25 Hour Watch

            Bright lights flashed around her head, exploding stars that dimmed to nothingness as new ones took their place, only to vanish with speed just as swift. The cycle repeated itself again and again while thousands of cameras glittered throughout the immense darkened theater.

            Thrust partway into the audience atop the platform’s curved edge, Jacy bowed her head, stealing a moment of composure before the center spotlight singled her out once more for her finishing bow. These people didn’t know her. She’d never visited the city before this morning. Not one of them knew her name. No, that wasn’t true. They knew her name, the one her manager had concocted in a flight of marketing fancy—“all the class of ‘Lacy,’ with a feel that says ‘Racy!’”—but the one from before was lost. Even her friends, the few she had left from before this whole incredible disaster, never used it. Somewhere deep inside her mind, a voice spoke it now and then, a last, desperate attempt to remind her that there was a world out there. A world she no longer quite believed in.

            White and gold burst around her, so blinding in their combined intensity that she could no longer see the twinkling cameras. Here she was, trapped in an ephemeral light of her own, burning, blazing, a spark flaring through the empty black of nothingness.

            She pumped a fist high in the air, cocking her hip at a sassy angle with her other arm curled around her waist, fingers resting on her opposite hipbone. The smile, how easily it split her mouth, displaying teeth perfected with the artistry only a well-zeroed check could buy. Brilliant cerulean eyes, the recently added contacts contributing to their pure color, spread wide between lush, blackened lashes, rendered sightless by the stage lights. No surgery, no artificial highlights, no permanent modifications for beauty (beyond the teeth). That was part of her carefully crafted image. Only giant globules of extensively applied makeup to match her painstakingly straightened hair, layered in perfect angles.

            Voices joined together in an indiscriminate roar, responding to the energetic joy that radiated from her cocky, critic-approved grin. She made a jaunty, wide-sweeping gesture toward her left, and then right, pausing three counts each in acknowledgement of the accompanying band and dancers. The wooden stage floor vibrated beneath the physical presence of the crowd’s deafening approval. More than one fan out there was screaming herself hoarse. The sound built and grew until it overruled all of her senses. Stimuli assaulted her from every angle, overwhelming her grasp on reality. She couldn’t see, couldn’t breath.

            Then everything went dark.

***

            He waited, calm and unfazed by the pitch black house. A moment before, the stage had shone like a cold sun around its bright, young core. He hadn’t seen. His eyes were shut tight, protecting the sensitive pupils. If they contracted too much, the disorientation of the sudden light transition would devastate his aim. He needed all neurons firing, all cones and rods receiving whatever visual data this strictly controlled environment generated.

            Separated from the tri-sided platform by a mere dozen rows of theater-style seats, he stood at a perfect angle for the performers’ departure. The cleverly disguised door in the steel siding lay engraved in his mind, and only the production staff used the prop entry on the other side. When the pretty young celebrity crossed the line of his Glock in approximately seven seconds, the blind and bewildered crowd would panic, and he would run with them.

            If he missed, if he hit, it didn’t matter. After all, he was only the distraction.

***

            “Think we’ll be done by two?”

            He shook his head, one eye on the digital footage that streamed from the laptop tilting toward him on the desk. Green-shaded figures hurried across the largest onscreen window and through the door fixed just below the camera, vanishing from sight. Other smaller windows showed crew members prepping to clear the stage, or in wait of the slender diva and her entourage. In the bottom left corner, General Manager and self-dubbed demon, Mitchell Jansen, lounged on a couch in what the crew referred to as the “Debriefing Room”, where he would shortly administer post-performance criticism or praise, depending on the show and how many drinks he had downed over the previous hour.

            “Shit. I thought with staying in town overnight, that’d clear up our timetable a little.” The sharky ex-soldier slapped the table, emphasizing his disapproval with another unoriginal expletive.

            “Wishful thinking, Briggs.”

            “I know, but we’ve been running hard since, what, last Tuesday? I’m tired, Mer. We could use a break.”

            Instead of answering, Kyle Merrimac watched the feeds, his mind on his six-year-old niece and the birthday party he’d missed earlier that afternoon. All around him, the building shuddered under an ongoing avalanche of stomps and shouts, fed by the satisfied masses, the sound so deafening that it almost cancelled it out: a sudden crack.

            His feet hit threadbare carpet in the next instant, levering his body upright with the full force of adrenaline.

