Real Ugly (Hard Rock Roots #1)

Chapter Eleven: Naomi Knox

I thought I'd feel good fucking with Turner. Instead, I just feel sick and weak and end up collapsing into bed, coke be damned. When I dream that night, my head is full of blood and birds and gravestones. Not exactly the best images to wake up to.

The morning doesn't get any better; Hayden is whining about not feeling safe, and America is talking about hiring us a bodyguard while Dax postures around the bus with his eyes narrowed out the windows, looking for some mystery culprit that he's supposedly going to destroy when he finds them.

I sigh and ignore them all, climbing into the shower and turning on the water as hot as I can get it.

I don't want to talk about the bird thing anymore – it's just fucking weird. Demented. Insane. It has to be the person who sent the video, obviously, but that doesn't help me figure out a possible culprit. In fact, it makes it even harder for me to hazard a guess. I just want to ignore it and hope it goes away. I can only handle one detrimental, life altering secret at a time surfacing, and it seems like I'm about to drown in the Turner thing.

Why is this so freaking hard for you, Naomi? Just walk up to the man and say, 'Hey, you helped me out once, but then you ruined me. I loved you, and you broke me.' I shiver. Yeah, I'm sure that would go over real, real well. I wash myself quickly and get out, stepping out of the bathroom in just a towel, and find myself face to face with Turner.

His hands slam against the wall on either side of me and force me back a step, effectively pinning me in the tiny square of tiled spaced in front of the toilet.

He's glaring at me, and his dark eyes are fierce, cutting through the air between us like swords, slicing up the silence and shedding its blood. His lips are pursed so tight that the piercings on either side are poking out at me like accusatory fingers. He's got on a black Amatory Riot shirt, and this time, I know he knows exactly who we are.

"Turning the Key on the Past?" he asks me, stating the name of one of our most popular songs. "Is that supposed to be subtle, Knox?" My lip curls up in the corner, and I wonder where the fuck the rest of my band is, where America and Spencer are, and why they just let him walk in here like this.

"I don't like people in my face, Turner, so back the fuck off. And don't call me Knox. This isn't the fucking military. The name's Naomi." Turner slams his palm against the wall hard.

"Who are you?" he screams at me, and I have to resist the urge to knee him in the nuts. I'm pretty fucking sure that the asshole would press charges, and with last month's fiasco combined with the bird murderer psychopath fuck, it's just too risky. "And what do you want from me?"

"Want from you?" I ask with a bitter laugh. The towel slips and I just let it go, standing there proud and pissed and naked and fierce with hot moisture clinging to my skin and wet hair kissing my lips. Turner's eyes fuck me from head to toe and the leg of his pants bulges with the swelling of his cock. "Sort of seems like you're the one that wants something from me. You've been pursuing me, remember? You're the one that's following me around like a lost, little, puppy."

"Fuck you," he spits, stepping closer to me, driving me back. His skin is covered in sweat and his hair is mussy. I'm doubting he got any fucking sleep last night. Good. He can suffer along with me. "You seem to know me a hell of a lot better than I know you. I want to know why. You a stalker or something?"

I spit in his face and he reaches out suddenly and snatches my wrist, dragging me forward and pressing me against the length of his body. His cock grinds into my crotch and his lips graze mine. But I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid of anyone or anything. My hand travels up the wall in the bathroom and slips into the tiny drawer on my left. The hunting knife appears in my hand.

"You want the short answer or the long?"

"Don't you think you owe me both?" Turner asks, and then I've got the blade up and forward, pressing into his throat, teasing blood, loosing his grip, pushing him back into the row of bunks. I don't look at the star tattoos near his hair or the sleeve of color that crawls up his muscular arm; I just look into the black devil heart of a man who doesn't care, who can't bother to care, who's too entitled to see what's right in front of him.

"From the trailer park, a rising star," I say as I quote a magazine article I read so long ago. I think I was sixteen then and Turner was twenty-one, the perfect idol. "I thought you were so amazing." I laugh, harsh and dry. "God, I should've known better." I drop the knife and step back. Turner lets me go, watching me with wide, wide eyes. "I worshipped you back then, you know? I thought that if you could do it, if you could escape the hell you grew up in and make something of yourself, so could I. And the idea that you could use music to do it? Well, shit, Turner, I thought I was in love with you."

"You're the girl ... the one ... "

Turner stops talking and runs a hand through his blue-black hair. I let the knife fall to my side and look down at his hand, at the wolf tattoos and the paw prints etched into his skin. The only sound on the bus is the soft drip, drip, drip of water on the floor as it slides over my suddenly hot skin and is replaced almost immediately with sweat. Angry tears prick my eyes.

"I went to your show in Tulsa when I was in a bad place. Made the mistake of hitching a ride home with an older guy." The memory runs through my mind and rage explodes in my skull. "He told me I owed him for the ride home, and pushed me over the trunk of his car. He was going to rape me, but you helped me stop him, do you remember that?"

"Naomi Knox. Oh my fucking God." Turner grips his head hard, and his eyes go wide. He's not looking at me anymore, but at my ankle. Where the tattoo is. The one that says Turner Dakota Campbell. Suddenly, he's exploding into action and scrambling at his shirt, tearing it away from his skin and throwing it to the floor, scratching at his back like he's got an itch. When he turns around, I see it. It's still there, surrounded by paw prints in the center of his shoulder blades. Naomi Isabelle Knox.

Turner spins back around and just stares at me with wide eyes and a heaving chest.

"You slept with me and then you left me, Turner." The knife falls to the floor with that same sound, that very same sound, crowding my head with memories, lacing my chest with pain. "You left me there, and then I got pregnant, and I had to make the hardest choice I've ever made. I had to say goodbye to your baby, Turner, and then I had to start over again."

I take a step backwards into the bathroom and slam the door in his face.