Scars Of The Soul

by J J Cobban

  “Father,” I croaked, coughing loudly as I struggled to breath. The thick, metallic taste of blood filled my mouth as Scout tilted my head back slightly, stroking my face silently as the tears continued to fall.

  Tears filled my own eyes as the realisation took hold.

  I was going to die. After everything I’d been through, that old bastard had finally managed to do it. He’d put me in an early grave. The tears slipped down my face as I tried to burn Scout’s image into my head.

  “Hey, don’t do that,” She snapped at me, “don’t look at me like that. You’re going to hold on until help gets here.”

  I swallowed, fighting with everything in me to stay conscious. How could I do this to her? I’d fought everything that had come my way. Why couldn’t I fight this?

  My eyelids grew heavy as my body grew cold. It was no use. This was a fight I wasn’t strong enough to win.

  “Drake! No, no, no,” Scout’s voice sounded more like an echo now, as if she was slipping into the distance.

  “Oh my god, no, please,” her faint voice pleaded with me as if I had any say in this.

  “I love you, baby, please.”

  Those five words were the last thing I heard before I lost the fight completely.

  ****

  Everything in the house was strangely quiet as I drummed my fingers against my thighs. My father had left an hour earlier. He’d been in an even shittier humour than normal and after slapping me around before lashing out at my mother he’d decided to hit the bar. I touched my swollen cheek and cringed. Jo wasn’t going to accept that I’d fallen down the stairs or walked into a door. Not now that she knew the truth. I went back to drumming my fingers on my thigh as shaky steps began to ascend the stairs. I closed my eyes as I prepared myself for the inevitable screaming about to fill the room.

  My bedroom door was pushed open gingerly, instantly making me freeze.

  My mother’s face peered around the door and despite everything she’d put me through I felt a gut-punch upon seeing her bloodied nose and swollen eye. I could blame drugs for her outbursts, the old man was just a son of a bitch by nature. Drunk or sober he was a mean bastard. At least my mother had clear moments when she was sober, hell, she was nearly maternal when she wasn’t high.

  She walked into the room silently, perching herself on the edge of my bed. I brought my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them. She lifted a hand towards my knees, I flinched instinctively. Her face crumpled at my reaction.

  “I’m so sorry, Drakey.” She clasped her shaking hands in her lap. She was getting ready for another hit and pretty soon she would become intolerable without it.

  I remained quiet, sometimes speaking only made everything worse.

  “You deserve so much better than us.” Her voice cracked as she looked down to her clasped hands. “I swore I was never going to end up like my mother. You deserve so much better than me.”

  “It’s okay, Mom.” I moved forward, slipping my skinny hand into her abused ones. She gripped my hand as a sob racked her body. Her bony shoulders shook as the tears slipped down her cheeks, dripping onto our joined hands.

  “I’m too weak,” she cried “If I was worth anything I’d have left him as soon as he first raised his hand. If I was stronger I could have said no to the fucking drugs. I just wanted an escape from it all.”

  I moved closer to her as she let go of my hand, wrapping an arm around me. I closed my eyes as she held me close. If I closed my eyes I could pretend that I had a normal home, a mother who loved me more than life itself. I could pretend that my mother had walked away from my abusive father. I could pretend that the needle marks covering her body weren’t from her dependency on drugs. I could pretend I was a normal fourteen-year-old.

  My mother leaned back, cupping my face.

  My mother had been beautiful once. She could have been a model with her bone structure. Then life had intervened and dealt her a shitty hand.

  “I need you to promise me something, Drakey,” She wiped my own tears away, “I should never have taken that first hit with your father. I should have stood by my refusal but I didn’t. I gave up, baby, I stopped fighting. Promise me you’ll never stop fighting, baby.”

  “I can feel it slipping away even as I sit here,” She whined as she squeezed her eyes shut.

  She meant she could feel the need for her next fix building. That’s what she meant by ‘feel it slipping away’. I blinked up at her, unable to give her an answer. I wasn’t sure I could give her an answer without lying to her.

