Wait (Bleeding Stars #4)

by A. L. Jackson

“Let her go.” It grated and rocked.

  He laughed a mocking sound. “That’s not gonna happen. She and I have some unfinished business to take care of. Bitch owes me and she’s gonna pay.”

  The violence simmering inside me exploded.

  I surged forward. Pushed him in the chest with both hands. “She’s not going anywhere with you.”

  Paul reeled back. Anger struck harsh lines into his disgusting face. “And it’s gonna be you who stops me?”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  I said it so cool.

  Like I wasn’t a scrawny kid staring down a pissed-off full-grown man. But the man I wanted to be was bursting at the seams. Flailing for a way out. To break free.

  I’d fight for her.

  Willingly.

  To the death if that’s what it took.

  “Austin.” My name was a plea from her mouth. It was a request I couldn’t quite grasp as I was pushing her behind me and wedging myself between them.

  Paul chuckled low. Clearly it was then my intentions sunk in.

  “Ah…isn’t that cute. Looks like someone has a crush.” He cocked his head, his tone pure insult. “Dumb kid willing to get his ass kicked for a worthless slut. She’s a nice lay, though, isn’t she?”

  Slut.

  It struck the air like a bolt of lightning.

  An inciting fire.

  Edie gasped with the blow of it.

  My angel.

  I flew at him.

  A flashfire of fists and hate and curses from my tongue.

  Paul struck me.

  It was a direct blow to my chin that nearly knocked me from my feet.

  My head rocked back.

  It didn’t matter the pain nearly split me in two.

  I fought back.

  Attacking with everything I had. “I will kill you, motherfucker. You used her…knocked her up, you piece of shit. You didn’t even fucking care. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you.”

  I caught him up high on the cheekbone.

  The skin split, and he stumbled back, wiped the blood gushing from the cut I’d inflicted. “I took advantage of her? Little sluts like her are all the same. Crying wolf for a few extra bucks like the whore she is. Probably wasn’t even pregnant.”

  Blinding.

  The rage.

  The hate.

  Didn’t give two fucks he was bigger than me.

  He was going to pay.

  If it was the last thing I did, he was going to pay.

  I kicked and punched as a mumbled disorder of words tumbled from my bitter tongue.

  “Wasn’t pregnant? You ignorant piece of shit. She had her. She had her. She had to give her away. Do you have any idea what that did to her. Do you have any idea?”

  The words were as jagged as my breaths.

  The stars and sky spun in a kaleidoscope of madness.

  The agonizing violence that couldn’t be sated.

  The love I had for this girl excruciating.

  Edie suddenly wailed.

  A cry so deep it penetrated the fury.

  She was buckled in two when I turned to look at her.

  Her gaze was on me.

  Broken.

  Betrayed.

  “You….you told him? He was never supposed to know. How could you…how could you?” She backed away, clutching her middle. The spot where her daughter had been.

  Paul froze, then inched forward. “What the fuck did he say? You tellin’ me there’s a fucking kid out there who might be mine?”

  He flew in, dipped down where he spit the words toward her horror-stricken face. “That what he’s saying? That someday I’m gonna have some snivelin’ kid show up, knockin’ at my door, claiming I’m their long lost daddy?”

  Edie choked over her tears. Head between her shoulders. Trying to hide.

  Shame.

  Fear slicked my flesh.

  Clammy and cold.

  What did I do? What did I do?

  Always taking the good things I was given and destroying them before they got the chance to grow.

  “Edie,” I whispered.

  “Fucking stupid whore. You get paid for that, too? How much did you get for her? Tell me.”

  “Edie,” I begged.

  She wasn’t even looking at Paul when he lashed and spewed appalling words from his mouth.

  She was staring at me in disbelief.

  I could feel it, that hope sucked out into the open air. Dissipating like the trust I’d just crushed. A whirlwind beaten and stirred with the fury. Colliding and crashing until there was nothing left.

  I stood there as she fled back into the house. I fisted my hands in my hair. Trying to breathe.

  Paul spit toward the ground. Pointed at me. “This isn’t over.”

  My voice was deathly quiet. “You can go to hell.”

  He scoffed out a laugh, before he took off, tossing the casual words over his shoulder. “We’ll see about that.”

  I paced.

  Wondering just how I was going to make this right. Knowing I couldn’t have said anything worse.

  That I’d wounded her in a way she couldn’t afford.

  Five minutes later, I heard the front door slam.

  I didn’t know why. I just knew. I just fucking knew.

  I ran around to the front of the house.

  Edie had a big bag slung over her shoulder, her arms crossed over her chest and her head dropped in humiliation as she trudged up the cobbled drive.

  “Edie,” I whispered the plea, before it turned frantic when she wouldn’t look back at me.

  “Edie.”

  She started to run.

  “Edie, wait, please, wait.”

  She flung around, her hand a fist over her heart. Torment flowed from her mouth. “I can’t believe you would do this to me. After everything I trusted you with. Just…stay out of it. Stay out of my life and my business because I can’t trust you. Don’t make this any worse than you already did.”

  A cab pulled up at the corner, and she sprinted away from me.