            “Was that a shot?” The shorter Jon Briggs leaned nearer the feeds, as if he could peer through the rush of bodies that now streamed through the stage door, or the maze of fans swarming steadily away from the performance platform. In the laptop’s bottom corner window, Mitchell Jansen plucked the olive from his martini and neatly fit it between his lips, notepad balanced on his thigh. “Mer?”

            But Merrimac was gone.

            Bodies pressed together in a moving wave that spanned the narrow hallway wall to wall. He already knew the diva, Jacy, or whatever she called herself, was not among them. Darting through the service corridor, he burst through the door marked “Prop R” and crossed at a sprint, aiming for the smaller stage entrance. Hancock, one of the bulky bodyguards, should have been inside the room. He wasn’t. Hopefully, he’d made himself useful on stage.

            When Merrimac slammed through the final barrier, gun drawn and safety released, his first glance panned across the stadium seating in lightning-quick motion, for the moment unconcerned with the white-clad singer he’d seen fall from the stage into the pit area. No obvious threat stood out under the houselights some technician had finally flipped back on, but then, a smart shooter would have gotten his butt out of there, hidden among the still fleeing crowd. In all likelihood, he or she watched yet from the near side of the exit doors, weapon cast aside or hidden in a jacket or bag.

            That, of course, comprised the best case scenario. A psycho creep shooter wouldn’t leave their mission unfinished. Assuming the singer wasn’t already dead, she might still be in danger—and Merrimac along with her.

            Knees bent in a crouch, gun extended before him, Merrimac made his way across the smooth wood of the stage, eyes peeled for any sign of aggressive movement from the widespread audience. Too much space for one man to successfully cover, he knew, but ignoring the threat smacked of stupidity.

            At the platform edge, his gaze flashed down, then back up, scanning the half-empty house once more. She was down there, all right, in a tumbled heap of too high heels, white faux leather, and metallic sequins that glittered silver, gold, and bronze. She’d landed on her side, and long tendrils of honey blonde hair obscured her face. With only that brief look, he couldn’t tell whether she breathed or no.

            Decision time. Put the gun away and jump into the pit, essentially exposed, or wait for back up, also exposed to a bullet that could come from any direction?

            Movement towed his attention back toward the diva, as one long leg slid over the other and an elbow pushed from smoothened concrete, a clumsy attempt at rising. So far, she’d survived to sing another day. Their best chance at extending that timeline lay in getting unexposed as quickly as possible. Deliberation over, Merrimac flicked the safety back into place and vaulted down onto the pit floor, landing a few feet from the cropped off toes of her white strappy shoes.

            The muffled sound spooked the girl, and she struggled to pull her legs underneath her. One moved more awkwardly than the other, but no obvious evidence of blood. Always a good sign. The terror on her face? Not so good. In his experience, freaked out victims lacked all ability for cooperation. And he’d need cooperation to get them out safely.

            At least she wasn’t drowning. During his first water rescue, the situation had nearly reversed itself when the desperate victim won a death grip around his neck.

            “I’m with you,” he flashed the backstage pass clipped to his belt. “Did you see where the shot came from?”

            Now confusion mixed with fear as she worked out the meaning behind his words.

            Shit, he thought to himself. She’s going shocky.

            Certainly, the near-white pallor of her face beneath the stage makeup backed up his conclusion, as did the trembling in her hands.

            Ah, hell. He took two long strides and squatted beside her, close enough to feel the soft puffs of each panting breath.

            “I can get you out of here; I can get you someplace safe. But you need to work with me, honey. Where did the shot come from?”

            At last, her eerily blue eyes focused on his face and seemed to clear. She closed them for a moment and inhaled once, drawing the air deep within as if for fortification. Long black lashes moved apart and she sat up fully, turning to squint over the bowed, ascending rows. Slowly, her arm extended, subtly indicating a section that lay in the main stage door’s direct line of sight. No one stood near there now. It must have been one of the first areas to clear.

            A smart shooter, then.

            “Okay,” he took in the sweeping curvature of the stage front, too high for them to effectively climb without sacrificing speed and cover. “Let’s get you on your feet, then you stay behind me, got it? We’ll head around the stage and up the side stairs.”

            The singer shifted position, curling one leg beneath her. For a moment, Merrimac thought he saw a flash of pain cross her face, but it vanished so swiftly, he couldn’t say for sure. She did not, however, make an effort to rise, instead looking out over the fleeing crowd.

            “Hon, did you hear me?”

            “There’s a service door on the other side that leads below stage. That might be safer.” Her latte-smooth voice held steady. Still, she didn’t move.

