Page 37 of Naughty Dreams
A modulator made the voice deep, but the rasp held emotions too strong to be neutralized. “You need to let me protect you, Dorian. They don’t care about you the way I do.”
Roy’s gaze went warrior hard. He cradled DJ’s hand in his so he could see the screen. Private caller. Of course. But he made a swirling finger gesture at DJ that said, “Keep him talking” as he moved away, muttering into the mic that connected him to his team.
“Who is this?”
“You know who this is,” the caller snarled. “Don’t act like you don’t. That hurts my feelings.”
“I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but this isn’t your real voice, right? Have we met before?”
A silence. A measured breath. “Someone is trying to find out more about me. It’s him. You did a piss-poor job, Roy,” he accused. “That crazy motherfucker should never have gotten that close to Dorian.”
Roy turned. The way he stared at the phone would have liquefied the bowels of a charging gorilla, but when he spoke, his tone was eerily mild. Calculating.
“You didn’t come out of your hole to stop him. Is hiding who you are more important than protecting DJ?”
“No.Nothing is more important than protecting him. You deserve to die for failing him. But none of you understand. He’ll eventually understand and come to me. I’ll protect him. Hedoesn’t want this life. He’s alone in the middle of all of you. He’ll never be alone with me.”
“Why am I this important to you?” DJ asked. “What makes me this special?”
“You sang for me first,” the voice said. “You told me who you were before you told anyone else. It will all make sense, Dorian. Just trust me. I need you to trust me.” The tone implored DJ to understand. “I willneverhurt you. No one cares about you the way I do.”
The call ended.
DJ relinquished the phone to Roy and left the chair, moving to the wall, then turning until he reached the other one. Back and forth. Twice. He put his back in the corner and covered his face with his hands, pressing his fingers to his eyes.
“DJ.”
He shook his head to hold Roy off. A guy ran at him with a gun, screaming about a broken heart. Yeah, that shook him up. But this voice. Cold, calculating. As if he already knew everything about DJ, and underneath that was the darkness. Tightly leashed, like a weapon cocked.
“Youdon’tknow me, ass wipe. Because if you did, you’d know I hate to be called Dorian.”
He sunk down onto his heels. Pulled out the notebook and started writing about darkness. Surviving darkness.Survival.His hands were shaking.
“Dory.” Roy squatted in front of him. He waited until he was done writing, but then put his hands over DJ’s. “Look at me.”
No gentleness, but not unkind either. It was simple authority, a requirement that DJ do what he said, because he knew DJ wanted to do that. It pulled DJ’s gaze up to him.
“He scares me.”
“He should. But tell me why.”
“He’s like…when I was a foster kid, before Marjorie, and there was no control. You didn’t know where you’d land. Would it be so bad you’d have to figure out a way to run? And if you did, where would you go, how would you survive? Stealing. Selling yourself, or teaming up with people who might be worse. There were good ones, lights in the darkness, but you always felt like an animal in a cage, helpless, having to wait for someone else to decide what was going to happen to you.”
Fucking hell. His breathing was quick and shallow. He hadn’t had a panic attack in years, but he recalled how Marjorie had taught him to handle them.
Closing his eyes, he put his hand on his heart and started to slow it all down. It helped when Roy put his hand over top of it, his other one on DJ’s shoulder, thumb rubbing the side of his neck. He breathed with DJ. Rise, fall. Rise, fall.
When he’d calmed, he opened his eyes to get lost in the storm cloud gray of Roy’s. “It sounds like we crossed paths a long time ago.”
“Yeah, it does. We’ll go over that time in your life, and pull in Steve and Pete, since they were with you then, too. Did you recognize his voice?”
“No. But there was something… I think I know what he sounds like when he’s singing.” It was elusive, on the edges of his memory. He made a frustrated face.
“Which means he could be someone who was in another band?” Roy prodded.
“Maybe.” The whole conversation was unsettling to him. He wanted to get away from it.
“I…I know we need to go over things, but I want to be with the band right now. Do my job. Can I do that?”
