Day Seven: Detroit

I wake up screaming and several concerned voices appear at my bunk. Jason

opens my curtain and asks if I am ok. I get up, still panting and apologize for waking

everyone. I tell them I’m fine and to get back to sleep. I notice that Reagan, Dom and

Jason want to follow me when I walk to the stairs. Having assured them I’m fine and

just need to get myself a drink, they get back in their bunks. When I’m downstairs I sit

down on the couch to catch my breath and try to collect my thoughts. I am so

ashamed of having a nightmare and waking everybody like this. Suddenly I see Connor

from the corner of my eye. He gets some stuff from the kitchen and hands me a glass.

“Drink this.” he says.

He sits down next to me and sips his own drink while looking straight ahead. I

sit back, close my eyes and hold the cold drink against my forehead. I sigh deeply and

try to think of something to say. I take a sip of my drink and almost spit it out again.

“This is pure Vodka!”

“Yeah. Figured you needed something stronger than water.” he answers dryly.

“Well, thank you. I appreciate it.” I say trying to hide the fact that I’m not

much of a hard liquor drinker.

I take another sip and try to keep a straight face. Noticing a crooked smile on

his face I figure that I must not have been hiding it as well as I thought. Not knowing

what to say I quietly finish my drink and he does the same.

“You OK now?” he asks.

Without looking at him I shake my head and say: “No, I still need some time.”

Expecting him to get up to go upstairs I decide to stay behind to try to shake off

the dream I had. It was about Moe seriously getting hurt in a fight over me and Connor

being so pissed that he kicks me off the tour. I curl up on the couch and start flicking

through some magazine, when I notice that Connor hasn’t moved from his seat after

all.

“I was dreaming about Moe getting hurt real bad in some fight over me and you

got so mad at me that you sent me home.” I blurt out before I can stop myself.

I wait for a reply, but he doesn’t give me one and just stares at me. Feeling

extremely self-conscious I focus on the magazine in my hands. When I look up from it

again I see that he is messing with his phone.

After a while I start feeling sleepy again, so I get up from my seat and say:

“Thanks for this. I think I’ll be alright now, so I’m going to go upstairs again.”

Not waiting for his reply I walk to the stairs and go up to my bunk. I fall asleep

thinking about how nice it was to just sit with someone without having to talk and how

surprisingly comfortable I felt with Connor. The next time I wake up I look at my

watch and see that it is already 1:00 p.m. I get out of my bunk and walk downstairs.

As soon as I sit down with a soda in my hand everyone looks at me. The reason for

staring is obvious, because they want to know what was wrong last night. I’m too

embarrassed to tell them the actual story, so I take a moment to think of something

else to say.

“Sorry about last night, I don’t know what happened. I guess I was just having a

bad dream.” I say keeping a light tone as if it was nothing.

Luckily it is a bus full of guys, so they don’t go on about it and go back to what

they were doing. I quietly sip my drink and just listen to the different conversations.

Then I go upstairs to get dressed and take out my laptop to write. Before I know it we

pull into the venue’s parking lot, we have arrived in Detroit. I decide to keep out of

the way for a while and get some more writing done. A little over an hour later

Reagan walks up to me and lets me know they are done setting up and stuff, so if I

want to it is save to come down now. I laugh at the fact that it was so obvious to him

that I was trying to avoid being in the way. As I follow Reagan outside I see another

night liner next to ours as well as a big van. That must be Sunrise Falls’ van and Gods

of Hell’s night liner. A couple of guys come over to us and Reagan introduces us. They

are the guys from Sunrise Falls. Talking to them for a while they turn out to be very

nice guys. When Reagan starts talking about the tour so far I excuse myself and walk

to the entrance of the club. I am very curious what this place looks like on the inside.

From the outside it looks like a big warehouse or something with that loading dock

next to the door. I enter the club from the backstage area, walk the hallway that

leads to the main hall and stand in the middle. I make a 360 degree turn to take in the

whole place; it is pretty big and there is even a balcony in a U-shape around the stage

with the light table opposite the stage. I walk over to the door to go up the stairs and

as I open it I hear Moe’s voice. He is threatening someone to stay out of his way if he

doesn’t want to get hurt.

The other guy’s response to this is: “Whatever dude!”

To make sure nothing happens, I get into view and clear my throat. Moe backs

away at once and walks past me out the door, clearly on edge. At the same time the

other guy comes over and in a way too smooth voice says: “Well, hello! And who might

you be, gorgeous?”

When he starts touching my hair, I push his hand away and say while backing

away from him: “I’m Skylar. I’m writing a story about Dreads on Fire.”

He starts laughing. “Really? Well, you’re probably bored out of your brain then.

I can show you a good time though.”

He tries to pin me to the wall, but I get away in time and move towards the exit

of the club quickly. Just as he reaches me again and tries to grab my arm, Connor

walks into the club. The guy uses my hesitation to his advantage taking hold of my arm

and defiantly glares at Connor. Scared as hell my self-defense training kicks in and I

manage to break free. Preventing the guy from grabbing hold of me again Connor tells

me to leave and without looking back I quickly move out the door. To make sure

nothing else happens I rush over to the bus.

Gino is standing right outside and sees the frantic look on my face. “Are you

ok?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I ran into that creep from Gods of Hell just now. I think I should

stick with one of you guys tonight.” I explain.

Gino is clearly pissed off, but then looks at me and says: “Just stick with me.

I’ll make sure that f****r can’t get near you.”

The rest of the evening goes by without a hitch, until after the Dreads on Fireshow.

Somehow during loading Moe has heard about what happened earlier and takes

that as an excuse to confront the guy. They start fighting right between the night

liners. Things get really out of hand, just like in my dream, and the Dreads-night liner

gets damaged. One of our drivers sees it happen and goes berserk. Connor comes

rushing over as well as the tour manager from Gods of Hell. They force the two apart

and send them to their buses. Meanwhile our bus driver threatens to take the bus and

leave us all behind. Feeling horrible about this whole thing I start talking to him to

calm him down until he agrees to stay. Walking back to the guys to tell them the good

news I realize how real my nightmare almost became. Everyone is relieved when I let

them know the driver is staying. Connor walks over to the driver, tells him something

and gets on the bus.

After a couple of minutes he comes back and orders everybody to go inside.

“We’re leaving right away. We can’t afford to let things get out of hand again.”

When we have all taken a seat, the bus starts driving.