Second Chance

When the taxi finally pulled up out the front of my house, I froze up.

It was Zacky who confirmed for everybody else that this was indeed the right place. My eyes turned to him as he climbed out of the car, determined to watch him just so I wouldn't have to look back at the small building. I hesitated when he offered his hand to me, but took it quickly once I realised that by refusing him I was just being rude. The driver was only too willing to wait for us again (and I knew his mind was probably just on the ever-rising fair) while we crossed the street and prepared to make our way inside.

Johnny tried going straight inside, and found himself blocked by the locked front door. He turned to me expectantly, raising an eyebrow.

"Wouldn't happen to have a key, would you?"

I shook my head no in answer to his question. I didn't feel the need to explain myself, but if I had I would have found myself incapable of speech. Especially when Matt gave an unconcerned shrug at my silent response and gave the door a loud, hard knocking.

I held my breath; my ears strained to hear the sound of footsteps approaching the door, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief when several moments passed and I heard nothing. This most likely meant that he was passed out in the living room - not an uncommon addition to his Friday afternoon ritual.

"I guess there's nobody home," I said hopefully, unwilling to explain what I knew was likely to be happening inside. "I guess we'll have t-"

But before I could finish getting the words out, those footsteps met my ears at last. I barely had time to duck around and hide behind Zacky before the door was flung open; the smell of alcohol wafted around us, followed closely by the rancid scent of his favourite cigarettes. I gagged. In front of me, I watched Zacky clench his fists. Of course he recognised the man; my mind flicked back to the night of the brawl, and I hoped that my father was as battered as he had left me.

"Mr. Williams?"

My father gave a half-assed grunt to show that he was listening. I peered around Zacky to get a good look at the man, taking great satisfaction in the fact that he was as bruised as I had hoped. His nose was most definitely broken from when Zacky had punched it, and I wouldn't have been surprised if his jaw was, too. It definitely didn't look right.

"I'm Matthew Sanders," Matt went on politely, his blank expression never changing. "Do you think we could have a little chat?"

He didn't respond right away. Instead, I watched on as his eyes travelled from Matt to Johnny, and then slowly from Johnny to Zacky and myself. He seemed to see without seeing, staring at us without looking like he was really focusing. For a moment I was forced to wonder if he believed what he was seeing was real. There was always the chance that it wasn't, given his recent head injuries and the fact that he was drinking (as usual). But, finally, he seemed to come to his own conclusions about the situation.

"You," he pointed at me, his eyes narrowing, "inside. And you," he growled, turning his attention to Zacky, "piss off."

"Mr. Williams," Matt spoke up again, cutting off Zacky before he had a chance to respond to my father's words, "we need to take Abigael with us for a few days."

"You DoCS? She's a liar."

Johnny and Zacky both glanced at me in confusion, and I assumed that it was for the DoCS comment. I assumed that wherever they came from, the child protection services were called something different. If Matt had been confused by the acronym that had been thrown into the conversation, he didn't show it - he simply went on speaking as if he was the one in control here.

"We need her passport," he explained without hesitation. "You can either hand it over, nice and easy, or we can take it upon ourselves to find it."

The old man chose a third, unspoken option: he reached out to grab me.

Everything happened quickly after that. Having been prepared for the sudden movement, Zacky grabbed a hold of me and pulled me out of dodge. Matt had apparently also been ready for the attack, and had gone on the offensive immediately. He shoved my father back into the house, making sure to follow along closely. Johnny went with them. I could no longer see into the house since Zacky had pulled me further away from it, but I could hear the yelling that started up soon after. Things were going to get worse, and fast.

Every instinct I had was telling me to run. Zacky had other ideas.

"Come on," he said quickly, tugging me back towards the house. "Lead the way."

I hesitated for a moment, listening to ensure that Matt and Johnny still very much had my father in their control, and then quickly bolted down the hall until I came to the room that I needed: my father's room was just as messy and uncared for as always, and I hated being inside it. Of all the places in the house, it was the room that I avoided the most - firstly because my father would have murdered me had he believed I had been in there, and secondly because I wished to preserve the few memories I had of it when my mother had been alive - when it had been warm and welcoming.

