Jett (19 page)

Back then, I think a part of me always knew we would end up together.  But I wasn’t counting on the explosion.  I wasn’t counting on being ripped out of my life because of a childish mistake I had made.  I wasn’t counting on her becoming famous, or needing my help because of a fucking madman.  I wasn’t counting on all the shit that would get in the way over the years.  But now that they were there, I was determined to slay every one of them until there was nothing left between me and Jett but skin.  

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The rain kept pelting the top of the car.  When Jett jumped in that car outside of the hotel, I was ready.  I knew I needed to be in my car, ready to go, waiting. Waiting for my dirty girl.  Even the rain wouldn’t wash her clean, no matter how hard it came down. It wouldn’t stop as much as I wished it would.  I didn’t want to think about Mother right now.  But the rain.  The fucking rain.  The tin shed.  The yelling.  Mother.

No!

I kept trying to shake it off, making myself count backwards from ten, to keep myself present, to remember that I wasn’t there anymore, but every ping of every drop landing on the metal roof as I followed Jett out of the city made me have to start over again.

Ten, nine, eight….it’s not real anymore, Jack, it’s all in the past.

Seven, six…ping, ping, ping….stop it, please stop!

Ten, nine, eight….Mother’s dead now, Jack, it’s all over.

Seven, six, five….yes, that’s it.  Jett.  Think about Jett.  You’re here for Jett.

Four, three…ping! ping! PING!…The shed is still there, Jack, still waiting for you, Mother wants you to go in there, Jack.

Shaking, I gripped the steering wheel tighter, my eyes glued to Jett’s taillights in front of me.

Ten, nine, eight…

****

I approached him from behind.  He was sleeping in a chair in the hallway.  I knew how to come up on him silently, I had learned it in the war.  I had learned it the hard way.  The only way.

They tried to give you instructions, but you had to learn on your own, really.  Nobody could tell you how to act in a moment like that, when you’re forced to choose between some stranger’s life and your own.  You shoot, and you figure it out later.  Or, you fight, and you figure out each move in the moment.  Nothing about war is predictable, so you have to be prepared for anything.  You learn, you adapt, and you find clever ways to kill people.

It’s part of the job.

Killing that biker had been part of the job, too.  I had a mission.  A goal.  And he was standing between that goal and me.  It helped that he was an easy target, dozing off in a chair with his back turned.

He didn’t have time to struggle, or fight, or even stand up.  A quick slice, and he was gone - a bloody pile of useless, dirty flesh.

I could have gone into the room then.  But I knew the other one wouldn’t have been so easy to take, and I wasn’t in any hurry.  Jett was already filthy, time wasn’t really an issue.  I had plenty of time.  I knew killing this one would shake her up, more than any of my packages and letters ever had, and I wanted to see what would happen, how she would react.

So, I left him there, knowing they would find him as soon as they crawled out of their bed of sin.  Let them have their night.  After the entire scene at the strip club, I was disgusted with her anyway.  She had acted like a whore.  

I had sat at the bar for hours, watching in the mirror behind the bar at her antics with the strippers.  She was shameless, that’s what she was.  She needed a little humility.  She needed to realize that she couldn’t just do whatever she wanted in life, and there not be any consequences.  

She had people to think about.  An image to uphold.  

She had been my saint, my savior, my companion, in my darkest hours, the one sweet voice of hope singing in my ears as I killed man after man, their slick blood dripping off my hands as I closed my eyes and listened to my sweet love whispering in my ear.  

If she had meant that much to me, I could only imagine what she meant to other people.  Surely, there were other, darker souls out there than mine.

By cleansing Jett, I would essentially be saving humanity, giving the human race just a little bit of hope back.  The world was a painful, dirty place, and it needed the kind of light that only my Jett could provide.

By the time she pulled off the highway onto a desolate, gravel road, we were the only two drivers under the dark, grey sky.  I drove past her, continuing on the highway a half mile or so, where I pulled over and into a small turnoff.  It was perfect.  Quickly, I ran back down the highway to where she had turned off, and then hid back in the dense trees as I made my way down the side of the gravel road.  The road went on for several yards until it finally veered off to the right and down a small hill.  If it had been nighttime, I wouldn’t have been able to see the cabin at all.  Hidden at the bottom of the hill, her car was parked right in front of it.  I snuck up to the cabin, and peered in the window.  She was standing in front of the fireplace, staring off into space.  She had taken her shoes off, making me think she was probably going to be staying here for a while.  It was perfect.  

