Christie Road

In an instant, she had simply vanished.

Billie's eyes roamed over the people milling about in the hall as he pushed his way back toward the main entrance, but no matter how hard he tried to catch sight of her white-streaked hair, she was nowhere to be seen. How could she have slipped away from him so quickly, he wondered? And where would she go...?

The boy who had confronted him was hunched over just inside the front door, mopping his bleeding nose with his tee shirt and mumbling vague threats to anyone who would listen to him. As Billie approached him, he eyed the singer warily, but realized quickly that he was no longer the main target of his anger.

"Where did she go?" Billie hissed, one shaking finger hovering in front of the boy's face. "Tell me or so help me God, I'll make that look like a friendly handshake."

"Billie!" Mike's voice called across the room. "This way!" His long arm lifted high to point toward the side door that opened into the bus lot, and Billie darted out the front door, his feet flying over the pavement as he circled the corner of the building. As he reached the parking lot, a small, dark-colored car sat idling at the curb, and just as he skidded to a stop, he heard the passenger door slam shut and the car tires squealed as it tore away, disappearing down the dark street.

Mike pulled up behind him, panting. "Was that her?" he asked breathlessly. "I saw her heading out the side door, but I couldn't get out here fast enough."

Billie looked frantically around, searching the shadowy streets and alleyway, but she was nowhere to be seen. "I guess so. It had to be--where else could she have gone?"

Mike squinted at the taillights of the car as they grew smaller and smaller. "Damn, I couldn't get a license plate number. Did you get a look at the car?"

There was no answer, and he looked over at his friend's stricken face, harsh and lined in the yellow mercury street lights. "I can't believe I did this to her," Billie said woodenly. "This is all my fault."

"What happened, man?" Mike asked, his eyebrows knitted in confusion.

Still staring down the street as if he thought he might bring her back by his will alone, he slowly shook his head. "I was a fucking idiot," he said in despair. "I let Lani turn me into the very thing I swore I'd protect her from." He slumped against the telephone pole, his knees weak and almost giving way.

"Maybe she just went home," Mike said hopefully. "Call her apartment in a little while and I bet she answers."

"Maybe," Billie muttered, but in his heart he wasn't so sure. Her eyes, her beautiful moonlight eyes, had been so full of fear and hurt, and he was the one who had put it there, he and the deadly anger that he had unleashed at Lani. The shame and regret were acid in his throat, a cocktail that burned his soul, and he slumped miserably.

"You want me to come with you to look for her?" Mike offered.

He sighed deeply. "You don't have to do that. But I don't have a choice. I've got to find her and fix this. I know she thinks I'm some kind of monster, but God, Mike, I couldn't deal with Lani's shit anymore, and it just exploded before I could stop it."

It wasn't the time for explanations. "C'mon, let's take my car. You can catch me up while we're driving." His shaggy blond head wagged thoughtfully. "I still can't get over the fact that you and Lani didn't even get through the first night when we got home. It must really have been bad." His sinewy hand dipped into his pocket, and he fished out his keys as their feet crunched across the gravel parking lot.

"I don't know what I was thinking to ever get mixed up with her. It would have been unbearable even if I hadn't seen Jazz again. But after we saw her at the photo shoot--did you see how much she'd changed? She's so beautiful, so...so sweet, you know? I never knew a girl less wrapped up in herself."

Mike eyed his suffering friend with wry intuition. "Bill, I'm just throwing out a guess here, but it sounds like you're already in pretty deep with her. This really isn't just a 'flavor of the week' kind of thing, is it?"

Billie looked surprised that he even suggested it. "No!" he said, his eyes narrowing. "It's so much more than that. Mike, when I'm with her, it's like we're two halves of the same person. I don't have to explain things to her--she just understands me, like she's known me forever." He managed a weak laugh in spite of his pain. "Come to think of it, I guess she has."

"Maybe that's why it's so easy," Mike said, sliding into the car. "You're already friends, so you're already through the awkward part."

Billie pulled his door shut with a too-loud bang. "Sorry," he said, wincing. "I keep feeling this weird deja vu, like we're back in Rodeo again, looking for a lost teenager. But she's not a kid anymore, Mike, and if she really wants to disappear, she knows how to do it."

The big engine roared to life, and Mike headed in the direction the little car had taken. "Hold on, now, you're getting ahead of yourself," he said reassuringly. "Okay, I know some shit went down in there, but I think you're jumping to conclusions. Maybe she just needs some time to think. We used to do the same thing when we went down to the tracks. It helped to get away and make sense of things."

Billie's eyes lost focus, softening as his mind flew down the path through the forest, bursting out beside the tree-lined ribbon of track that cut the forest in half. Mike's voice was a low hum now, blending into the sound of the tires skimming over the pavement, and Billie felt disconnected from his body. Beneath his feet, he could feel the soft carpet of pine needles, branches brushing his chest as he pushed his way through the overgrowth and picked his way carefully down the incline to the little shack. The door stood open, hanging crazily on its hinges, but there was a glow of golden light through the dirty window...

No way, he thought to himself, shaking his head to brush away the vision. She'd never go back there now. She said herself that she couldn't even visit her mother. That's the last place she'd go. But something nagged at him, telling him that he might just be wrong.

"...call Vann?" Mike was saying. "You know, she might have gone to the office, just because it might be where she can focus on something besides this."

Billie looked around at him blankly for a second, struggling to catch up. "Yeah, that's not a bad idea," he said, reaching for his cell phone. He punched numbers robotically, listened for the ringing, mumbled a message into the answering machine. Snapping the phone closed, he reconsidered and opened it again, dialing a different number.

He turned toward the window, lowering his voice, and Mike discreetly turned on the radio, softly. "Jazz, it's me," he said after a moment's silence. "I know you won't take my call, but I have to say this. I'm not the man you saw in there tonight. I'd do anything to protect you--anything except make you fear me. That's the last thing in the world I ever want. I'm going to look for you at your apartment, so don't be surprised if I show up. And if you're not there, then I want you to know that I won't stop looking for you until I find you. Not this time."