  “Promise me, Drakey, promise you’ll fight. You’re better than this shit.” She was back to sobbing “I need to hear the words.”

  “I promise.” I whispered. The front door suddenly slammed open causing us both to jump. My mother stroked back my hair, looking at me as if she was trying to memorise my face.

  “The only thing you share is genetics. Nothing else. You owe him nothing,” She whispered, getting up from the bed.

  “Stay up here.” She ordered, wiping her face as she moved towards the door. As she stepped out of my room she paused. A single tear slipped down her face as she looked back at me and offered a small smile.

  “I know it doesn’t always seem like it, but I love you, Drakey,” She wiped the tear away, “remember what you promised.”

  With those parting words she went down stairs and began yelling at my father for drinking and ‘fucking up her house’. I didn’t understand how she could go from having a rare, sweet moment with her son to yelling abuse at her already drunk and furious husband. It was like she was trying to goad him into a fight with her. I brought my knees back up to my chest as I tried to block out the sound of fist hitting flesh down the stairs.

  This was temporary.

  I was going to get out.

  I had no choice now, I’d promised her I would fight. Now I had to follow through. I was many things but I was damn sure I wouldn’t be a liar.

  ****

  A shrill beeping deafened me as my head was pulled from one of the more favoured memories from my childhood. I felt like I’d just been strapped to a roundabout and sent for an hour-long spin.

  “We’ve got the pulse back!” an unfamiliar voice declared calmly.

  “Oh, thank god,” I knew that voice. I’d know that voice anywhere. I fought to get my lips to move but it was no use. The rocking motion was easing slightly and if I wasn’t mistaken I was on the move in some kind of vehicle. Just as I was gathering my bearings I could feel the blackness slipping in again. It was like someone had strapped a weighted vest to me and thrown me into the ocean. Everything was being pulled downward.

  My mind flashed back to the memory of my mother.

  I’d never truly understood exactly what she had been going through when she came into my room. I’d never understood why she had made me promise to fight, never understood why it was so important to her. I felt my chest tighten as the reasoning for her actions became clearer. Like someone had just clued me into the riddle. After years of living with a man who took pleasure from beating her she had given up and turned to the drugs he offered, she had allowed herself to be broken down and beaten. Then as if that wasn’t bad enough, she had repeated the cycle with her son. She had let her demons win, she’d given them the keys to her life and allowed them control of the wheel. Making me promise to fight was her last effort to be a mother. She knew her life was going to shit, she knew that she’d failed herself and her son. It was as if she needed the peace of knowing that no matter what, her flesh and blood would never make the same mistakes as she had. My mother had made me promise to fight and then tried to spare me any more beatings by throwing herself into the line of fire. She had goaded my father into a fight in order to give me one night’s peace from his cruelty.

  My mother never saw herself as a fighter but in that moment she had shown me that sometimes in order to find the strength we needed to survive we had to hit rock bottom. We had to break and crumble in order to be able to evolve
into something stronger. My mother never got the chance to rebuild her life but she’d made sure I would always try.

  As the blackness swallowed me for the second time her face flashed before my eyes.

  She’d never had the chance to rebuild her life. The following night she had begged me to shoot more of that poison into her veins and she’d died there and then,

  I would make it through this and I would rebuild my life into something better. Something brighter.

  This was my rock bottom, this was my chance to evolve. All I had to do was find my strength.

  So I did.

  Ｃｈａｐｔｅｒ Ｔｗｅｎｔｙ

  Ｓｃｏｕｔ

  Four days, seven hours and seventeen minutes.

  That’s how long Drake had been out. He’d taken three gunshot wounds to the lower abdomen and nearly bled out there on the stage. I looked down at my bandaged shoulder, tears stinging the back of my eyes. I’d taken two shots to the top of my shoulder and clavicle when I’d thrown myself over Drake to protect him from anymore bullets. Compared to Drake I’d gotten off easy. I forced my eyes closed as the shooter’s face danced behind my eyelids. His sneer as he popped off the final two shots toward Drake. It was the realisation of who exactly the shooter had been that shook me to the core. I should have seen it coming. It made perfect sense when you really thought about it. The personal information he could give the media, the hatred and blame he could carry towards Drake. The way he had threatened and intimidated me to find out what he wanted to know in the elevator.