            Biting back frustration born of her apparent obstinance and his unease at standing in the open, Merrimac tucked a hand beneath her armpit and heaved.

            Instantly, she recoiled, tumbling back half a foot, her left ankle dragging behind her. No mistake this time: she winced. And she was much stronger than she looked.

            Frustration won out. “Look, hon—”

            “My ankle’s busted. And no way am I crawling out of here. It’d be all over YouTube by the end of the night.”

            YouTube? She was worried about freaking YouTube?

            “Fine. Then I’ll carry you or you can hop, because like it or not, hon, we’re leaving now.” Without waiting for her answer, he forcibly hauled her upright, supporting her against his hip. “Now where’s this door?”

***

            Inside the Debriefing Room, Jacy wrapped her arms around her bent right knee, her left leg stretched and elevated in front of her on the back of a folding chair. Ice pressed around her rapidly swelling ankle, sandwiched between ace bandages. To her right, Mitchell loomed, fists planted firmly on trim hips, and incandescent light glinting off his shiny bald head. He studied her shrewdly, one half of his thin bottom lip sucked tight inside his mouth.

            “Great performance, kid, start to finish.”

            Three years over the legal drinking limit, and still he called her “kid”. She hated that. It was almost as bad as “hon”.

            “And I mean that, about the finish. Christ, all those interviews on the breaking news stories? They’re calling you a god-damned hero. Brilliant move, by the way, telling the crowd to get out of there after that shot. Really shores up your image. And that footage on YouTube of you limping away after that fall? That’ll move you right up the charts, kid.”

            Not heroic at all, shouting the warning. Even less so, falling off that stage. The shot and the dark had disoriented her, and she’d jumped the wrong way.

            But she’d been right about YouTube.

            “We can use this. A press conference, maybe a couple of primetime interviews…I’m seeing serious possibilities.” He always saw possibilities, which made him good at his job.

            What would he do if the next bullet hit? She shuddered to think it.

            Over near the door, the pushy security officer bent in close conversation with one of his colleagues. He’d kicked through the narrow emergency exit from under-stage, which she’d thoughtlessly forgotten was kept locked from the inside, and practically carried her up a short stairwell and through the drab backstage corridors. No other shots accompanied their flight, but his actions might have saved her life all the same.

            “—about getting you to the hospital for some X-rays, just in case,” Mitchell spoke on, unperturbed. His lips never once formed words of concern, leaving that sort of sympathetic formality for the half-dozen fawning assistants and staff EMT. “The police can ask whatever questions there. Plus, we’ll get better press coverage.”

            Which was all that really mattered, from his perspective, leastwise. That his star singer had nearly run a last curtain call hand in hand with the Reaper? Nope. Not a blip on his radar.

            “I’d rather not.”

            “Answer questions? I don’t see how you can avoid it, kid.” Condescension coated his reply, thick and oatmeal heavy.

            “No, the hospital.” It left too many openings for someone to slip through unnoticed. More terrified than her neutral expression let on, Jacy didn’t want to leave the room, much less go anyplace public.

            The security officer glanced across the semi-active expanse. His dark blonde hair stood up in short, lightly gelled spikes, its shade an exact match to the light stubble of beard that peppered his jaw line. Despite the evening’s action, only a few wrinkles and dust marks adorned his navy blazer. The blue and silver tie, he’d loosened until it hung a few inches below his throat. Their eyes met and she looked away.

            “Manager’s orders, kid. If you’re hurt, we need to know soon so we can make plans to deal.” No worry, only business.

            “It’s fine. Like Andy said, a sprain. I’m not going out there.”

            “You will, if I have to make Hancock carry you. Where’s that bastard run off to anyway? Never mind; I’ll have Pete bring the car around.”

            He prowled toward the unsuspecting assistant, knocking aside a short, formidable brunette and her armful of folded blankets.

            “No pillows, so these’ll have to do for now,” Andy gently lifted the ice-wrapped ankle, tucking the blankets atop the slim chair ridge. “Better?”

            She forced a smile. “Sure. Thanks, Andy.”

            The EMT trotted away for a quick check on the drummer, who had tripped in the frantic stampede and sliced open his knee. This was the most medical action she’d seen since the show three weeks ago, when a dancer’s botched cartwheel had prompted Mitchell to slam his fist through a glass table, neatly severing one of the less important veins in his wrist.

