Darkness in the Neon Lights (H2OVanoss)

Chapter 19

I rush back stage with a bottle of water and push pass everyone as I make my way to Lui, who is now laying on the couch. Brock is standing front of him, holding his legs up to get the blood moving and to hopefully wake him up. I place my hand on his chest as I start to kneel down next to him, and I feel his heart beating much faster than I had ever felt it beat before.

"I still think it would have been better to keep him out there," Brock tells Tyler, who had carried Lui in here after he fell off the stage. "I don't know if this is going to effect him or not. Normally-"

"Look," Tyler quickly cuts him off as he pours some of the water from the bottle I brought onto a rag before he starts patting Lui's forehead. "I didn't know what else to do. I just didn't want any of those pervs to touch him. I would have done this no matter who fell. How long have you been holding his feet up?"

"It might have been five minutes. Longer than I should have, but we aren't exactly doing anything by the book with this situation. Lui? Can you hear me? Are you okay?" He doesn't say anything. "Fuck. Okay, Evan, move out of the way really fast. I need to put him into a different position."

I look back to Lui's face before I stand back up and take a few steps back. He looks so tired... I never even noticed how bad the dark circles were that were under his eyes.

"How did this happen," I say without realizing I was asking.

"He's tired," Brock says as he flips Lui onto his side and bends his knees and elbows. "He's had to work every single night since Ohm and Bryce left us, and he's had to play host all month."

"Host?"

"I wouldn't really call it that," I hear from behind us. When I turn around, I see Panda walking over to us. "I've had some people come in, and they are interested in investing into the club. There's a chance of making the club into a chain, which means I could open another club in town under the 'Big Bad Panda' name. I had Lui come in to entertain them, since he's one of the best we have. I was planning on bringing Ohm and Bryce, but that plan obsessively fell through, so I put most of my faith into Lui to get them to agree."

"Why didn't you ask anyone else to help out," I ask.

"He did," Mini quickly yells out. "Uh... I had been helping out too, but they mostly liked Lui."

"Oh really," Brock says in a weird tone.

"Okay," Panda yells out, kind of scaring me since I wasn't expecting anyone to yell. "The clients should have left the parking lot by now. Due to this incident, I am closing the club for the night. Everyone will be scheduled to work tomorrow, except for Lui, of course. I'll drive him back to the apartments when he wakes up."

"I'll stay here to watch over him," Brock then says, turning to Panda. "I'm sure you still have a lot of work that needs to be done, so I can keep an eye on him while you work, sir."

After the words leave his lips, I can't help but notice that Brock is actually glaring at Panda. Looking over to Panda, it's then that I notice that he's doing the same back to him. It feels like they are having a silent argument, and it doesn't end until Panda says, "Fine. You can stay to keep watch. Everyone else, change and go back to the apartments."

After he says that, everyone except Brock, him, and myself all go to the lockers and start changing out of their uniforms. I turn back to Panda and ask, "Is Lui going to be okay?"

Panda looks back to Brock and stays silent for a bit. He then turns back to me and says, "All we can do is wait and see. Hopefully he gets better, but for now, he just needs to rest. I'll give him the rest of the week off for that, but he needs to speak up if he has a problem with his hours. If he isn't getting enough sleep. Everyone's health is something we need to look out for."