  The shooter had been the same man from the elevator. The man who seemed to know too much about Drake. Of course it made sense now.

  The shooter, the Devil, was Drake’s father.

  Drake’s father had shot his own son. He’d probably been the one leaking all the damning information to the media about Drake. My stomach tightened as I tried to wrap my head around that kind of hatred. I didn’t understand how one person could hate another so much that they wanted to end their life. You heard it on the news all the time but seeing it in real life was another matter entirely.

  Every time I closed my eyes I could hear Lacey’s shrill scream piercing the air. I could smell the thick, unmistakable smell of blood emanating from Drake. It was like I was teleported back in time. The sweat and blood mingling to make a sickening aroma. Jace’s foul curses as he tried to find where I was bleeding from, followed by his shouts for help when he couldn’t stop either of us from bleeding out. I shuddered as a cold sweat broken across my skin.

  “You’re disobeying the doctor’s orders, Boss.” I opened my eyes to see Seth standing in the doorway with his hands shoved deeply into the front pocket of his jeans. His blonde hair was mussed, as if he had been running his hands through it, and his eyes seemed tired. This was the first time I’d been allowed to leave my bed since the shooting. The doctor wanted me on full bedrest to ensure that I rebuilt my strength after the risky surgery he’d had to undertake in order to remove the bullets. As soon as he had declared I was fit enough to move, I had found Drake’s room. The nurses had ‘suggested’ I go back to my own room but after seeing that I wasn’t moving from beside Drake, had given up.

  “Dr. Fairway said I could move around now.” My throat was dry and scratchy, causing my voice to come out huskier than usual.

  “Yeah, he said you could go to the bathroom on your own, I don’t think he meant you could trek through the hospital.” Seth moved further into the room, standing beside Drake’s bed. I looked up at Seth and felt my eyes water when I saw the sadness reflected in his gaze.

  “How’s things with the media? Have they caught him yet?”

  Seth moved over to the window and looked out, stalling, before he turned to rest his back against the windowsill.

  “Your old man has everything handled, he released a statement about the shooting this morning. He called Jace to tell him that he was on his way over.”

  I nodded my head numbly as I looked back at Drake’s pale face. My father had been in the hospital briefly after my surgery, but I’d insisted he head back to the office and get a handle on everything. He’d been reluctant, to say the least, but had left yesterday. I knew that everything would be a mess with tabloids running the shooting as a headline story. Then there was the rest of the tour to be managed. I assumed that a replacement drummer would have to be called in to avoid cancelling another tour but nothing had been confirmed. I wasn’t sure how the hell we were going to handle that side of things and in all honesty, I didn’t care. All I wanted was to see Drake’s gorgeous ice blue eyes looking up at me.

  “Scout?” I looked back over to Seth and saw there was a strange look crossing his face.

  “I was speaking to Nico’s brothers,” he started, moving closer to the bed and dropping into a crouch beside me.

  “How well do you know the Tanners?” he asked me quietly, watching the door suspiciously.

  “I don’t really. I met them at Jo’s bachelorette and had a brief run in with Joe the next day but that’s it. Nothing else.” I frowned, “Why?”

  “The Tanners each have their own jobs and careers, but they also have a sort of side business. A family side-business.” Seth started quietly, “They take care of problems that sometimes the police struggle to get a handle on.”

  “What are you talking about, Seth?”

  “The police can’t find Drake’s father but I think the Tanner boys could find him. They can find him, and they can tie up any loose ends.” Seth paused, “They don’t get involved unless they’re asked to though, Scout, so I need to know you’re good with them getting involved.”

  My head began to spin again for entirely different reasons.

  Was Seth saying what I thought he was saying?

  Were the Tanner boys some kind of vigilante group? Sweet, young Max who seemed to have a crush on Lacey. The laid-back, charmer Joe who seemed to make a woman’s knees weak by simply smiling. How could they be into something as dark as what Seth made it sound like.

