Sister of Syn

"Zacky's not answering his cell," Jimmy announced, closing his own flip phone.

"Neither is Melia," Matt said, hanging up when Melia's voicemail message again met his ears.

"They're probably up there fucking each other's brains out," Johnny muttered, lighting a cigarette.

Shads slapped Brian's shoulder. "You're up, big brother. Go get them."

"Why me?" Brian asked, disgruntled at the idea of barging in on his little sister having sex with his best friend.

"Because it's an older brother's duty to interrupt his little sister doing the horizontal tango at least once," Jimmy replied.

The sirens that had been wailing in the distance for the last few minutes suddenly became deafening, and an ambulance sped into the parking lot. Paramedics spilled out of the vehicle before it even came to a complete stop. They flooded into the hotel with a stretcher and other emergency medical equipment.

Kristy, Mickie, and Sara filed off the tour bus, all looking at the ambulance curiously. Jimmy, Johnny, and Brian exchanged mildly curious glances.

"Syn!" Shads waved a hand in his face. "We've gotta get on the road. Go drag Baby Gates and Zacky outta bed!"

"I'm going, I'm going." Brian pitched away his cigarette. "I just hope I can get to their room." He headed inside. He took the stairs, figuring the paramedics would be using the elevators.

He heard shouting as he reached the fourth floor, and the first tingle of dread raced through his body. He started down the hall, pulse beginning to race. He saw a few paramedics and glanced at the number on the closed door to the right of the room they were working in--308. That meant...

Brian ran forward, panic twisting his gut. Zacky! Oh, God! Let him be okay!

"Sir!" A paramedic blocked Brian's path. "You can't--"

"My best friend and my baby sister are in there!" Brian cut in urgently.

Something flickered in the paramedic's eyes. "Your baby sister?"

His reaction sent Brian's panic to the point of full-blown fear. Brian shoved past the guy, fighting his way to the open doorway.

And there was Zacky. Pale, wide-eyed, and shaking, but otherwise unharmed.

"Move!" a paramedic barked at Brian, drawing his attention from Zacky to the stretcher they were bringing into the hallway.

Brian stopped breathing. He couldn't immediately comprehend what he was seeing.

His baby sister was on the stretcher, paler than the sheet she was lying on. Her ghostly pallor caused the dried blood around her mouth to stand out shockingly. More blood had dried in her hair and on her clothes. Her eyes were closed. Her expression was peaceful, as if she were only sleeping.

Brian stumbled back. Two paramedics caught him, keeping him on his feet as his eyes went back to Zacky, burning with pain and hatred so intense that Zacky flinched.

*****

Jeanie checked her watch again. It was 5:45 p.m. She knew the guys liked to be fashionably late, but even they wouldn't push it this far. Jeanie frowned. Something was wrong. She could feel it.

I'll give them until six, she decided, not wanting to call and have been paranoid for no reason.

Fifteen minutes later, there was still no sign of them. Jeanie dug out her cell and dialed Melia's number. It rang and rang. Jeanie was about to give up when a weary female voice said, "Hello?"

"Kristy? Let me speak to Melia for a second."

There was the sound of muffled voices. Kristy had obviously covered the phone so Jeanie wouldn't hear what she was saying. This, in Jeanie's opinion, confirmed her belief that something was wrong.

"Jeanie?" Jimmy's voice came on the line.

"What's going on? Where the hell are you guys? Y'all should be here by now. Did the bus break down?"

Pause. "We...We're at the hospital."

"Why?" Jeanie demanded. "Oh, my God! It's not Bri, is it? He didn't overdose, did he?"

"No, it's not Brian. Jeanie..."

Jeanie's heart pounded. This was going to be bad.

"It's Baby Gates."

Jeanie inhaled sharply, feeling like she'd been punched in the stomach.

"She shot some bad heroin," Jimmy told her. "Zacky found her this morning and called for an ambulance, but it was too late. There was nothing they could do. She was DOA."

Jeanie's cell shattered on the pavement as she sank to her knees, sobbing broken-heartedly.

*****

Zacky didn't dare try to go in the room while any of the others were in there. He knew they blamed him. He blamed himself.

He'd gone down to the hotel bar after Melia fell asleep. He hadn't shot up because she'd distracted him and the needle had been lost somewhere in the midst of their lovemaking. So, satiated and not high, he'd decided to go have a few beers. When he'd returned to the room, he hadn't wanted to wake her. She was a light sleeper and it didn't take much to disturb her. He didn't turn on any of the lights, and he didn't snuggle against her. If only...

Tears burning his eyes, he recalled the horror of finding her cold that morning, of turning her over and seeing the blood, of the scent of vomit he hadn't noticed in his drunken state the previous night.