She was exactly where I wanted her.  

As long as nobody else came along, I could put my plan into place perfectly.

My cock twitched as I realized just how close I was to her.  I sniffed the air, a faint hint of lavender lingering in the air.  

The rain had let up as I was looking through the window, and I hadn’t even noticed until now.  Without the sound of that tin roof over my head, I could almost enjoy the rain.

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The cabin was exactly as I had left it, if you overlooked the inch of dust on everything.  It was almost as if I had never left.  Only I had, unfortunately.  

If I had never left, like I had fantasized about doing that weekend years ago? Everything would be different.

Colt wouldn’t have his life ruined.

Jesse wouldn’t be dead.

All those people that work for Jett, Incorporated - Seth, Sam, King, everyone at the label, the secretaries, the executives to everyone on the road with us, the roadies, the musicians in my band, the techs, my stylists, the production managers, the lighting guys, the sound guys, the merchandise managers, the tour manager, and all of their spouses and children? They would have all gone on to find other jobs by now.  Jett, Inc. would be a distant memory to them.  

Not a production that they depended on to feed their kids tomorrow night.

The cabin was amazing, better than I remembered it, actually.  But I couldn’t shake the awful guilt, no matter how much I tried to feel peaceful.

Everything was awful, in so many different fucked-up ways, and it was all my fault.

I knew that I had done the right thing, though, no matter how much it would hurt people now.  In time, they would re-build their lives, find another job, find another puppet to work for.  

I had become nothing but poison, and I had to remind myself over and over that I was doing the right thing by just being alone.  

Nobody needed to be subjected to my bullshit anymore.  With any luck, the public would forget about me, too, and I could just go on with my life like a normal person.

I looked around the cabin, my fingers caressing the edges of the kitchen cabinet, and then the dining room chairs, and the charming, stone fireplace.  I shuddered, realizing just how cold it was in here.  

The fireplace was the only source of heat.  There wasn’t any wood in there, but I remembered the shed out back that was filled with a cord of wood that had come with the place when I bought it.  I had been so happy to have my own house for the first time, I smiled at the memory of the wood arriving.  

I could have gathered it from the surrounding woods, but when I tried chopping it up myself, it was a laughable failure.  In a moment of weakness, I had made a phone call and the next day a pick up truck had shown up with a handsome cowboy ready to load it all into my shed for me.  Easy, and it came with the bonus of getting to watch his muscles dance as he heaved all that wood.

I pulled a hoodie out of my bag, and put it on, pulling the hood over my head, and my boots back on before I stepped outside.  The shed was all the way in the back of the property, and with each step, my boots sank into the fallen, soaked pine needles that covered the ground.  

Tall trees swayed around me, the wind whipping the rain through them ferociously as I approached the shed.  The latch opened easily, and the heavy doors squeaked as I pulled them open slowly.  Just as I remembered - a huge pile of dry wood just waiting for me to burn it up.  I smiled to myself for the first time, and then immediately felt guilty for it.

Jesse was dead.  I had no right to smile.

I sighed, and gathered as much wood in my arms as I could carry, and then kicked the doors closed with my boot.  I was almost to the back door of the cabin when I heard a crunch behind me.

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I searched all day, and once evening began to set in, and I still hadn’t found her, I started to lose hope.  Fear began to settle deep into my gut, and although outwardly I tried to stay calm, I was becoming more frantic with each passing hour.

Rhododendron was part of three sister towns that encompassed Mt. Hood Village, a sprawling forested area that made up a huge portion of the foothills of the mountain.  It was all densely forested, with endless roads that branched off the highway into the woods, with even more endless roads branching off of those roads.  Some of them seemed to go on forever.

In the beginning, I had set out to methodically go down each and every one until I had covered every road, every tiny gravel road that disappeared into the woods and not turning around till I had reached a dead end.  It was obvious that people were private and kept to themselves here.  And the roar of my bike, of Hal’s bike, made it impossible to be inconspicuous.