The Last Tour {COMPLETED}

Chapter Five: Routine

Chapter Five

Routine

Three in the morning, after a meager four hours of sleep, Jade was woken by a member of the road crew. Two guys Jade didn't even know the names of packed up the few things he had brought into the hotel, then escorted him to the tour bus.

The idea of a tour bus was really rather ridiculous seeing as though none of the Eclipse members actually spent the night in it. The only purpose the bunks served were junk storage and day time sleeping.

Then again, Jade was quite thankful there was a tour bus as he stepped onto it and was shown to a bunk he could crash in.

"Three more hours," one of the workers told him, pointing to the bunk. "Then rehearsal starts at Wickwood stadium. Sweet dreams."

The seventeen-year-old collapsed into the bunk without hesitation, yanking closed the little blue curtain that hung over it with one sweep of his arm. Moments later, he was fast asleep.

But the three hours were up all too soon. Jade woke with a gasp to someone shaking him. He blinked quickly, his eyes meeting those of the same guy who had shown him to his bunk. "Rise and shine," the guy said with a slightly sarcastic smile.

"What...what time is it?" Jade asked faintly, brushing the back of his hand over his eyes.

"Six A.M.," came the answer. "And welcome to Wickwood Stadium. There's a lot of work to do, so please get dressed and come with me."

'Getting dressed' did not involve much for Jade as he tended to sleep in jeans and a decent shirt. He went to the bathroom, washed his face to wake up, then walked back out and told the guy he was ready.

Jade was led out of the tour bus and into the dim haze of very early morning light. The air was cold, and Jade shivered in his tee-shirt. But he said nothing of it as he was led across a long stretch of lawn toward the stage setup of the stadium Eclipse was performing in that night. This was supposed to be a five-hour concert, but whenever the place was this huge, one could go ahead and assume the show would last an hour longer than planned. That would mean, as the show started at eight—safely after nightfall—it would end around three or four in the morning.

* * * *

From the darkness of early morning to the glaring sunlight of mid-afternoon, rehearsal and preparation ran.

Jade was running solely on caffeine by the time evening approached. Sitting on a foldable chair in what was usually a sports team locker room, he found his mind was a mess of contradictory impulses. Part of him was waiting in fear—waiting for the realization that regardless of his career, regardless of his name, regardless of this last tour he had decided to go on, he could not escape his misery. But the other half of him was alive with recklessness—knowledge that at this point, nothing mattered. He should do something crazy: go to a club, hook up with a girl, drink himself sick, cause a scandal...But it was all superficial thought.

In the end, it all seemed to sizzle out into that stifling numbness...Knowledge of the fact that it just didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

Someone dropped down suddenly into the chair beside Jade's, causing him to gasp and look up quickly.

His eyes met the grinning face of Amber Kakaya. "Excited, Puppy?" she asked mockingly. Then, tilting her head with artificial concern, "Oh, but you don't look very excited...what's wrong, Baby?"

"I'm not your fucking baby," Jade replied. His words were sharp, but his tone was so dull, it made the words sound meaningless.

"I got the perfect outfit picked out for you for tonight," Amber said. Her entire body was practically shivering with excitement. She was vibrant with it, but Jade only blinked at her like a dead child, staring at a portrait of his previous self in an the abandoned wreck that had once been his family's home.