Phoenix Rising Rock Band: The Series

by Kathryn C. Kelly

  My dick is precious to me, but I’d use it to choke that motherfucker. My attention returns to Georgie. Just as I touch her again, someone else speaks.

  “Perhaps, I can deliver him to you?”

  An older woman stands there. She’s well put together. “Who the fuck are you?”

  She lifts an elegant silver brow and draws herself up. I tower over this woman but she makes me feel small. “Helen Sanderson. And you, sir?”

  Fuck. Cassandra’s mother. I can already tell she’s a worse bitch than her daughter. “Sloane Mason.”

  “Ahhh.” The little sing-song and tight smile fucks me off. “So you’re the one who agreed to my son-in-law’s games once your father backed out.”

  At this, Abby shrinks behind me. I’m not sure if Helen hasn’t seen my aunt or if she’s just ignoring her. On second thought, this woman enjoys fucking with you. She hasn’t noticed Abby.

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Lady, talk to your dickhead son-in-law and your long-suffering daughter. They extended the fucking invitation and I accepted it. Case closed and something I didn’t give a fuck about then and don’t give a fuck about now.” I should shut the fuck up. She can bar me from seeing her granddaughter. “If you have anything to discuss with me, I’ll do it later, after I bash Crowell’s head in.” Because I will stomp him into the fucking ground.

  She circles around me and finally spots Abby. My aunt clutches my forearm and visibly shakes at Helen’s cool smile. “I see Parnell has told you who I am.”

  Abby isn’t a subdued woman. She flaunts her golden beauty, her sexuality, her love of life. Right now, she’s about to piss herself.

  Helen opens her designer clutch and pulls a card out, handing it to Abby. “Call me tomorrow.”

  A phone number for her office in hell? Clearly, this woman is meaner than a demon.

  “If Parnell contacts you before, call me immediately, if you know what’s good for you. Now, go,” Helen orders, waving her hand. Once my aunt complies, she stares at Georgie and turns away, as if it’s too overwhelming to look at her.

  I’m not buying her fucking act. If she cared so much, Georgie wouldn’t be in this situation.

  “I have a proposition for you, Mr. Mason. If you and my granddaughter agree, I’ll expect your complete cooperation.”

  “Georgie?” I echo, unable not to look at her, even though I know what I’ll find.

  She shrugs. “If she survives. If not, get on with your life.”

  A tremble passes through Georgie as if she knew I needed something to stop me from tossing Helen out of the fucking window after her cold announcement.

  “Whatever she needs from me, it’s hers.”

  Her assessment is smug and shrewd. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she swears, and rattles off Crowell Daniels address.

  Georgie

  Wildflowers surround me and I twirl, free and happy, the sweet smell invading every part of me. Here, wherever I’m at, I’m unencumbered. No wish for love. No feeling the abandonment of my mother. No anything, except color and light, sweet scents and cool breezes. The sky is vast and blue, mostly cloudless, meeting the sea of wildflowers way off in the distance.

  “Georgie?”

  A sigh whispers through my lips. Sloane is here. He’s with me. I don’t see him, but I hear his beautiful voice, and I smile.

  “Open your eyes.”

  “Sloane?” I mumble, grinning like a loon. It’s odd that I know I’m smiling when I feel so disconnected from myself.

  “Yeah, sweetheart. Kiln is here, too.”

  “You’re here. That’s all that counts. I love you.”

  His warm lips brush across my forehead and I smell him. “You don’t know me, lamb,” he chastises. “Now, open your fucking eyes.”

  The floral scent is strengthening and combining with his smell and antiseptic. My pain receptors are kicking in and my arms and wrists are burning.

  “You want to see my handsome face, you’ve got to open those pretty eyes.”

  His voice coaxes me to comply. More than anything, though, I do want to look at him. I slide my eyes open and he visibly sags.

  “Jesus Christ, finally,” he whispers. “Four fucking days, Georgie. That’s how long you’ve been out.”

  My throat is scratchy and achy. He grabs my hand and squeezes, threading his fingers through my hair. It startles me at how easily his hand glides through. The last time I touched my hair, it was snarled and tangled.