I dashed over to the draws and began my search frantically. Zacky caught on quickly and got to rummaging through another set of draws for me. A great help, considering I didn't know where the damn thing was - it was a wonder that I still had one at all.

"This it?"

I turned to look over at Zacky and the thing that he had in his hand. I nodded, and a quick check of the inside told us that it was definitely mine and not my father's.

"Alright. Let's get out of here."

I didn't need to be told twice. I followed him out of the room quickly, hesitating when he headed not for the front door but instead went further into the house. Seeing my look, he sent a reassuring smile my way and gestured for me to continue on outside. Knowing that my father was most definitely in the house, occupied by Matt and Johnny, I did as I was instructed.

I stood by the taxi, paying little attention to the driver as he watched his metre steadily rise. One day, I swore to myself, I was going to find a way to pay these guys back. Hopefully by the next time they came to Australia, I'd be able to get back to them and give them all their money back. It seemed like the least I could do, given what they were doing for me.

They exited the house less than two minutes later, and we all returned to the interior of the cab. Seeing that they were all ominously quiet, I kept my mouth firmly shut. And if their silence hadn't been enough, the slightly satisfied look on Zacky's face was enough to stop me from asking questions.

I soon realised that we were heading back to the Four Seasons hotel. How these guys managed to book extra plane trips and hotel rooms on such short notice - not to mention add me to their flight plan when the need arose - was beyond me. The point was that it was being done, and it was being done well. I decided not to question them more about it.

"You two go and see what food you can find for us. I need to go over some things with Abbey here."

I turned my attention to Matt as he spoke, having been once again transfixed by the sight of the city outside of the hotel window. We were in a different room to the one that Zacky had been staying in last time, but it still provided a fantastic view of the harbour in the dying daylight. Johnny looked as though he had been expecting these words, but there was no denying the surprise on Zacky's face as he glanced between Matt and myself. I gave a small shrug and smiled reassuringly at him, letting him know I'd be fine while he was gone. Matt may have looked terrifying, but I knew him better now. He didn't scare me.

After swearing up and down that they wouldn't be long, Zacky and Johnny had left the room and gone in search of food. I watched as Matt sat down on one of the armchairs across the room; he indicated that I do the same, so I abandoned my post at the window and made my way over to him. In silence, I sat across from him and waited for him to begin.

"Don't look so worried," he chuckled. "It's nothing serious. I'm just giving you a heads up on what's going to be happening in the next few days.

"You already know we're going to be in Melbourne tomorrow. We'll be in Perth on the eleventh and the twelfth, then in New Zealand on the fourteenth. After the show that night we have two weeks off. That's when-"

"I'll be coming home," I finished for him with a nod. "Unless you can convince him beforehand, right?"

"Right. But I'm going to need your help. While you're with us, I'm going to need you to try to stay away from him. Keep your distance as much as you can. That way he can fall back into routine quicker."

"Do you have to do this a lot?" I asked when he was done speaking. "I've never heard of anything like this happening before. Is it some sort of condition that he has?"

"We've never done this before," Matt replied at once. "And it's not a condition."

"When, then?" I asked curiously.

There was a long silence while Matt seemed to consider things. I gave him the space that he needed to think, not wanting to intrude on things any more than I already was. He rubbed at his temples and sighed before finally speaking up again.

"Zacky...has been through a lot lately," he said at long last. "Something...something happened late last year, just before we came on tour. He told us he was fine, he still wanted to do the tour, so we went on the road. He was doing okay. I thought he was fine. Guess I was wrong."

If I didn't feel bad before, I most definitely did now.

"I'm sorry," I told him earnestly. "I feel like this is my fault. If there's anything I can do..."

"Like I said," Matt replied, "just try to distance yourself from him. Leave the rest to me."

I nodded, and barely a minute later Zacky and Johnny had returned with enough food to feed an army. Deciding that now was as good a time as any to start, I tried to fade into the background while the three men struck up a conversation. I made myself as small as possible on a chair in the corner, turning my attention back to Sydney city out the window.

Even so, I could feel his eyes on me every few minutes. Always watching. Always checking up on me.