The door opened and Johnny and Brian walked out. Johnny was murmuring soothingly; Brian was staring straight ahead. He hadn't spoken a word since he first saw his baby sister's body. Johnny led Brian towards the waiting room at the end of the hallway. This was Zacky's chance. He darted into the room. The door clicked shut behind him, and he slowly approached the stretcher they'd left her on.

The blood was gone from her face. Zacky knew somehow that Brian had been the one to wipe it away. The dogtags Zacky had given her for Christmas were also missing, and Zacky was sure she never took them off. He wondered briefly who had them now.

Zacky gazed down at her in silence, stroking her hair. Finally, he could no longer hold back the tears. "I'm so sorry," he whispered. He kissed her icy, unresponsive lips. "I just wanted to make you happy. I never deserved you. I let you down, Melia, but I love you. I swear to God, I love you so much!"

*****

Brian functioned for two days straight on auto-pilot. He assured his family, his friends, and Jeanie that he was fine. They didn't believe him, but he didn't care. Nothing could phase him. He had severed his ties with reality completely. He was numb.

Then, the day of the funeral reared its ugly head.

Brian got up, showered, and dressed in the clothes his dad picked out for him. It was all mechanical and routine. He did it because he knew he was supposed to. At two o'clock, he rode to the church with his dad and his brother.

Jeanie held his hand the whole time. She was extremely worried about his coping method. The words the preacher spoke didn't sink in. He was still in that remote part of his mind where nothing could harm him.

It was during the short graveside service that Brian began to realize something was wrong. He fidgeted, confused and frustrated. This was like the nightmare version of the "Seize the Day" video shoot. Brian wasn't in the right place. He was supposed to be standing with his friends, not sitting with the family. Zacky was late. Where the hell was he? And why were they actually burying the coffin? Didn't they realize Melia was in there?

Melia is in there.

He was slammed back into reality. He had never known such pain. His heart was being filleted into a billion tiny pieces, and he was bleeding to death.

Once the service was over, Brian didn't want to hang around. He was forced to, however, since he hadn't brought his own car. He was having a cigarette with Johnny when he spotted a familiar figure standing apart from the crowd at Melia's grave.

Brian was grateful for the rush of anger. It dulled the pain. He dropped his cigarette and stalked across the graveyard, stopping in front of the lone figure.

"What are you doing here?" he spat out, eyes burning with rage.

Zacky said nothing. He kept his eyes lowered, unable to face the result of his fatal mistake.

"It should've been you!" Brian snarled, and his fist smashed into Zacky's mouth.

*****

Back at the house he'd grown up in, Brian climbed the stairs to the second floor. He didn't go to his old room, but wandered instead into Melia's room. He looked around, and his gaze landed on the framed concert ticket above her bed.

It was the ticket from the first Avenged show she'd ever been allowed to attend--at Chain Reaction in Anaheim. She had asked Brian and his bandmates to sign the ticket after the show. Brian had thought it was silly of his little sister to want their autographs until she'd told him she wanted them so she could sell the ticket on e-bay in the future. She'd stated without an ounce of doubt, "It's going to be worth hundreds of dollars one day!"

Melia had always believed in Avenged Sevenfold. Even when Brian and the others had been on the edge of giving up, her faith in them had never wavered. She'd worked as hard as any of them to help the band succeed. She'd been merch girl at several of their local shows. She'd helped Cam Rackam design some of their early tour shirts. She'd handed out their demos to everyone she knew. She'd bounced around Huntington Beach High declaring confidently to anyone who would listen that Avenged Sevenfold was going to be HUGE! Most importantly, she'd given up all her free time to listen to Brian and his friends practice and tell them what sounded good.

Shaking his head to clear the memories, Brian stretched out on her bed. Her pillow still smelled like her favorite shampoo. "I use it because it drives the boys crazy," she'd joked one day after Brian had driven all over hell and half of Cali to find a bottle of the damn stuff.

Brian chuckled at the memory. He closed his eyes, and another memory assaulted him.

*Flashback*

"Bri?"

His eyes opened instantly at the sound of her voice. He sat up. She was standing beside his bed in her favorite sleep-shirt (the Metallica shirt he'd had since forever but had finally relinquished to her when she wouldn't stop stealing it to sleep in).

"What is it, tiddlywink?"

"I had another nightmare. Can I sleep with you?"

"Sure thing."

She crawled into the bed with him and scooted right up against him. He covered them both with the blankets and began stroking her hair, something that had calmed her every since she was a baby.

"Tiddlywink?"

"Yeah, Bri?"

"Why don't you ever go to Dad or Brent when you wake up scared?"

She looked up at him with total trust in her crystal blue eyes. "Because you always make the bad things go away," she stated simply.

*End Flashback*

Brian hugged her pillow tight against him. Now he was the one who'd had a nightmare and was coming to her room. Only she was no longer here to hold him and make the bad things go away.