  My last memory is of being locked away.

  “What fucking possessed you to—"

  “I just wanted out of that room Mom put me in,” I tell him, starting to cry. “It was dark and lonely and cold and smelly. She wouldn’t let me out.”

  He calls the nurse’s station and lets them know I’m awake. Ten minutes later, my vital signs are checked and it’s just me, Kiln and Sloane in the room.

  Sloane shakes his head at me. “If that maid hadn’t gone to collect that fucking tray, you’d be fucking dead.”

  He sounds tortured by the idea. I swallow. “Who’d miss me? I’ve been out of school for weeks and no one has bothered to check up on me. I’ve gotten home assignments, but nothing more.”

  He eyes me with suspicion. “You couldn’t work in the dark.”

  “I mean before she locked me up.”

  Standing, he shoves his hands into his pockets. “Several of our concerts have been cancelled because Maitland’s little sister is so gravely ill.”

  “Really? Is she here in Houston?”

  “She’s laying in this fucking bed,” Kiln says dryly from the foot of my bed.

  Eyebrows raised, I shoot him a surprised look.

  “There was no valid reason to cancel tour stops,” Sloane says from beside me.

  “Th-thank you,” I whisper, but my heart is sinking. “When do you leave again?”

  “That depends on when you’re released,” he tells me. “And what you’d like to do.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I want to take you on tour with me, but I have some conditions.”

  Is he joking? I’m so afraid to hope he’s telling the truth that I feel lightheaded.

  “You have to listen to me,” he tells me.

  “You’re right here. I can’t help but hear you.”

  “Not now,” he snaps. “On the tour. You follow my orders. We’ll sneak you out of here because once you’re seen, the secret is out. Everyone will know you’re Georgie McCall.”

  “Really?” I scoff. “As if I’m so fucking famous.”

  “You are,” he says tightly. “And that’s another condition. Clean up your fucking language.”

  I glower at him.

  He visibly grits his teeth. “You and I won’t be lovers.”

  “I don’t want to be your lover,” I lie. “So let’s drop this. I’m not leaving with you. I’ll have to “listen” to you—“ I use air quotation marks. “And keep my mouth shut when other girls fuck you. No, thank you, dickhead.”

  He throws me a filthy look. “Jesus fucking Christ, but you’re a fucking brat.” He stalks toward the door. “Don’t fucking move,” he throws over his shoulder.

  “As if,” I yell to the closing door. “Where the fuck can I go hooked up to IVs and heart monitors?”

  Kiln laughs and gives me his usual smirk. Huffing, I turn my head and he begins to whistle, purposely irritating me.

  “You know, little girl, Sloane’s gone through a lot of shit to get to you. You could show him some kindness. He hasn’t done for anyone what he’s done for you.”

  “He’s not fucking me, so that works both ways. He’s not doing for me what he does for them.”

  “You want to fuck, I’ll fuck you when Sloane isn’t around.”

  “Third time’s the charm, huh? This is your third time offering and my final time telling you fuck no.”

  He huffs out laughter. “Any particular reason why?”

  “For starters? You’re a two-faced fucking hypocrite, r
eminding him of the trouble he can get into while still trying to fuck me yourself. If you fuck me, you’re going to fucking jail, too.”

  “Keep it up, Georgiana. I’m going to enjoy watching Sloane wash your fucking mouth out with his dick for using such filthy language.”

  I chew on one of my nails. “You’re an idiot to boot. He said we’ll never fuck.”

  A tense silence falls around us before he sighs. “I don’t give a fuck one way or the other what the fuck he does with you. To me, women are little more than money grubbing bitches.” He releases another deep sigh, this one more heartfelt. I sense there’s a story behind his statement. “What I do care about is the band, the lifestyle, and the money. Sloane’s the moneymaker and we were reeling to figure out how to keep him in line. If he fucked up, he was out. But so were we. You give him purpose. He’s finally found something to fucking save and I know him. When he’s on a mission, he has a singular obsession. He wants you with us, we bring you with us and find a way to make it work.”

