at Patti and Zacky. To be honest, I was feeling slightly claustrophobic since I was surrounded by people at least five inches taller than me.

“Hey, Tara,” Patti said and looked down at me.

“Hi,” I said quietly.

“Where’s the others?” Aiden asked.

“On their way,” Zacky said and looked around. I looked over at Aiden and realized that she was nervously biting on her lip.

“Everything’s going to be all right, hun,” I said quietly.

“I hope so,” Aiden said, just as quietly.

“It will be. I’m going to step around the bus for a minute, okay?”

“Okay. Just don’t be gone long.”

“I won’t,” I said over my shoulder. I walked to the front of the bus and leaned against it. How had everything happened so fast? How’d I miss everything that was going on? Where was everyone else?

I let out a small sigh and looked down at my hands. They were resting in my lap, and I watched as my fingers slowly curled themselves inward. I felt a small biting pain in my palm, and then my fingers uncurled. I repeated the process and realized I felt a little better.

“You know, that’s a bad habit to have.” My head snapped up and my eyes met a pair of dark ones. Such dark brown eyes, they nearly looked black. They looked amazing against pale skin and coupled with that crooked smile…

“K-Kellan?” I asked.

“No, it’s Santa Claus.” Kellan’s body blocked my view of everything behind him, and I looked around him to see three more people. I glared at the person who had spoken and had a small urge to bash his head into the pavement. Gabe Michaels, one of the few people who can drive me to commit murder in under five seconds. I’d gladly spend a few years in prison if it meant I could have a go at him.

“No head bashing tonight. That’s Angel’s job,” Kellan said and continued to smile at me. Kellan Morrison, where to start? Childhood friend? High school sweetheart? Backstabbing ex?

“Yeah, I’ll leave Gabe for Angel,” I said and smiled at Gabe. He paled, but his facial expression didn’t change. Angel had kicked his ass more than once, and I’m sure he’ll never forget her.

“Still the same old pair, huh? Angel fighting and you rooting?” I smiled at the youngest member of the whole group, Lee Morrison. Lee was only twenty-two, which made him five years younger than me. He was probably my favorite out of the whole group, because he was like my little brother.

“Yeah, some things never change,” I said and moved my gaze back to Kellan. He understood the meaning behind my words, because his smile slowly disappeared.

“We just wanted to stop by and see you. Then we saw that ambulance and didn’t know what had happened or if you were okay. Kellan almost gave himself a heart attack,” I heard a feminine voice say. Mercy Morrison was staring at me, unsmiling. Kellan might have been worried, but I knew Mercy hadn’t been. Mercy, Angel, and I used to be inseperable, years ago. Then I was “love struck” and always with Kellan, and Angel and Mercy had started fighting over everything.

“I can take care of myself, so there’s no need to worry. Now, I think all of you need to leave,” I said and raised my chin a little higher. Being short really does have some disadvantages…

“Leave? We just got here!” Gabe yelled.

“Quit yelling or I’ll permanently shut your mouth for you.” My eyes widened at the sound of the new voice, and I had to look around Kellan again to make sure I wasn’t just hearing things.

“We just stopped by to pay some friends a visit—“

“Save it, Mercy. We have somewhere we need to be, so yall need to go. Now,” Angel said. Mercy turned, flipping her long black hair behind her, and walked off. Gabe quickly followed after her, and Angel continued to glare at him. Lee mouthed a small “sorry” and then walked off.

“Do you think, maybe later, that we can talk?” Kellan asked.

“I don’t have anything to say to you. I think we said it all the last time we were together,” I said and looked up at him. He hadn’t changed a bit in the last six months, and all I wanted to do was hug him.

“I’m only asking for one talk? C’mon, just for old time’s sake?” Kellan asked.

“I’ll call you later,” I said. Kellan nodded his head, and then he walked off after the others.

“They’re going to be fun to handle, huh?” Angel asked as she walked beside me.

“They’re going on tour again,” I said and looked over at her. Angel’s pale eyes darkened, and I saw a small muscle in her jaw twitch.

“We’re ready to go,” she said quietly.

“Alright, come on,” I said and walked to where I could hear the others. Angel followed behind me, and I could feel the anger washing off of her. She had been right, this wasn’t going to end good.