Part 22
Vegas July 29th
“Before we go to the party I want to find a church so we can do the candle lighting. Is that okay?” Alex asked Becca as they followed the guys inside their hotel’s casino.
“Of course it is. Just let me know when you want to go and we’ll head out,” Becca replied.
The basketball game had been over for a couple of hours now. The Knights had won and Chris, Joey and Justin were spending most of their time mocking the other guys for the sadly played game. Alex watched JC shake his head at the teasing and smiled to herself. JC was really bad at basketball.
Justin looked at his watch. “Aw, shit. Brit’s leaving soon. I better go say goodbye before she leaves. I’ll meet up with y’all later.” He gave a short wave and headed back to his hotel room.
“Well, what should we play first kiddies? A little blackjack, a little roulette?” Joey asked grinning broadly.
“I’m feeling all kinds of lucky. To the roulette table,” Chris said grinning.
“Lead the way.” Joey put his arm around Chris’s neck and they walked off towards the game.
Lance watched them go and raised his brow at JC. “Black Jack?”
“You know it,” JC replied.
Alex and Becca looked at each other and shrugged before following the two men. They couldn’t really gamble so it didn’t really matter to them where they went but Alex preferred to go with anyone but Joey. He was a heavy gambler and Alex didn’t want to be there when he would inevitable turn and ask someone to spot him a fifty.
It was a half an hour later and she and Becca were walking towards the bar when Alex decided she wanted to leave. “We might as well go now. The guys are all involved with their gambling anyway.”
“Yeah, if you want. Let me get something to drink before we go though.” Becca turned to the bartender and asked for a 7Up.
He quickly got her order and turned to Alex. “Just water for me, thanks,” Alex said and slipped the money across the bar when she got her bottle of water.
“I can’t wait for the party,” she said as they sipped their drinks. “Tonight I’m going to get very drunk and we’re going to stay out all night. It sucks that this is your last night.”
Becca smiled and poked Alex in the side with her finger.
“Let’s not think about that. We have the rest of the evening and the night to
live it up. We’ll face reality tomorrow, okay?”
Alex nodded and was about to speak when she noticed something at the corner of
her eye. She looked away blinking. No, no it couldn’t be. She glanced back
again and her face blanched. For a second the room started spinning and her
heart plummeted to the pit of her stomach.
She swung her frightened gaze to Becca before grabbing Becca’s arm.
Becca looked at her in concern noticing the sudden look of horror on Alex’s
face. “Alex, what’s wrong?”
Alex swallowed. “My fa— think I just saw…He’s here. Oh God, he’s here.” She could taste the fear in her mouth. It was cold and bitter. God, why did he have to find her? Why now?
Becca shook her head. “What? Who’s here? Who’s … Shit,” she whispered, when she saw what had caused Alex to freak out so badly. Alex’s father was making his way towards them. Becca could tell that he was angry and in less than a minute, he would be blasting that anger towards them.
She looked at Alex and when she saw that her friend was still rooted to the spot, she took matters into her own hands. She set down her glass and pulled Alex out of his line of vision. “Alex, we have to get out of here.” She took Alex’s hands and started weaving her way through the crowd. Finally they made their way out of the casino and ran into the elevator.
Alex leaned against the elevator wall, when the door
closed. She took a slow, calming breath. This wasn’t the time for her to lose
it, not when her father was on their tails. “We have to get our stuff and get
the hell out of here,” she said to Becca. “If my father doesn’t already know
which room I’m staying in he will soon.”
Becca agreed and they ran out of the elevator and made it safely into their
room. It took them only a few minutes to get their stuff together. Becca had
only brought a small suitcase with her and Alex only had her backpack. Most of
her stuff, most of the things she’d acquired during her time with the guys was
on the bus, she realized.
“We have to get to the tour bus,” she said urgently.
Becca, who'd been checking the room to make sure they hadn’t forgotten anything, turned to Alex and her brows rose in question.
“My mom’s guitar is still on it and my cheques. All the money I’ve ever made in the last few months is in a safety deposit box on the back of the bus. We have to get them,” Alex said frantically.
“Okay, okay we will … but before we do anything, Al. I was thinking … Maybe you should stick around. Let me finish,” she said lifting her hand when she saw that Alex was going to argue. “Think about it. You have these incredible influential friends now. You’re independent, you have enough money to start over … you and Kat can start over. Maybe you should go to the guys for help.”
