When I Should've Stayed Home (Track Twelve: III) 3, chapter 27

*Knight*

Okay, between the hand, down, around the elbow, up and between. Down, around, up. Between. Down around up between.

Knight's lips moved silently as she coiled the cable. Screams pushed at the edge of her mind. Stubbornly, Knight focused her attention on her mantra.

Down—why weren't—around—I needed—up—not—BETWEEN—Patrick—down, around—I—UP—I hate you!

Knight's fingers grasped empty air. She had looped all of the cord around her forearm. With a scowl, she carefully removed the coils and dropped the neatly wound bundle on the ground. Her blank yellow eyes darted over the floor. The cords, wires, and cables remaining were strewn across the floor, snaking back and forth between various jacks and plugs.

Knight gave the cords a straightening kick as she strode over to the guitar racks. Her skin crawled as she lifted a black bass off its rack. The entire thing oozed the presence of its owner.

You put the last nail in the coffin, she thought savagely. You did that to her, and you don't even care.

Revulsion crinkled Knight's nose as she checked the tuning of the strings by ear. Keeping her face set, she drew off her gloves and sat down on a nearby equipment case. Knight was struck by how gangly the instrument felt in her hands. The neck felt more tapered which in turn made the body feel heavier. Without the hook on the bottom end of the bass's head to balance its looks, Knight felt like she was holding an overweight paddle.

She plucked the first string, letting it hum into silence. Convinced it was in tune, she plucked it and the one beneath it. Years of doing this task had given Knight the unusual ability to tune by comparing two open strings of different notes. Despite this, she double-checked her work by then fretting the deeper string and comparing it to the open one below it.

There was no point in using an electric tuner until sound check. As crew chief, Knight knew Mike always played with the tuning once he went on stage. Leaning the bass across her knees, Knight tugged her gloves back on. She gingerly returned the bass to its rack. It would probably need new strings after two more shows at the most.

She was working up enough nerve to touch another bass when Nick darted out from behind a crate.

"Hey bitch."

Secretly glad for the excuse to delay touching the instrument, Knight faced him. "My name's not bitch, Brier," she corrected icily.

"You still answered to it," he snapped.

"I could give you the axe right now," Knight warned.

"Yeah, you could've done it before but you won't," he said.

"Do you want to be fired?" she demanded nastily.

Nick shifted uneasily and then resumed glaring at her. "Go ahead. If you do, I'll take Trista with me." This last was thrown out as a defiant challenge.

Fear spiked in Knight's chest. Beating it back, she replied,"An ice cube has a better chance in hell. She hates your guts."

"Right now, I don't think it's me at the top of her hate list," Nick shot back.

"Do you have a point?" Knight asked frigidly.

"Yeah. I just spent the last fifteen minutes with your kid, tryin' to get her t' stop bawlin'. She thinks that you think she's not workin' hard enough or ain't doin' something right. D'yah have any idea what that'll do to her?"

"She's not—"

"Yeah, she is. She is going to change," he stated stiffly. "Do you think that acid trip was bad? Do you think I'm a bastard? Have you ever even dealt with a PO'ed teenager?"

"It seems that I am doing so right now," Knight commented dryly.

Nick sent her a withering glance. "No. I've chilled. This is nothin'. You've got the mother of all bombs sittin' in that truck. She's about that far—" he held up his hand, pinching a tiny amount of air, "—from exploding, detonating. She's gonna try to take you down and if she doesn't do that or she can't, she'll bring herself down."

Nerves sent Knight's heart to pounding. "For somebody who just made friends with her, you seem like you have a fairly intimate knowledge of her mind and what could happen." She could not resist the opportunity for a beautifully veiled attack.

"I've seen it," he said with more nonchalance than heat. "I've slept a few feet from the results. They make good guards, 'cause they are always suspicious, even when they're sleepin'. She's no fairy, she'd have no problem taking out most people sneaking up on her."

"And what is it to you exactly? This is our problem," Knight said.

"I'm doin' what somebody should've done for lots of kids." His eyes narrowed and darkened to glittering stones. "Act like a fricking adult, like a parent. She's not your clone, she's not your robot, and she's not screwed up too bad. Either back right off, or take some responsibility."

"You don't know me," Knight snarled. "And you need quite a few more years on you b'fore you can order me around."

Nick crossed his arms sternly. "What are you gonna do about this shit?"

"I'll deal with it when I don't have a sound check to prepare for." The disgust in his eyes was just provocation for a dirty attack. "You know, she's just using you. Not on purpose, but she is. You're the second choice, you throw yourself down like a door mat. You'll never actually be anything to her, because you're too much of a savage. You'll never change."

Knight's throat closed off with an ache. She swallowed to ease the pressure and went on. "Not even in a lifetime, will you ever change. The only thing that would change you would wind up splitting you farther apart."

Nick shook his head scornfully. "So, you're a prophet now?"

"You tried to knife me. "

"There were two knives," Nick growled.