  “You can’t fucking bring me where I don’t wish to go.”

  He scrubs a hand over his jaw, frustrated by my determination. I refuse to admit that his insight about Sloane has gotten to me. But I’m curious. “Who has he tried to save?”

  His long, hard stare chills me. “Our sister,” he says softly. “But, according to him, she drowned anyway.”

  Sloane

  When I was a little boy, my life was perfect, without pain or hurt or betrayal. I lived in a big house, upon a hill, surrounded by servants and my parents. I swore they loved and cherished me.

  Scratch that. They adored me. But that was before my fairytale world, fit for princes and princesses, tumbled around my head and sent me crashing to the ground. It was before the messiness of my father’s first wife—his three older children—became known to me. Kiln was the baby of the trio, a year older than me.

  Jaeger was the eldest and Steffie fell somewhere in the middle. She was sweet and pretty, unaffected by her mother’s bitterness, her brothers’ hostility, and our father’s hidden ruthlessness.

  I met them when I was ten. Kiln had just turned eleven, Jaeger was twenty-four, and Steffie was eighteen. I didn’t know it then. I didn’t know she was afraid of water, so she’d never learned to swim.

  Her screams still haunt me sometimes. Drugs, alcohol, violence have never removed the sound of her yelling. I was too far away, even though the yacht was close to shore. Close enough for me to hear the splash of her hitting the water. She was flailing and struggling and begging for help.

  By then, I was sixteen, already lost in the music world. I wanted to be a famous rocker and Dad was determined I succeed. Anything I wanted. Anything. Everything. Whatever. That’s how much he loved my mother. He adored her enough to give their love child his heart’s content. Even allowing her son to take up guitar after the daughter from his former marriage introduced him to it.

  Whatever took place between my dad and his first wife carried over and wrecked me and the fairytale fantasy of a little boy who idolized his parents. That day, in gorgeous, pristine waters, and beneath clear blue skies, my father jumped into the ocean when he spotted my attempts to swim to Steffie.

  He saw me and he did it anyway.

  Before my very eyes, before I reached her, Dad held my sister under the water and drowned her. Just because…because her mother had infuriated him and committed the ultimate sin.

  She’d insulted my mother and, thus, signed her daughter’s death sentence and thrust me into a living hell. It would’ve been too easy to hurt Steffie’s mother. He wanted her to live her life in grief, because of one infraction I never discovered the exact nature of.

  I stand silent at the door to Georgie’s room as I hear her question, and Kiln’s statement. Memories swamp my brain. I see Steffie, as plain as day, struggling and begging.

  Suddenly, I’m in need of a hit to dispel the images, but Georgie’s gasp reaches my brain just as fast, so I push back the yearning that chases me always, and go into her room.

  Her entire demeanor has changed. Kiln’s words have softened her completely towards me. My connection to Kiln isn’t well-known, and it’s rarely acknowledged between us. Telling her is just a means to an end. He’s just that fucking cutthroat.

  Nerves are overtaking her again and she clutches the sheet. I’m not addressing anything now because we won’t be alone for very long. The moment the thought crosses my brain, the door flies open and Georgie’s father and grandmother walk in.

  Helen Sanderson keeps herself groomed and stylishly dressed. Vestiges of her beauty remain as she marches to Georgie and stares down her nose at her.

  “Grandma,” Georgie greets, her gaze flickering between Helen and Parnell.

  “What possessed you to hurt yourself, Georgiana?”

  “Weariness,” she says without hesitation.

  Her grandmother’s eyes widen.

  Mine do, too.

  “Weariness?” Helen echoes. “I’m allowed to get weary. I’ve been around awhile. You’re just starting your life. You should have optimism.”

  “I should, but I don’t,” Georgie says simply. “It isn’t your fault, Grandma. It isn’t anyone’s fault and I’m sorry if I’ve put you through any trouble.”

  She pulls a face, but it doesn’t affect Georgie. “Is there anyone I need to have thrown out of this room?” She sniffs and glares at me.

  “No,” she answers without hesitation.