Alex shook her head. “No, this isn’t their problem. This is my problem and I’ll fix it. I can stand on my own two feet now and as soon as I get out of this mess, I’m going to see Kat and we’ll figure it out together. I can’t burden myself on the guys. I won’t.” Alex thought of JC and her heart hurt. Was she even going to get a chance to say goodbye to him or the other guys?
Becca watched her friend and wanted to argue with her but knew that it would pointless. “If that’s what you want, okay. We should go,” she said quietly.
Alex pushed the thought of JC and the guys out of her head and nodded. She opened the door and peered outside. The hall was clear.
“We can’t risk the elevators. Chances are he’s in the lobby watching or on his way here. Let’s take the stairs,” Alex said, moving towards the south stairwell.
She slowly eased the door open and they both stepped inside. They quickly ran down the stairs until they hit the ground floor. She flipped the hood of her sweatshirt up over her head and tightened the straps of the backpack on her shoulders. She glanced back at Becca, who was fiddling with the strap of her suitcase, before she slowly opened the door to the back of the building.
As soon as she stepped outside, she stopped. Her eyes fell on Justin and Britney who were talking in front of a car just a few feet in front of them. Alex knew Justin enough to know that as soon as he saw them he’d ask why they were there and Alex wasn’t in the mood for deception.
She turned around and tried to push Becca back through the door. “Go back,” she whispered. Becca seeing the two nodded and turned back to get the door.
But it was too late. The door had already closed and as it was locked from the outside, they couldn’t get back in.
“Alex?”
Alex swore under her breath and turned to see Justin coming towards them.
“You two going somewhere?” he asked, his eyes falling on their bags.
“Uh, no, we’re just putting our bags on the bus early. You know, so we don’t have to do it tomorrow,” Alex improvised.
Justin looked at Becca. “I didn’t know you were coming with us. I thought you were leaving tomorrow.”
“Uh…” Becca blinked.
Alex jumped in. “I begged Becca to stay a few extra days and she finally agreed.”
Justin raised his brows. “Oh…So wait, why are you loading your stuff already? We don’t leave until late tomorrow afternoon.”
Alex searched for an answer to the question but couldn’t think of anything. I’m all lied out, she thought.
Becca seeing Alex’s distress quickly stepped in. “I’m getting a manicure at the hotel salon tomorrow and I don’t want to ruin the job doing any heavy lifting. It would be tragic if I like, broke a nail.” Becca widened her eyes, giving him a vapid look.
Justin’s brows sloped down in a frown as he looked at Becca. He opened his mouth to say something but Britney called over to him. “Justin, come on! I’m leaving.” She was leaning against the car with an impatient look on her face.
Justin sighed and called back. “Gimme a second.”
“You go,” Alex said quickly. “We’ll talk to you later.” Alex took Becca’s arm and started walking away when she realized that this would probably the last time she saw him. She ignored the tight feeling in her chest and turned back to him. “Hey Justin?”
“Yeah?” he said, turning back towards them.
Alex paused suddenly at a loss for words.
He lifted his arms in annoyance. “What?”
She smirked at the expression on his face. She was going to miss him, attitude and all. “I’ll see ya,” she finally said.
Justin dropped his arms and gave Alex a perplexed look. “Later.”
Alex nodded and with her hand still gripping Becca’s arm she walked away.
“Saying goodbye, huh?” Becca said perceptively when they were out of his earshot.
“Yeah.” Alex shrugged. “Anyway, the buses should be just around the corner.” She let go of Becca’s arm, walked around the corner and stopped.
Becca was following behind her so closely this time that she ran right into Alex’s back. “Ooph! Jesus, woman, learn how to walk.”
Alex watched as her father turned quickly at the sound of Becca’s voice. He wasn’t so close that there wasn’t time to turn back and run but he was close enough for Alex to see the triumph on his face. He thought he had her. He was wrong.
Becca gasped when she saw him. “How did he—“
”Who cares,” Alex said interrupting her. “Let’s go!” She pushed Becca around
the corner and they both picked up their feet to run. Alex said a silent prayer
of thanks when she saw that Justin and Britney had already left.
“Alexandria! You come back here girl.” Alex could hear her father calling from behind her. She looked back. He wasn’t very close but his words still travelled over to them.
