Alice

new people

Most of the guys are asleep, Patrick and I are the only two people awake. Spencer slams the door open and walks onto the bus. He has blood on his shirt, jeans, and hands.

"Spence, come on man." Justin says. He has dirt on his jeans and blood on his hands.

"You don't know what they fucking said, Justin! I should've just killed her then and fucking there!" Spencer snaps. Patrick is silent on the couch next to me.

Justin looks at me, then back at Spencer. "I get that she stepped outta line man but you can't just snap like that." Justin says.

"Oh I didn't snap, Justin. I don't snap anymore, I plan. I have fucking standards now. I make sure those fuckers deserve it." Spencer says, turning around to face him. He's mad, pissed.

"Spencer you--" Justin starts. He stops when he remembers I'm in the room. "This isn't a good place to talk about this." Justin says.

"You're right, you're completely right. I'm sorry." Spencer says, taking a deep breath. He's still shaking, but now he takes a few deep breaths and starts to control himself.

"Justin did you..." Patrick trails off, not daring to finish his sentence in front of me. Justin just nods. Spencer leaves the bus again and Justin follows him. I get up to follow them but Patrick grabs my hand. I pull my hand away form him and follow them out anyway.

Spencer is pacing back and forth, Justin is leaning against the bus. "Dad? What happened?" I ask hesitantly. It just kind of happened, I didn't mean to call him that, but I did. It just slipped out.

He stops dead in his tracks and looks at me. Justin does the same thing. Spencer walks over to me and I see Justin start to walk over to get between us. Spencer wraps his arms around me tightly in a hug, I hug him back. He needs it more than I do.

"I'm sorry Mikey, I'm so sorry. You shouldn't see like that and I'm so fucking sorry for that." he says. It sounds like he's about to cry. Justin looks confused. Spencer lets go of me and wipes his face. He was crying.

"Sorry, but I'm fucking confused, your kid just heard you yelling about murdering someone and you aren't trying to even hide it?" Justin asks. He sounds pissed.

Patrick steps off the bus and walks up to Justin. Spencer says nothing, just stands there with his hand on my back, trying not to cry again.

"I will explain, lets just walk and talk. You probably need to clear your head." Patrick says, grabbing Justin's arm and basically dragging him away from Spencer.

"You shouldn't have to see me like that." Spencer says.

"What do you mean you have standards now? How do you... you know, pick?" I ask. Spencer seems shocked. He hesitates before answering.

"Well, I mean, the people I kill deserve it. Most of the time people hire me to kill child molesters, rapists, abusers, you know the type. On days like this when it's sudden it's hard not to pull the first person I see off of the sidewalk." He says.

"What happened with my parents?" I ask. He looks at me with a sad look. "A kid a few towns over gave me $40, said it was all the money he had. Told me what your dad did to one of his friends. I told the kid to keep his money. I didn't think there would be anyone but him in the house." He says. There are tears in his eyes.

I wrap my arms around him in a hug, the same way I did when I first met him.

*

The next morning I'm woken up by Ricky. I groan and roll out of bed, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

"Coffee?" Spencer offers me a cup. I nod and take the cup from him. I dump sugar into my coffee and stir is around before I drink it. "no creamer?"

"Makes it taste weird." I say simply.

"Told you, Spencer, he's a mini you. We're starting the drive in 3 hours, so Spencer was going to introduce you to some people." Ricky says.

Spencer nods. "Oh, cool. I'm going to get changed really quick." I say. I go into the back room and change into the pants with the straps and a black shirt with the sleeves cut off.

I come back out and Spencer and I leave the bus. We walk to the smaller bus with Bad Omens printed on the side of it. There's someone standing outside the bus on their phone.

"Hey Noah, I wanted to introduce you to someone." Spencer says. The man, who I assume is Noah, looks up. He has long-ish dark hair and a lot of tattoos.

"Oh, hey Spencer! What's up?" Noah says.

"This is Mikey, my kid. He's going to be on tour with us so don't flip out if you see him backstage." Spencer says.

Noah laughs a little. "I won't, I won't." He says. "you going to be watching from side stage?" He asks me.

"maybe, yeah. I've never really been allowed to go to concerts before." I say. Noah looks at me, then at Spencer.

"You don't let your kid go to concerts?" He asks.

"He just recently started staying with me. It's kind of a long story." Spencer says.

"I'm willing to listen if you're willing to tell me." Noah says. I look at Spencer and he nods.

"My bio-dad was really shitty. We got into another fight and he kicked me out, I had nowhere else to go, so Spencer took me in." I say.

Noah nods. "I get that. Sorry you had to go through that, dude." He says.

"It's whatever, that was a while ago." I say. Noah nods.

"You guys ready for the first show of the tour?" Spencer asks him.

"Oh yeah, me and the guys are super excited. First show is tonight, I can't wait man!" He smiles.

"Oh, by the way. I'm putting you in charge of babysitting at this show while I'm on stage. Is that okay?" Spencer asks.

"Oh, yeah, of course man, I totally get it. You going to be watching from side stage, Mikey?" Noah asks. I shrugged and looked at Spencer.

Spencer paused, thinking about it. Eventually he nods and I can't fight back the smile that spreads across my face.