Page 154 of Naughty Dreams
The sprinklers had thankfully turned on, and a voice over the loudspeaker was exhorting for calm, directing people to exits.
Roy’s radio was beeping in his ear. Probably G or Warren, but he wouldn’t be able to hear it, and he wasn’t wasting time checking texts.
This psychopath couldn’t give a shit how many he killed to reach his target, but he knew the terrible prospect of it would slow down the people charged with protecting DJ.
It wasn’t going to slow Roy down. The rest of his team would work on saving people. Roy embraced ruthlessness, shoving people from his path, plowing forward into the hole he made for himself.
He could still glimpse slices of DJ through the people running past him. He was continuing to assist fans onto the stage.
Though he could see him, Roy wasn’t reassured. His instincts said a countdown was happening, and it was fast reaching zero.
He was within thirty feet of his objective when he was proven right. An anguished scream had DJ leaving the stage and landing in the sea of moving bodies. DJ likely hoped his presence on the ground would help whoever was being trampled or crushed down there.
People did give him a slightly wider berth, though one girl grabbed DJ like the swooning heroine of a Victorian novel. Someone else shoved her off, starting a fight between two males.
Roy didn’t let any of that pull his gaze from the short starting-to-curl head of hair and slim body he was determined to reach. But then DJ dropped out of view and didn’t come back up, a swimmer swallowed by turbulent waters.Fucking hell.
Caring little about who he had to hurt, threaten or maim, Roy fought to get to that spot where DJ had vanished. Yet even before he succeeded, he already knew.
DJ was gone.
Roy jumped off the stage deck. An unconscious girl was lying on the ground just under its cover, blood and bruising on her face and neck, probably from where she’d been pinned against the scaffolding. Two friends, a teenage boy and girl, squatted over her. Roy folded his six-foot frame the amount needed to scramble past them, into the maze of scaffolding. Even when they saw he was security and tried to wave him down, he didn’t stop.
She had her friends. She had help.
DJ didn’t.
He reached the lift that brought a performer up on stage. It was no longer locked down, the way he’d required it to be, and the controls had been smashed. He couldn’t use it to follow.
The layout of the arena scrolled through his mind faster than a search engine. How would the stalker exfil DJ without being seen? He’d have studied all the exits and routes, just as Roy had. Roy got on his radio.
Please God, don’t let me fail him.
DJ had a hazy memory of dropping to the ground and freeing a girl from where she’d gotten pinned against a stage support. A big man was beside him, helping him keep people back. The girl collapsed into his arms, likely concussed.
“Get her underneath. She’ll be safer there until the EMTs arrive.”
Not if the fire kept spreading, but as a temporary measure it was better than letting people treat her like a doormat. DJ helped the man drag her under.
Then there’d been a stabbing pain in his neck.
The drug action was immediate, making him stumble, his vision hazy. DJ spun, both fists clenched, but they didn’t seem connected to his body. He almost fell, and the man grabbed his arm, put it around his shoulder, and pushed them even further under the stage. He took them to the underground lift, used for stage acts to appear amid the fog machine and flame effects.
Since they weren’t using it for their show, Roy had had that disabled, DJ remembered. It wasn’t any longer.
Weirdly, the darkly whimsical opening to “For Your Entertainment” was in his head. Adam Lambert was on acarousel horse, going by him again and again.Hold on until it’s over… Hold on until it’s over… Do you know what you got into…
Shit, Adam had written a soundtrack for being kidnapped by a stalker. DJ would have to send him a fruit basket or something. Some part of his brain knew he was in deep shit, but when he tried to shove away, to fight, nothing was happening.
If he didn’t have the coordination for a fight, he could at least be a problem. DJ let his feet go out from under him, not a difficulty in his current state.
The man “helping” him stumbled, but recovered fast. He hiked him up over his shoulder. He was a big bastard. Like Roy. Broad-shouldered. But he wasn’t Roy. DJ grabbed at his belt and would have given him the world’s biggest wedgie, the best weapon he had in his current state, but he was wearing coveralls like a maintenance guy. The belt held a flashlight, though. DJ yanked it off and slammed the end into his ribs. It was a glancing blow, but it was a distraction.
He was dropped. Then he was kicked in the stomach, driving the air out of his lungs.
“I’m sorry,” the man said plaintively. “I don’t want to hurt you. Don’t make me hurt you anymore, Dorian.” He hauled him back up, DJ’s arm over his shoulders.
The drug wanted him to lose consciousness. DJ fought it like a tiger. Just call him Raggedy Andy, flopping this way and that, trying to grab onto equipment cases in the hallway, the railings on steps they took. He wasn’t very successful, because his kidnapper didn’t try to admonish him this time. Just kept moving forward.