  I fought to get to her.

  To stop her.

  She jumped in and slammed the door shut, her hands shaking as she fumbled to lock it right as I got there. She kept her head down, that halo of white covering her face, refusing to look at me.

  “Edie!” I screamed. I banged at the window. “Edie!”

  The car accelerated, and I ran into the street behind it as it pulled away.

  Tearing away the last good piece of me.

  “Edie, please!” I screamed at the night.

  Please.

  “Wait.”

  Torment wound and wound. That hollow place had come alive with the sour taste of death.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised.

  That’s what I did.

  I took the good and I destroyed it. Crushed it in my hands.

  Bitterness burned through my blood.

  A hopeless mayhem.

  “Leave at five,” Baz warned. He was stuffing a bunch of shit in his bag, my brother packing for the last leg of their Divided Tour, one that would take us to six more cities.

  This had been the tour that had defined them as a band.

  The one that had given them fame.

  Fortune.

  But had it been worth it?

  Because it was also the tour that had stolen Mark. The tour that had scored us in misery.

  Of course, that had been before I’d seen the light.

  Had been blinded by it, really.

  Because now it felt like I was stumbling around in a pitch-black darkness. Knowing it would never end. That I was never gonna be okay. That my past, my mistakes, were always going to be right there waiting to catch up to me.

  Julian. Julian. Julian.

  His presence curled around me like wisps and vapors. Mocking me for my naivety. For the foolish belief that maybe, just maybe, I could find happiness.

  That I could be good for someone. Give something back rather than take, take, take.
/>   I bit back a resentful sound.

  Because I had.

  I’d found it.

  Edie.

  Then I’d turned right around and destroyed it.

  “Got it,” I returned. Didn’t give two fucks where the roads led because I knew I’d only ever travel one direction.

  Down.

  But I had one last thing to do before I finally gave it up.

  No one even noticed when I grabbed my brother’s keys or when I took the fat wad of cash from the safe. Not when I showed up at that ghetto apartment, dealt the deal I knew would seal the asshole’s fate, and sure as hell not when I snuck to his shithole house.

  Kneeling behind his car, the pitted ground dug into my knees. I was quick to twist the screws holding on his license plate.

  I tossed it behind a bush.

  This isn’t over.

  His words rolled through me. The threat to my girl. One I was going to erase.

  I held my breath when I slipped into his car and planted the baggies beneath his seat.

  I dug around for a place to leave the note. For one unlucky bastard, it seemed I was full of it today, because the dumbass’s wallet was hidden in the middle console. I slid the note between a five and a ten.

  Three hundred dollars. Three hundred dollars more than you’re worth. But hey, sometimes you have to pay the bitch.

  And sometimes payback is the bitch.

  Only solace I took in all of it was knowing when he saw the note, he’d know it was me, the words he’d so viciously cast at Edie repeated with a special fuck you just from me tacked on the end. My own little sayonara to send him on his way.

  I hoped with every hope I had left that this would be enough to send the bastard straight to hell.

  Maybe then he’d burn there with me.

  I’d waited all day for the opportunity. Finally had it when the asshole had run back into his house like he’d needed to grab something. Like he was immune to all the world’s consequences, he’d left his car idling in the drive.

  One second.

  One moment.

  One mistake.

  I guess that really was all it took.

  From behind a wall, I watched him get in his car and throw it in reverse, pull out onto the street, and disappear at the end intersection.

  I’d promised her I’d protect her.

  And I was doing it the only way I knew how.

  Five hours later, I stumbled onto the Sunder bus.

  Fucking lost.

  Hopeless.

  Unable to breathe.

  The guys filed off at the venue. Pumped for their show. Having no clue the devastation I’d caused.

  I waited until they were gone before I broke into the cubby where I knew Mark had kept his dealer’s number.

  I texted for some oxies.

  Anything to numb the pain.

  To blot it out.

  Desperate for the darkness.

  Because after you stood in the light?

  You no longer knew how to live without it.

  “Goodnight!”

  The four of us threw up our hands and exited the stage. It felt like my feet weren’t touching the ground.

  Body floating.

  Spirit soaring.

  Screams, cheers, and a chant for more only served to heighten it further. Blood sloshed and pounded. I could feel the adrenaline consuming every cell in my body. Begging to be set free.

  I itched.

  I think it was that moment when I finally fully grasped the compulsion my brother had once tried to describe to me. When he’d tried to make me understand what it really was like to stand on a stage in front of thousands of fans. How it felt to feed the frenzy and how they just poured it right back into you.

  As soon as we made it through the wall of curtains, Ash clamped his hands down on the back of my shoulders. Dude used me as a springboard to propel himself into the air, doing his own sort of flying. He landed with a clap of both palms on my back.

  “Hell yeah, man. You kicked ass. Show was off-the-charts epic. Crowd was wild. They loved you, man. Seamless. Fucking seamless.”

  Seamless.

  That’s the way it’d felt.

  Like I’d belonged in that stitching all along.

  Lyrik gave me a jut of his chin in clear approval as he stalked away, black hair bobbing above the crowd he disappeared into. Zee offered a fist bump as he passed. “Did it, man. Knew you could.”