  “Scout, the boys don’t let on what they do for obvious reasons but I need to know that you’ll keep this to yourself, no matter what you want to do.”

  “They’ll get rid of Drake’s father for good? He won’t come back to hurt us again?” I whispered hoarsely.

  “He’ll be gone for good. They’ll make sure of it.”

  I knew what the options were. Let the police handle it and hope justice prevailed but run the risk that they never caught him and he was free to do something like this again. Or I could accept Seth’s offer and the Tanner’s could track him down and get rid of him for good. I looked back to Drake, pressing a hand against his stubbly cheek.

  “Call the Tanners, let them handle it.” My voice was low as I gave my answer “I want him to hurt for this. For everything he did to Drake when Drake was a defenceless child, for the pain he’s caused him as an adult. I want him to pay.”

  “You got it, Boss.” Seth placed a hand on my knee and gave a gentle squeeze. Tears slipped from my eyes, rolling down my cheeks until they fell into my lap. Briefly, I wondered how Seth knew about the Tanners business. Had he gone to them before now? I pushed those thoughts aside as I swiped at the tears on my face.

  “He’s a fighter, Scout, he’ll make it.” Seth’s voice hitched as he wiped another stray tear from my cheek. We sat in silence as the tears continued to roll down my face. Seth rubbed my knee comfortingly, giving it an occasional squeeze. My eyes began to grow heavier as we sat there. I had no idea how much time had passed but from the increasing darkness outside I had to assume we were heading into mid-evening.

  “You need to sleep, Boss.” Seth’s deep voice reached me as I fought to keep my eyes open.

  “I’m not leaving him.” I protested, sitting up in my chair, rubbing my fingers along the back of Drake’s hand.

  “You’ve fallen asleep twice while you’ve been sitting here. You need the sleep to recover. Come on, we can head back to your room and I’ll come back and sit with D
,”

  I shook my head as tears stung my eyes.

  “I have to be here when he wakes up. What if something happens and I’m not here for him? I’m not making him go through something like this again. Not alone.”

  I heard Seth moving around behind me, after much shuffling, his hand touched my shoulder.

  “I’ve pulled the recliner from the corner of the room closer to the bed. We can recline it back and you can get some rest, I’ll use the shit chair,” He smirked “I am a gentleman after all.”

  A small smirk toyed with my lips as I moved to the recliner that had been at the far side of the room. Seth had already reclined it and was in the process of taking off his jacket to drape over me.

  “Nobody would accuse you of being a gentleman, Davenport.”

  Seth tucked his jacket around me as I settled down in the chair, careful not to nudge my bad shoulder.

  “There was me going to fetch you another blanket too,” He teased “good to see your razer wit hasn’t taken a knock.”

  I laid my head back on the chair and shot Seth the finger. He chuckled deeply before dropping into the chair I had just vacated. It took him a minute to get comfortable and if I wasn’t mistaken he seemed relieved at being able to sit by Drake’s bedside.

  “Why haven’t you been kicked out yet? Visiting hours must be over,” I yawned as my eyes started to close.

  “Jez has already given the doctors hell about getting a private room for you both. I don’t think they want to fuck with her, to be honest. That’s a woman with a lot more fire than she lets on.” I couldn’t see his face as my eyes closed completely but I definitely heard the smile in his voice as he spoke about Jez.

  “Yeah, she’s something else for sure.”

  That was the last thing I heard as I drifted off into a much-needed slumber.

  It was still dark outside when I finally awoke a few hours later. I shifted in the seat, wincing when my shoulder screamed in pain. I was clearly overdue on my pain meds. I instantly wondered if the nurses were looking for me. Surely it wouldn’t be a great mystery as to where I was hiding out. I sat up in the chair, rubbing my eyes as I looked around the shadowy room. Seth was passed out in the chair beside Drake’s bed, his hands clasped and resting over his lean stomach. My eyes moved to Drake’s bed and as my eyes landed on his face I felt my heart leap into my throat.