            Exhaustion replaced adrenaline and Jacy rested her forehead on her knee, eyes shut. So many days of nonstop preparation and performance hit at once, mixing badly with fear and apprehension. Hospitals, press conferences, interviews—all horribly insecure venues, especially the way Mitchell liked to do things. Her image thrived on accessibility; he would want her interacting with fans and media as if nothing had happened. And once more leave her vulnerable.

            “You okay?”

            Jerking her head up, ashamedly startled, she stared at the security officer. His eyebrows raised an expectant fraction.

            Hesitant, she glanced at her bulky foot. “Just a sprain.”

            “I mean, are you okay to go back out there?” He nodded toward the door. “That was pretty intense, earlier.”

            Intense? No, intense was a thousand screaming fans demanding perfection. Intense was weeks on the road with minimal sleep, five live performances in as many days, brutally physical workouts on a restricted diet. A gun going off on top of everything else merited a complete mental collapse.

            Because why would anyone want her dead?

            Two well-timed blinks rid her of the unbidden tears that suddenly burned against her contacts. Was she okay?

            “I have to be.”

***

            The singer leaned against his side once more as she hobbled down the hallway, his supporting hand around her waist. Outside, the finally located Hancock manned the sheltered valet curb where their car awaited them, leaving Merrimac as temporary acting nanny.

            It worked best that way. Hancock’s steely muscles were more for show than anything else, and his bulk admittedly useful for holding back crowds.

            “Briggs will go through the door first. When we get out there, we’re not stopping for any reason. If something goes wrong, you stay between me and Briggs until you’re at that limo door. Inside’s the safest place for you, understand?” He paused before the exit, waiting for Briggs to make his way in front.

            She nodded. “Yeah. Just—just give me a minute, could you?”

            He watched her close her eyes again, felt her body shudder against his. Shit, the girl should have held out for a more discreet vehicle, and a less conspicuous exit point. Not a freaking limo in the middle of a double-freaking crowd. But that wasn’t his call to make.

            “Hey, look at me.”

            Disturbingly clear blue eyes met his and this time, the seamless wall that blocked away her well-concealed anxiety bore a visible fracture.

            “We’ve got your back, Briggs and I. This’ll work out fine.” It didn’t always, which was why he’d turned in his badge last July. She didn’t need to know that though.

            “Okay, let’s do this.” Tense features smoothened and a small smile etched its way across her face. If he hadn’t caught the fear evident in her tone, he’d never have thought the expression feigned.

            Briggs pushed through the double door’s left hand side, igniting the eruption of a dozen flashing cameras. They followed three steps behind, the singer’s hand raised in a carefree wave, her grin reassuring. More flashes, microphones jostling, voices shouting questions. Off to the right, Hancock warned the crowd back, his muscles flexed threateningly.

            Half a dozen yards to go.

            Now five.

            Now four.

            The singer dropped, wrenching him to his knees on the roughened concrete beside her. A crack and a crash sounded almost simultaneously, and he dove on top of her, counting on Briggs to locate the threat and remove it. Especially that last part.

            Another shot. Screaming. He felt her chest expand and contract beneath him as she gasped. Still alive, for the most part.

            “Can we reevaluate that stance on crawling?” He chanced a glance over his shoulder, but couldn’t see what was happening.

            “I thought we weren’t stopping for any reason.”

            Was that humor? Not a chance. “Hence the crawling.”

            “The ankle’s wrapped tight. Get me on my feet and I’ll run it if I have to.”

            “Count of three.” Slipping his arms beneath her slim body, he pulled her against his chest as he counted aloud. “And here we go.”

            Hunched over her protectively, he pushed her toward the open limo door. A circular chink in the glass showed where the bullet had hit and he turned, following its trajectory while Jacy fell inside the limo. Briggs, Hancock, and a ring of familiar blue uniforms stood over a fallen figure.

            An insistent tug drew his attention down to his arm, where manicured fingers clutched at the sleeve.

            “Please.”

            It was the desperation in her voice that did it, the fear of watching another human being die that had driven him from the police force after his seven year, his third on the dive team with his brother.

            He slid in beside her and shut the door, waving a go ahead to the driver. Mitchell Jensen and his great big plans could wait for the next vehicle.

            The sound of her shallow breath filled the small space, mingling with his.

            “I never got your name.” Roughly eight hundred miles traveled together cross-country in the past week, and only now an introduction.

            “Kyle Merrimac.”

            “Huh. Well, nice to meet you, Kyle.”

            “And you.” He felt awkward using her stage name.

            “Laine. Call me Laine.”

FIN