Alex ignored the fear that resided in the pit of her stomach and picked up her pace. The concrete was hard under their feet as they ran across the parking lot to the front of the building.
She glanced behind her again and saw that her father was still behind him. He was running hard but he still couldn’t compete against their youth.
They finally made it to the street. It was early evening but Vegas was very much alive. The crowd was dense and Alex and Becca easily disappeared into the throng.
“We can’t go back,” Becca said. “If he looks around and doesn’t find us, he’ll just head back to the hotel.”
Alex sighed. “I know. But my guitar … momma’s guitar,” she whispered. Leaving the guitar broke her heart but she knew she had no choice. She had to leave the city, get out of the state...go to Kat.
“I’m sorry, hun,” Becca said, putting her arm around Alex and Alex willed herself not to cry.
“Me too.”
They walked a few minutes in silence before Becca spoke. “Any idea how to get to the station?” she asked.
“I think I saw one somewhere around here when we went to that party last night,” Alex said blankly.
Becca aware of Alex’s mood didn’t comment on how unhelpful that was and instead stopped someone to ask for directions. It took them twenty minutes to walk to the bus station and Becca grimaced when she saw the shady looking characters hanging outside.
They walked through the door and stood in line to get their tickets. Becca let her suitcase strap slip from her shoulder and put the bag on the floor. Alex unzipped her backpack and reached in for her wallet. She groaned when a thought hit her. She had spent all her cash when she and Becca had gone shopping and the rest of her money was on the tour bus.
“Becca, I hate to ask you this but do you have any cash?”
Becca grimaced. “I was just thinking that myself. After our little shopping trip yesterday, I think I might have fifty bucks to my name and that won’t be enough for the two of us.”
Alex didn’t let herself panic. She grabbed her wallet and opened it. She prayed as she counted the bills that she had left. Ten dollars. Was that it? She mentally kicked herself for never opening a bank account. JC had always cashed her cheques for her when she needed money. Not that she’d really needed it. Management had always taken care of everything.
“How much do you have?” Becca asked as they moved up the
line.
”Ten and change,” Alex said sighing.
Becca’s face grew thoughtful. “How about you use the money I have and go? Sixty might be enough for you to get to Kat’s from here.”
Alex shook her head. “What and leave you here? No way, Becca.”
“I still have that plane ticket for tomorrow, remember? I’ll just find away to get to the airport and then I’ll be good.”
Alex’s face turned resolute. “No. The only way for you to do that is to go back to the hotel and ask the guys. I don’t want you going back there – my dad will find you, besides if you go back it’ll alert the guys that I’m missing.”
“Maybe I could—“
“No, Becca, I’m not leaving you. That’s final. There has to be a way.”
“Next.” The ticket agent called and the two girls realized that they were next in line.
“Umm, two tickets to Fresno please. One way,” Alex said politely.
The ticket agent typed in the information and glanced back at her. “That’ll be $118.”
Becca and Alex looked at each other warily before turning back to the ticket agent. “It’ll just be one second,” Alex said to the man.
She rummaged through her bag, hoping that by some miracle she’d find an extra sixty dollars lying around. Who was she kidding? She had nothing. She heard Becca ask if they could pay with both her ATM card and cash and the agent said yes. Becca took out her card, gave it to him before quickly punching in her numbers.
Alex looked in her bag one more time. She opened the front pocket and found nothing. There was a tiny zipped compartment and she checked in it even though she knew that it would be empty. But when her fingers brushed against something papery, she grasped it and drew it out.
She looked at it and her eyes widened. Oh My God. It was a hundred dollars. Where in the hell did it come from?
“It’ll be sixty-eight dollars for the rest,” she heard the ticket agent say to Becca impatiently and she almost shouted in glee. Who cared where it came from? Not all was lost.
“Here you go,” she said handing the bill to the ticket agent.
Becca raised her brow and Alex grinned at her. “Money from God, B. Money from God.”
Becca laughed and they both waited for the agent to give them their tickets.
“Thirty two dollars is your change,” he said after he cashed the money. “Here are your tickets. The next bus is at 9:30pm.”
Alex checked her watch. It had just turned eight’ o’clock.
An hour and a half wasn’t a very long time but she knew that it would take forever to pass by. Her father wasn’t stupid and when he figured out that they weren’t returning to the hotel, he might search all the bus terminals in the vicinity. Alex just hoped that he wouldn’t figure it out in time.