"Yes, but you went for it first. You saw how it upset her. What happens if—"

"I'm not going to propose to your fuckin' daughter. I'm not lookin' for shit like that." It was impossible to tell if he was bitter or sarcastic. "I know I'm fucked in the head. She's too good for me, right? Yeah, know that story. Been there, done that."

"So, you know that. Why are you doing it then?"

"Because, if it runs in the blood, she'll get like you. And that's the last thing the world needs."

"So, you would like me to coddle her? Murmur that everything will be okay?" Knight stepped forward so she could glare directly up into Nick's eyes. "You were told that. And you turned out fine. I believed all that, and I'm just brilliant. She is my charge, and I will try to do what I believe is best for her until she decides to do it herself.

"If you want to help, go ahead. But, Brier, if I catch you so much as looking at her odd, or even having the tiniest contemplation of introducing her to your drugs—I'll come down on you so fast, God help me, that it'll make your head spin."

His eyes flashed furiously. "I don't have t' justify anything to you. Or run anything I do past you."

Knight smiled to herself, feeling like a cat with the mouse firmly in her paws. "So then why are you trying?"

"You know what?" Nick lifted his hands dismissively. "Don't. Do whatever. Don't say I never called it."

"Nick! Brier!" Landon's rumbling bark overwhelmed any response Knight could have made. "Whatever it is that you call yourself, I asked you to move those eight tens an hour ago. Do it! Now!" Landon's face loosened just a fraction as he noticed Knight. "You finished with him?"

"Quite finished," Knight replied formally. "I don't know if he's finished with me."

"We never started." Nick lowered his voice and curled his lip. "And if it was up to me, yeah, we'd be finished. Trista and you'd be finished too."

"What, can't have your own home, so you need to tear up someone else's?" Knight taunted.

"There's no such thing as home," Nick muttered darkly. With an insolently sarcastic smirk to Knight, he sulked past Landon and out to the stage.

The master of dogs shot the roadie's back a despairing glance and shook his pink-hued head.

"He barely gets his shit done, and I get to chase him around like his damn mother," he grumbled.

"What do you want?" Knight asked with a touch of impatience.

"I was doing some thinking and talking. We do need more security. Mick was just tellin' me that they've got a chunk scratched out of the second truck's tire. It's not burst, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did once we weight it back down, with all the equipment. So, your knifer, Tris was just in his way."

Knight shook her head angrily. "We can't afford to step up the amount of guards without hiring more, be it locals or otherwise."

"That's not what I'm talkin' about. You know Nick carries a knife. That's enough evidence to boot his ass to the curb," Landon insisted.

"The other sentries, as well as Doug, can testify that he was actually defending the trucks. I'm not going to let you send him out to sea on such a slipshod excuse. We need every man we got," Knight said.

"We're going to have to tell Doug about this. He'd be pissed if he found out after we'd spent the money hirin' people." Landon cracked his knuckles, making the red gems on his rings glitter in the light. "I don't think he'd let it slide."

"Then tell him. If he has to know, we might as well hire real guards. And if he's against that, I'll call my agency, you call yours and we'll try to hire ourselves some dogs with fangs. Should be easy, you don't lift trusses and not get muscles. He can't argue with that. You can't either, since a few extra dogs might make up for Nick's slacking."

"You know as well as I that nobody should have to pick up that puppy's slack. But, yeah, I agree. You gonna talk to Doug, or me?"

"Technically, you're dogs and rigging," Knight replied wryly. "So I guess that points the finger at you."

"Well, I was just checking. I never had a crew chief as into security as you. Most of them just stick to their straight up job," Landon retorted as he ambled off.

Knight frowned, not quite sure if she was to take the comments as insults or as compliments. Shrugging, she moved to stand in front of the guitar racks again. Even in the poor lighting of the backstage, their bodies gleamed smoothly. Some sort of inner malevolence emanating from them forced Knight to keep her distance. Frustrated at her cowardice, Knight eyed the guitars balefully.

This is stupid, I am doing nothing but wasting my time.

Resolutely, she dug in her pocket for her cell phone. After some tilting of the phone and a curse regarding scuffed display screens, she managed to select a number from the digital address book. Commanding the phone to dial, Knight put it to her ear and waited for someone to answer.

The phone had started its fourth ring when Knight began to wonder about the time change. With a glance over her shoulder, she snuck behind the guitar racks. It was pathetic hiding place, but it would shield her from the casual observer. She had just concluded that it was definitely not past seven in the evening when a voice answered.

"Blue Wire Agency, good afternoon, how can I help you?"

"Who am I speaking to?" Knight asked.

"My name is Catherine. How can I help you?" The last word was extended to imply "and you are?"

"Catherine, I'm Knight, crew chief for Green Day right now. American Idiot tour."

"Mmm, alright. I will bring your file up," the woman sounded distracted, "right quick and you can ask—righto, there we are."

"I need to know if there's any bass techs available, and I would prefer one capable of being crew chief as well."

"Okay, let me check that. Um." There was a long pause. "No. We don't have anyone right now. I've got two fellows who will end tours in late November and early December. I don't think—you said Green Day?—Richard—that's the boss if you didn't know—"

Knight rolled her eyes, "Yeah, I do."