  But it was my brother who was waiting in the wings who slowed my steps.

  His approval I sought.

  He grabbed me by the shoulders. Shook me. Fingers digging into my skin. “So fuckin’ proud of you, Austin. So fuckin’ proud.”

  He pulled me into a tight hug, his fists at my back, and I hugged him back. Everything he’d ever done for me was right there, at the forefront of my thoughts and memories.

  “Thank you for giving me this chance.”

  His words were thick. “Thank you for taking it.”

  My nod was slight, and my racing heart pounded a little harder as I relished it all for a moment more.

  Then I let it go.

  Focused on what had brought me back to L.A. in the first place.

  The main reason I was here, even if I did feel as if I’d found a missing piece of myself along the way.

  Paul had returned my text when I’d let him know I’d leave a backstage pass for him with will call, said he’d be there.

  I was ready.

  So damned ready to stand up and take the responsibility that was mine and make sure the bastard never had a stray thought toward my girl ever again.

  I knew it’d be a fight.

  One I refused to do anything but win.

  Figured it’d only sting more when he stood in front of me, thinking he was about to hit the jackpot when the asshole hadn’t even played. Figured it’d hit him harder by bringing him here under the auspice of something great when things for him were about to go terribly wrong.

  Agitation slid slow but strong. I searched the faces waiting in the wings, fully expecting him to step out of the shadows like the creepy motherfucker he was.

  Then I would go back to Santa Cruz, find my girl, and confess it.

  Tell her I’d gone and whipped up a mess of mayhem, the way I always did, in the end only making it worse.

  Even when I’d just been trying to make it right. I knew I couldn’t go on without getting him out of her way when he’d promised it wasn’t over. But I realized now, it wasn’t ever going to be until Paul was taken care of.

  Anthony strode up. Confused, he looked around like he was hunting for someone. I didn’t miss the worry that flashed on his face or the concern that shifted his feet.

  “Hey, Ash,” he called.

  Ash had his arm around some chick, making her giggle as he whispered something I was sure was all kinds of obscene in her ear. Dude was always such a dog.

  “Be back in a minute, darlin’,” he said with that cocky lilt. He sauntered Anthony’s direction. “What’s up, man?”

  Anthony hesitated, eyes darting around again. Something in my spirit made me latch on to whatever he was about to say, my body struck with a quiver of unease.

  “Did you see your sister…Edie?”

  Ash’s expression went blank for the flash of a second. Like he was processing. Perplexed.

  While my insides twisted.

  “What do you mean, my sister?” he asked, shucking the aloof cloak he always wore. Something intense took him over.

  “Your sister. She’s here. Told her to wait in the VIP section backstage. Don’t see her now.”

  Worry climbed into the clench of Ash’s jaw. “My sister? You sure, Anthony? Don’t fuck with me, man. Not about her.”

  Anthony shook his head. “Really think I’d mess with you about something like that?”

  Their conversation became a dull hum in the back of my mind.

  Everything shifted to overdrive.

  My gaze flashed around the room. Search
ing the coves and recesses.

  Panic lit in my belly.

  Like the flick of a stove.

  A ring of fire.

  I stood in the middle of it.

  Burning.

  No.

  Not again.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  I dug into my pocket for my phone.

  Fear swept vast and wide as I read the message I had waiting.

  One from Paul.

  Backstage. Ready to hear whatever it is you’ve got to say.

  No. No. No.

  I didn’t even realize I was saying it aloud. My voice grew louder with each word that ripped from my tongue. “No…fuck…no. Edie.”

  I yelled it, spinning in a circle. “Edie!”

  Ash hooked onto the frenzy buzzing through my bones.

  Our eyes locked.

  Like he knew.

  I raced toward the back of the building where the after party raged.

  Ash was right on my heels, talking the whole way. “Why do I get the sinking feeling you’ve got a fuckton of explaining to do and I’m not gonna like what you have to say?”

  I didn’t pause to give him an answer.

  I just pushed through the people hanging at the back of the hall where the big room opened up, yelling for her the entire time.

  Inside, a ton of assholes lounged around like they owned the place, girls ready to waste what they had on these losers just to get a little taste of the glitz and glam.

  As if anyone the next day would even remember their name.

  I scanned each of them.

  She wasn’t there.

  Dread spread like the crawl of spindly branches.

  Burrowing in and taking hold.

  I nearly crashed into Ash when I flipped back around. I darted out into the hall. Both of us rushed deeper into the bowels of the old building, toward the dressing rooms and offices in the very back. We were flinging open doors, her name flying on a constant stream from our tongues.

  Something close to hysteria rose up within me.

  The thought of that bastard touching her…hurting her…

  No.

  Wouldn’t let it happen.

  Not again.

  Coming up short, I spun around and hurtled back down the way we’d come, Ash taking up my side.

  Didn’t give a fuck I was literally shoving people out of my way as I barreled through.

  Confusion reigned on everyone’s expressions when we came back to the side of the stage, Baz, Anthony, and Zee staring back at us like they were wondering what to do, Lyrik now a part of the fray.