  Helen sits in the only chair near the bed and folds her hands demurely in her lap. “Do you want to leave with Sloane or go to Europe?”

  “I have a choice?”

  She slants me another glance. “Did anyone tell you otherwise?”

  “He can get in trouble.”

  “That depends on what capacity you’re traveling with him. He’s assured me everything will be above board. He’s going to hire a tutor to travel with the band. Or we go to Europe and I enroll you in a private school.”

  “You have a very open mind about this, Grandma.”

  If she only fucking knew. Of course, my conditions to Georgie aren’t known to Helen. And Helen isn’t admitting to Georgie that our time together won’t be as long as it sounds. To the casual listener, Georgie will be with me for weeks. That isn’t further from the truth.

  “That tends to happen when you get the type of call that I did. You need rest,” Helen continues. “And you need a bit of happiness. If being around him gives it to you and helps you to get stronger, then that’s what’ll happen.”

  She lowers her lashes again. “What about Mom?”

  “Your mom is your mom,” Helen states, “so don’t concern yourself with her or Parnell. I’ll look after them.”

  If she fucked over them half as much as she has me, then I might feel sorry for Cassandra and Parnell. But we’ve all gambled with Georgie’s life, so I consider my penance minuscule. I want her with me, though. Someone needs to watch over her and I don’t trust her fucking family to do it. Those closest to you, hurt you the most.

  “Where’s Crowell?”

  Case in fucking point.

  Parnell is fucking clueless, demonstrating his idiocy by standing silently there. Though Helen knows of my involvement in Crowell’s accident, she shrugs at Georgie’s question. We’ve agreed we won’t tell Georgie anything about his condition until she’s stronger.

  “Is he okay?” she persists.

  I forgot to add that condition—leave Crowell the fuck alone.

  “Worry about him some other time,” her grandmother says sharply. “We focus on you now.”

  Sinking back into her pillows, Georgie closes her eyes. “I’ll go with Sloane.”

  “Of course, dear. Anything you want is yours.”

  I’ve heard those words before from my father. Helen saying them doesn’t offer me any additional comfort then when I look back over my life and remember all the times my father uttered those same, damning words.

  Georgie

  After all
the activity of Sloane, Kiln, Dad, and Grandma, I find myself suddenly alone. The story of my life, so why does it bother me now? Because it leaves me alone to think of the days I spent locked in that room. It makes me wonder about Mom’s sanity. My beautiful, elegant mother…I always knew there was something fragile about her. I’m still not sure what it is, but it finally broke her.

  Was it me? I’ve not been any good to her, other than to demand my way. In most things, I didn’t have much demanding to do. As long as I don’t inconvenience them, they spoil me.

  The door opens and…my brothers walk in. Cash and Josh. They’re both here. Oh my goodness…they’re…here.

  “Cash,” I breathe, acknowledging him first. It’s been longer since the last time I saw him. My eyes flicker to his vest—no, cut, I think he said it was called—and see his name with the word Nomad. His brown hair is all askew on his head and the twinkle in his eyes makes me grin. “What are you doing here?”

  He frowns in distaste, before leaning down and kissing my cheek. “Helen called me.”

  Josh walks to my other side and shoves his hands in the pockets of his trousers. My brothers couldn’t be more different. A biker and a businessman. A smart ass and a snob. The only thing they have in common is their love for me.

  “Where’s Mom?” Josh asks in an inscrutable tone.

  “I don’t know. Grandma said she’s taking care of her.”

  Glancing between them, I see their mutual scowls. I never knew much about Cash’s mom and the relationship with her. He’s a year or two older than Josh and I know Mom hates him.

  “I can’t believe she went this far,” Josh continues tightly.

  My captivity seems to be an open secret. Grandma’s doing. I sigh. “Neither can I. She’s been different recently, though.”

  Josh frowns in confusion but Cash asks, “How so?”

  Irritated by Josh’s obliviousness, I address him first. “Not that you would know, Josh. You pay about as much attention to me as they do.”

  He thrusts his fingers through his hair, the universal gesture for frustrated men. “I have my business to see to. Besides, I’m here now.”