Fifty Million Followers [BOYXBOY]

36.

The hotel isn't happy about it. Mitch Simmons isn't happy about it. I'm not happy about it. But we have to leave the hotel. We're not even allowed to stand in the lobby which is rife with sparkling crystals and a chandelier that swings from the rafters. We're bunched into a room meant for business meetings, chairs stacked to the sides and only a round wooden table for us to lean on while people and adults discuss things for us.

I can hear them outside; the shit they're saying is so personal that it feels like they've prized open my brain and are revealing everything.

I'm perverted. I brainwash with my music, and they've found the hidden meanings. Apparently, if you play our songs backwards, I'm recruiting for the homosexual agenda. I want to crawl into a corner and never come out again.

I feel Oliver's hand press into my back and rub like I'm about to give birth. When Luke and Demitri finally join us, it's Luke who strides over and grips me so hard I feel he might crush me.

"Fuck, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry." He says it a few times, and I know he means it. But people like him, everyone else; they don't understand that everything is a secret. They don't have to constantly watch out for things like this. One false move and you're not safe. If I didn't have management, security, and fans, this would all be worse. I wouldn't just be feeling sad.

Luke presses his forehead against mine, his hands shaking. I'm upset, I know I am, but he shows it more than I do, guilt and cocaine running through his veins. I want to say it but I don't; you need help, Luke.

The hotel's manager explains to us what needs to happen, how to get us out without anyone seeing, how to not get hurt, how to not cause a scene. No one but the boys look me in the eye. Demitri slumps next to me, his eyes big round holes where he's rubbed them. He's probably only just woken up, only just said goodbye to the girl he took home last night. In his pocket is his medication, and I wonder if he's spoken to Candice at all recently.

Candice isn't anywhere to be found. Luke says she can stay, that it'll be safer for her. But she wishes she was here. I wish she was here.

When Mitch finally turns to us, acknowledges us, his sunglasses are off. By the looks of it, I'm the only one of us who's seen him without them. Luke, Demi, and Oliver all take in a breathe at once, staring at the scarred eye as Mitch rolls the other one.

"Scott, you're going to be leaving separately, with me. You lot, you'll go in another car in another direction. Alan'll drive the tour bus, and hopefully all the attention will be on that. Do not tweet anything."

"No way! Scott is staying with us!" I feel Luke wrap his arm around mine. It's oddly comforting. "You can't fucking split us up; if they have beef with Scottie, then they have beef with us."

Mitch stares at him, his teeth showing as he snarls. "If you don't do as you're told, I'll give all your dealers' information to the police." We're all stunned into silence, and Luke visibly recoils. How does he know shit like that? Unless it was Mitch who hooked him up in the first place?

He carries on with how we're going to do it, and when we've got so many body guards that you'd think we were presidents, we set off on our separate ways. I have to follow Mitch, as guards flank us and I look back and just see the other three stare at me, watching me go.

Oliver, who still looks half asleep since our breakfast, starts walking slowly towards me, but a body guard stops him.

"We need to go this way, sir." He says to him as I disappear around the corner.

.....

The noise is monstrous.

It seems Mitch's idea was fucking pointless because an angry mob still bangs on the windows of the blacked out car that we're in. It seems they've split off, some staying at the front of the hotel, and some who've sussed it and have come round the back. We drive off first, the driver minding the people that are shouting utter rubbish and downright lies at me. They can't see me, but I can see them.