Not wanting to endanger myself any further, I turned and fled the room. For the first time since this tour began, I couldn’t find a single person. Not a damn roadie in sight. There were usually people running around, doing something, but nobody was backstage. It was like a ghost town. Cursing my bad luck, I ran to the one spot I knew held people . . . lots of people. It was where I needed to go anyway, since Griffin was in that room.
I could hear squeaks and squeals as I approached the room, and figured the parade past the rock stars had just begun. The doors were wide open when I got there, and a few excited fans were just starting to trickle out. Some had red cheeks, like they’d been crying. Needing to get to Griffin, I breezed past them. One gasped and exclaimed, “Is that Kellan’s whore?” Another replied, “Yeah, I think it is. I can’t believe her nerve. What is she doing here?”
I gritted my jaw and ignored them. I had much more important things on my plate right now than gossip. When I burst into the room, my eyes instantly locked on Kellan. His went wide when he saw me. Alarm spread over his features as clear as day. He knew I wouldn’t come in here unless it was absolutely necessary. I knew the fans would take his alarm as panic—Oh no, my mistress is in the same room as my girlfriend—but I knew that Kellan sensed something was wrong, very wrong.
Standing beside Sienna, he tried to step forward to get to me, but the crowd of fans wasn’t letting him move. He wasn’t who I needed to see, though.
Ignoring him, I cut through the twisting lines of fans to get to Griffin. That got me a lot of unwanted attention. A silence fell around me that quickly turned into harsh whispers. I made out a lot of “It’s her! She’s here! What a bitch!” As people started realizing who I was, people started reacting. At first, they just wouldn’t let me get through them. I asked politely, I nudged, but it was like the wall of fans had suddenly turned to stone; they all had questions, and they weren’t moving until they got some answers. Panic set in. My sister was going to have a baby. She needed her husband. I needed to get through. That’s all I could think about. In my haste, I started shoving through them. None too thrilled with me, they shoved right back. While the area around me started turning into a mosh pit, I did start making some progress . . . especially when they started shoving me from behind. Hey, whatever it took to get me to Griffin.
Just as I was almost to him, I was shoved up against some tough-looking girl sporting a bright pink fauxhawk. She also was wearing a Kell-Sex shirt. I wanted to sigh when the recognition flashed in her eyes. She didn’t even give me a chance to politely excuse myself so I could move around her. No, much to the delight of everyone around her, she full on slapped me. I’d never been slapped before, and I had a newfound appreciation for how much it sucked. I vowed to never hit a human being again, even if they deserved it.
My left ear was ringing, but I clearly heard Kellan shout, “Hey!” There was commotion behind me, but I took the fans’ moment of distraction to finally make my way to Griffin. His eyes were just as wide as Kellan’s had been. “Holy shit, she actually hit you. You okay?”
Anger clouded Griffin’s face as he glared at the fauxhawked fan. Not needing him to defend my honor right now, I grabbed his hand. “Anna’s in labor. Her water broke. We have to get her to a hospital . . . now!”
His mouth dropped. “She’s . . .” His eyes flashed to the door blocked by hundreds of fans no longer waiting patiently in organized lines. I could hear Tory trying to calm them down, and I could hear Kellan calling my name. I ignored it all as I focused on Griffin. His eyes came back to mine, concerned. “She okay?”
I shook my head and pulled on his arm. “No . . . she’s freaking out, and I had to leave her alone to come find you.”
Griffin nodded, then started shoving his way forward. He wasn’t as nice or as polite as I’d been. “Get the fuck out of my way!” Still holding my hand, he pulled me through the sea of startled fans. Matt and Evan tried to follow, but they were swallowed up by the crowd closing in behind our wake. When I passed by Kellan, I yelled over the din, “Anna! Hospital!”
Kellan understood immediately and turned to Sienna. The poor, frazzled fans in the room had absolutely no clue what was going on, but they took the chaos I’d created as an opportunity to bypass social politeness and swarm their beloved stars. Kellan was crushed back into the wall by eager people wanting his attention. The fans not close enough to love on him hated on me. I was cursed at, tripped, and I’m pretty sure someone spat in my hair. Griffin pulled me through the mayhem and out into the relative safety of the hallway. Things 1 and 2 rushed into the room after we left. I hoped they took the time to free Kellan as well as Sienna. I quickly prayed his fans wouldn’t hurt him, then rushed after Griffin toward my sister.