Ripping Wounds [James Hetfield]

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟓

"Hey, Lexy! Where did you go?" Cracking voice collided with the loud music came from a guy who sat beside the driver.

"Not much, just a coffee shop and record store," Lexy replied shortly as she closed her eyes, trying to get a quick nap.

The guy who was talking earlier, turned his body around to look at Lexy who's sitting on the backseat with another young man.
"Ooh did you find the latest Maiden album? The Number of the Beast?" The excited note was pronounced clearly while he was talking, and he didn't even try to hide his brightened face.

A complain came from a boy who sat across Lexy, "here we go again. . ."
The boy with jet black hair called Syd rolled his eyes and grumbled.

"It's released months ago, moron." The driver, who was also Lexy's friend, responded to his friend's word about Iron Maiden which was followed by another complain from Syd and a giggle from Lexy. His hands were hitting the steering wheel, following the songbeats.

"And you can't stop listening to it." Syd added.

"You weirdos wouldn't understand how great the album is! It's a masterpiece, Lexy would agree with this one, right?" He said while looking at Lexy for approval.

"He's out of line, but he's right," said Lexy with both her eyes still closed, until she realized something.
"I did buy the album actually—" she jumped off her seat, looking for the vinyl she'd bought earlier, in case she'd sat over it but she couldn't find anything. "Oh fuck."

"Where is it?" Syd asked mockingly, knowing well that his friend was terribly clumsy.

". . . I think I left it at coffee shop, nevermind," she shrugged and sat back to her seat, trying to get back the quick nap she had.

A train of complaints came from the Iron-Maiden-fanboy named Luke once he learned that Lexy left his favorite album at the coffee shop, even though he owned one. Lexy couldn't careless, while the rest of the guy shot him with curses because his unnecessary talks were interrupting the music.

Trying to look as ignorant as possible, but Lexy actually was thinking where she left the record she'd just bought. She had listen to the album countless time with Luke, but didn't own one because he always forced her to listen to it and she ended up being obsessed with Iron Maiden. Well, it's also worth of some money, wasn't it?

The squabbling sound from her friends, the loud metal music going on, weren't as noisy as her reversed mind. She's looking back the memories when she entered the coffee shop, ate sandwich, and had a conversation with James. Instead of recalling the record, she remembered James told her that his band had a song in a compilation album called Metal Massacre.

Her eyes widened as soon as she recalled the Metal Massacre album and she stepped in the middle of arguments her friends were having.
"Do you guys have the Metal Massacre album?"

"What's that?" Lexy then explained to Syd what kind of album was that.

The driver who had goldie locks of hair, reached into storage space on the car's dashboard where he usually kept his cassette collection. Without leaving his sight to the road, he lifted the cassette and asked, "this one?"

"Yeah yeah," she nodded quickly, "can you put that on?"

Song by song flowing through the 8-track player and so far, everyone enjoyed the fast, aggresive music since that was their favorite type of music. Cold Day in Hell, Octave, Fighting Backwards, and finally the song Lexy had been waiting for, Hit the Lights. She didn't recognize James' voice at first, but she's not to blame. James, the vocalist and guitarist of an obscure thrash band Metallica, had a contrasting difference between his talking and singing voice that Lexy couldn't tell if it's James or not. The rest of the guys were a bit surprised with the high-pitched voice went along with fast guitar riffs and crazy drumming, thinking that they and this unknown band had some things in common.

Not a single minute passed without music in their mini van. Lexy, who had been planning to take a nap, now joined her friends to sing along some rock n roll and metal songs. Syd, who was also the guitarist of their band along with Lexy, grabbed two unplugged electric guitars from their trunk and gave one to Lexy so they could jam together. Lots of babbling and smiles ran with the wind, flowing out of the window that people in other cars they passed would turn their head and furrowed.

Didn't know what Syd was thinking, but out of nowhere he asked a rhetorical question which Lexy wouldn't ever want to hear from anybody.

"How's your brother?" Syd asked without moving his gaze from the fretboard of his guitar while the right hand was still strumming some chords.

Everyone in the van could absolutely feel the tension rose between Lexy and Syd. In a second, the smiling face of Lexy turned into an expressionless, rude-looking face as if all the joy and music that was flowing in her body were taken away. However, the guys in  front seats didn't stop singing but just lowered their voice, hoping that it could reduce the pressure.

She glanced at Syd who sat across her and got her focus back to her guitar.
"You know how."
Until this very moment, her brother was the last thing that she wanted to think about.

Syd sighed, knowing well what Lexy meant. He was actually hoping for a better answer, but it sounded almost impossible for now.
"How much longer are you gonna stay with him?"

"You really think I wanna stay any longer?" Her voice remained calm, but the scowl on her face said the opposite.

"Bet he didn't know you're here," Luke added, clearly trying to be as playful as possible.

"And you jumped off your bedroom window," another words came from Steven, the one who drove the van.

"Exactly, as usual," she said unproblematically.

"Nice, now we're going back and do you have a plan to come home without getting killed?" Syd asked with a sarcastic tone. Deep inside he wanted to ask Lexy to stay at his place or Cliff's for a while, but she'd answer with thousands of reason , such as 'It's okay, my room feels better than anywhere.'

"Nope, any idea? You usually come up with great thoughts, don't you?" Lexy replied with a pinch of bitterness in her voice. She tried to find something interesting on her guitar instead of laying her eyes on the guy who sat in front of her.

"Let's cut this crap and enjoy the music, okay?" Steven said before either Lexy or Syd could grow any more tension between them.

The two of them fell silent and everyone in the van knew that they should never stepped between their cold war. Luke acted as if nothing happened and keep the humming, while Steven used his fingers as drum sticks to tap the steering wheel.

"You know what? If I come home and survive with zero scars, I'll be grateful. That's how bad the situation is, in case you wanna know," Lexy said.

'No one should ever talked about her brother.' A kind of unwritten rule that Lexy's closed ones should know after the death of their parents. Lexy herself never said that people weren't allowed to talk about him, but she'd throw the nastiest glare to whoever tried to bring up the topic. Syd, Luke, Steven, and also Cliff, knew very well what her brother did to her and she couldn't escape from him, at least that's what people thought. However, she actually could, and it's not even a hard thing to do, but the fear of losing another family member haunted her.