"—won't recommend the earlier guy. Our personnel notes say he needs another tour under his belt before he's put up to that kind of level."

Heavily, Knight asked, "And there's no one earlier?"

"All of our higher level techs are either on tour, or we can't contact them. We have some lower level ones with good prospects, but Richard would have to look them over. Most of the crew chiefs are guitar techs anyways. What happened to the tech you had?"

"He went on paternity leave. No fault of his, he basically gave us the two weeks notice at the start of the tour." To save herself hearing the inevitable question, Knight added, "I'm not sure if I can get along with the bassist."

"Okay then, I will mark your tour. If anything comes up, we will call you."

"And how long is that gonna be? I mean, if Richard gets a chance to look at the ones that aren't out touring?"

"Well, actually, Richard is on vacation until the middle of November. I don't know how long it will take him to catch up."

Knight bit back a snarl of irritation. Does anything go off without a hitch?

With utmost civility, she said, "Have I received any messages so far?"

"You've had a few bills, which were deducted from your pay and paid as you requested. There were two messages, first one left three days ago. It's from a Patrick, no last name. It says that he'll be in SF, I guess that's San Francisco, during the break. He would like to see Trista."

Patrick. How could he figure out—no, it wouldn't be that hard. The tour dates have got to be on the net somewhere. Damn it. Just what I don't need right now.

"Anything else in that?" Knight asked gruffly. "He wants you to call him, but he'll phone back here... lemme see... tomorrow."

"Have you a pen handy?" Knight asked.

"Yep."

"When Patrick phones, tell him that Trista will call him if she wants."

"And that's all?" the secretary asked.

"Yeah. Now what about the other message?"

"This one's from a Jack Longdale. Cor, follow this. His aunt's sister-in-law's friend's granddaughter, has a friend who has a brother that is getting married to a Karen Williams."

Knight frowned to herself. The message was typical Jack style: verging on nonsense. He would manage to make such a bizarre connection, simply because doing so was one of his self-deemed useless talents. To the average person, it appeared as a useless talent, but Knight had known it as a threat and as a tool.

The secretary went on. "He says that he's not absolutely sure if it's the same Karen, but the social is in Oakland. He says that it falls on your break. You're supposed to call if you want more info."

A smirk lifted the corner of Knight's mouth. Trust Jack to keep an eye on Patrick. Just when she needed an excuse to avoid Patrick, Jack toppled an excuse into her lap. Knight made a mental note to buy Jack a glass of cask ale the next time they found themselves at a pub together.

"Just for sake of curiosity, what do you have left for dogs?"

"We've got a few floating around. Was the tour under-planned?"

Knight sensed the secretary's fingers were hovering over the keyboard, waiting to insert an admonishing remark to Knight's profile.

"No. We've just had some security issues. We've been using our lot to do guard duty and it's getting a bit difficult. If we can't get a real security team we were thinkin' of hiring some extra dogs."

"Do you want me to note that for Richard?"

"You can mention it, but it is not anything definite."

"Anything else I can do for you Knight?" the secretary asked cheerily.

Yeah, you could get me a big bottle of Guinness. Knight thought caustically.

"No. Thanks very much for your help. Bye."

With a snap, Knight closed her phone.

Dammit. Dammit. DAMMIT!

The weight of several weeks of having to perform her now-hateful job settled upon her shoulders. Imprisonment. Again.

You could just leave, a treacherous voice tempted her from within.

Knight considered the idea for a second before discarding it. She could not. The job, earning money to get Trista a real home was her duty.

Yeah, right. A real home isn't much good without a real parent.

Feeling the tears begin to sting at the corner of her eyes, Knight lifted head and stared up at the trussed ceiling. Gravity was barely enough to keep the tears from welling over.

You will not cry. she snarled silently. You said you'd never cry. As long as you're not stuck in some bed with tubes in you, still able to make your own decisions, still able to move, you don't cry!

A violent raging tremor shook Knight's entire body. This isn't worth it. My death isn't worth it!

Instinctively, she reached out to brace herself. Death? she argued back. You will die for this? You will let this kill you?

Her fingers brushed the smooth curves of a bass, cutting off her wailing response before it began. A stabbing pain flared behind her eyes; her fingers curled around a horn of a bass.

This! I can't beat this! she thought despairingly. A heartbeat later, the agony increased exponentially, sucking all the strength out of her legs.

Knight's vision keeled over sharply, tilting with sickening force towards blackness. She sunk to her knees in fear of having her skull spilt open. Sensing her vision beginning to fade, she looked around herself in desperation.

Nowhere to hide. No. Not now. I was doing fine. Not again. No. Stop it! Oh God, make it stop.

Her world became smears of black and grey, leaving only one central pinpoint of crystalline focus. Her mouth moved soundlessly. She made another effort, and only a weak puff of air warmed her bandana.

Please. The promise. Hear me. Trust. See. Here.

Dropping her head in submission, she tried one last time.

"Billie."