“I said, get the FUCK off me, ASSHOLE!” I scream in his face pushing him away. I turn back to Marius who’s now been joined by Brad but before any of us can react, he yanks me back by my hair, and lifts his other hand and slaps me hard across the face. The strike is so hard, it blinds me, and I’m flung to the side, twisting my wrists as I try to break my fall while crumpling to the floor.
“Fucking, cockteasing slut.” He slurs and I feel his rank breath on me as he reaches for me again, leaning over me as he wraps his hand in my hair, pulling me to my feet.
“Oh my god! Cadence!” I hear Sarah yell over the music and thumping in my head.
And then, I fall to the floor again as the guy is yanked away and forced to let me go.
“Brad! Marius! No!” I hear a voice, I think it’s Hailey’s but I’m not sure as I feel someone scoop me up.
This time it really is Sebastian.
Even in my haze I curse myself, how could I have not felt this difference?
“It’s OK, Mary…” Sebastian whispers to me and the use of my nickname causes the tears to instantly spring from my eyes. My head pounds so hard I can’t help but let it fall against his chest. I let out an involuntary sob as there’s a streak of pain across the side of my head.
“Shhh, baby girl, I’ve got you. You’re OK, I’ve got you. No one’s going to get to you now.” His voice soothes me, and I let myself grow limp in his arms. Even through the pain, I feel safe and warm.
“Sebastian,” I moan softly, wanting him to know I know it’s him.
“Shhh. I’m here. Don’t you worry about a thing,” he soothes me even as I feel his chest rise and fall, and his breath hiss from the effort of carrying me and pushing through the crowds to take me to safety. I don’t know how he does it, move all the people out the way, but he never stops, not for a moment. And in that moment I have no doubt that he would part the stars to make a path to safety for me if he had to.
“Over here, Sebastian,” I vaguely hear Sarah’s voice and I can just make out that we’re now leaving the club. The sounds are fading away, and I can hear his heart thump hard against my own pulsing temple. One beat for every two of his. That’s no surprise, he has twice as much heart as me. I try to smile up at him, but his face is serious, set on just getting me out of there.
“Open the door, Hank,” I feel Sebastian’s voice rumble through his torso. There’s the sound of the car door opening, and then he lays me gently down in the back seat. Taking his jacket off, he drapes it over me, and I feel his cool hand touch me gently on my burning cheek. “God, Mary…” he sighs.
I try to sit up, to see him more clearly… to thank him but he presses gently yet firmly on my shoulder, keeping me down. “Don’t sit up, just lay there, we got you.”
Someone slides in from the other door, it must be Sarah, then the doors slam shut and it’s quiet. I try to look around but I can’t see him.
Then, from the other side of the door, the voices are muted but I can just make out him saying, “Take them back to the hotel, Hank. Go in the back way and tell Mark not to let anyone but Dennis and the band onto our hotel room floor. ”
Hank mumbles something and as he gets in the car, Sebastian finishes with, “We’ll be back later. Don’t worry about us. Take care of them.”
The car starts and drives away. Hot tears drip down my cheeks, burning my eyes, and I can just make out his blurry image through the window.
“Sebastian…” I say, trying to reach out for him and then everything fades to black.
SEBASTIAN
The moonlight bathes the room in a soft cool white glaze. As the silvery orb rises higher and higher in the night sky, I watch the shadows cast on Cadence’s face change. The soft light catches on the bridge of her nose, on her flickering eyelashes, on the curve of her lips; showing me a hundred and one different faces to her. Each one twisting tighter and tighter.
Even in the dark I can see the bruise spread further and further across her cheek and over her eye as each minute ticks by. Dark and purple, there are spidery veins running like streams over the expanse of the wound. I lean in and press the cold compress against her forehead, willing the soft, damp fabric to soak up the pain and leave her the delicate, pristine Cadence that I know.
Sarah told me that Cadence passed out for a while on the drive home, but was up and alert by the time the doctor had come to see her. They’d given her a painkiller and she’d fallen asleep by the time I’d arrived at my hotel room.
Sarah wouldn’t leave without her friend, so Marius offered to bunk with Brad for the night so she could sleep in his room that adjoins with mine.
And here I am, wondering how I could have let this happen. How, even in my presence, watching over her, Cadence is now lying in my bed, with the side of her face brutalized under the hand of a drunken idiot.
It had all happened so fast. And it was not the way tonight was supposed to end.
I had been on such a high performing tonight. It’d been the first time I’d been on stage performing since we had really gotten to know her. As with the first concert, I couldn’t keep my eyes off Cadence in the audience during the whole set. I drank it all in, the way her face lit up in those first few bars of each song, trying to figure out what we were going to play. And then the way she would lose herself in the music, dancing to the rhythm of my cello.
I couldn’t wait to get back to her in that booth. I hadn’t wasted any time pressing up against her, our heads leaning in so we could hear one other, I’d believed everything I’d said to her. These last few weeks, I’d felt like she was part of the band, and if there was the tiniest inkling of her thinking she would join, I’d fight to the death for her right to become one of us. She’s more than proven she can keep up with us, and she has the creativity and talent to only make us better.