Rocker Boy

by Wendy Knight

  They weren't from Levi.

  Of course, he was probably just getting done with the show. She gathered up her guitar and her flute and her purse and scrolled through her messages while she waited to escape the plane. Most were from Kim, some from other people at school. She'd also gotten more than 10,000 followers on her Forums page. "Holy crap!"

  First, she called Kim. "I'm just getting off the plane," she said as she juggled her bag, guitar case, flute, and phone. "Are you here?"

  "Waiting by baggage claim. I'm so excited!" Kim squealed. It was midnight, and she had way too much energy. "Have you talked to him yet?"

  Harli, however, felt like she'd been through a washing machine and then the dryer. She'd come out clean, lighter, happier, but also completely exhausted. She'd auditioned that morning, shopped all afternoon, and spent eight hours traveling. "No. Not yet. I just got my phone back on. I'll call him now."

  "Then what are you talking to me for?" Kim yelled.

  Harli laughed and hung up. Her hands shook as she dialed Levi's number. What would she say? What would he say?

  "Hey Sunshine." He answered on the third ring. "I'm just getting backstage. Are you safe?"

  "Just getting off the plane," she said shyly.

  "Good. Did you mean it, Harli? Are you serious? No more running?"

  She swallowed. "I meant it, Levi. I'm—I'm scared to death. I'm scared to fall."

  His answer was immediately. "I'll catch you, Harli. Every time."

  With those words, her shattered heart and tattered soul healed. No more scars. No more pain.

  "I know."

  "I love you, Harli Lee. More than this dream, more than anything. There is no light in this world for me without you in it. You know that, don't you?"

  She didn't realize she had tears running down her cheeks until a stranger stopped. "Are you okay?" he asked gently.

  Harli laughed through her tears. "Yes. Thank you. Yes! I'm okay! I'm finally okay." And then to Levi, "I love you, too. More than anything. You say I saved you that day, but you've saved me a thousand times since, Levi."

  She'd never seen Levi cry, but she heard him sob through the phone.

  "So we're together, Harli? Together, together? I'm not just a friend you like to kiss?"

  She sob-laughed. "Yes. We're together, together. I'm yours, Levi. Forever."

  "Yes!" he yelled, and there was cheering behind him. "It only took me six years, but she's finally mine, boys!"

  "This isn't on Cameo's show, is it?" she asked suspiciously.

  Levi chuckled. "No, Sunshine. I'm backstage. We've just got a lot of crew members hanging on our every word."

  "Oh. That's embarrassing."

  She could hear the smile in his voice, "I'll call you when I get back to the hotel. Okay? I love you, Harli."

  "I love you, too."

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  "LAST CONCERT AND THEN WE GET to go home." Their backup drummer, a friend of a friend who had played with another band, reached out a hand. "Thank you for this opportunity. It's been a great couple of weeks."

  "Thanks for saving our asses," Levi said, shaking his hand.

  "You anxious to go home, Levi?" Colin grinned.

  "More than anxious. This has been a long nine months."

  All he had to do was get through this concert, and then he was going home to start a life with Harli. Her graduation was in a couple of weeks. She'd been accepted to Julliard, which was no surprise, and they were going to find an apartment together near her school. He'd promised Jace and Kim he would fly them out whenever they wanted. He'd promised her they could go back to Utah whenever she needed.

  In her downtime, she'd agreed to be their drummer until they found a replacement.

  They didn't tell her they weren't even looking.

  Everything had worked out. Everything was going to be okay.

  "Here we go, boys. One last time!" Dorian yelled as they ran out onto the stage.

  Levi's phone buzzed in his pocket. Swearing, he pulled it out and tossed it to their new manager, Shawn. "Hold on to that for me."

  The concert was brutal, a mix of excitement and sadness and saying goodbyes. He was more than relieved that he wasn't saying goodbye forever, just goodbye for now. Now, he could handle, even if it was bittersweet. They took more standing ovations, played more songs than normal, and talked to the crowd more, as if prolonging it would make goodbye hurt less. By the time they were finally done, Levi was on the verge of collapse.

  "Just gotta clean up our stuff and we're home-free," Colin mumbled, staggering past him dramatically. "Or I could sleep in my dressing room."

  Levi smirked.

  "Levi, your phone has been going off constantly. I didn't want to answer without your permission." Shawn handed him the phone. "But it sounds like someone's desperate to get in touch with you."

  "Thanks," Levi said, checking the screen. Thirty two missed calls. All from Jace and Kim.

  Levi's blood ran cold as horror threatened to strangle him. There was only one reason they would call non-stop like that.

  Something was wrong with Harli.

  He hit voicemail, teeth clenched and jaw aching until Jace started talking. "Levi, it's Jace. We can't find Harli. She had to take a test, and then we were supposed to go celebrate, but she never showed. Her truck's still in the school parking lot. She's not answering her phone."

  Levi felt like he'd been impaled through the heart. "Levi, this is Kim. A teacher said they saw Harli fighting with a blond lady. When they tried to intervene, Harli said it was her mother and they backed off. Now we can't find them. Please call. Please please please."

  "I need to go home. Now," he snarled.

  Shawn grabbed his own phone. "I can make that happen."

  By the time Levi had dialed Jace's number, Shawn was ushering him out to a waiting car. Levi barely noticed as they sped toward a dark, private airport.

  "Jace? What's going on?"

  "We can't find her, Levi. We looked everywhere. We found her phone, in, like, a million pieces. We went to your apartment where she's been living and her instruments are all smashed and her clothes are torn to shreds. Some of them had been burned on the deck." Jace sounded sick. Panicked. Horrified. "Someone wrote Bitch in—in what looks like blood on the wall. The police—Levi, they're saying all these things—that Selicia is dangerous. That she's—that she's got a history of abuse. Levi, how did I not know? I'm one of Harli's best friends!" Jace broke down and cried.

  "You didn't know because she didn't want you to know," Levi said. "Do the police have any idea where she could be?"

  Jace struggled to pull himself together. "No. They don't even know what kind of car Selicia's driving. There's no note. Nothing." He paused, his voice wobbling. "You knew? About Selicia?"

  "Yeah. I knew. Not because Harli wanted me to, though."

  "How could I have let this happen?" Jace moaned.

  Levi had never been so cold in his life. He shook so hard the phone was rattling against his jaw. "I'm on my way home. I should be there in about an hour."

  Jace hung up without another word, although Levi could hear him sob before the phone cut out.

  "Please be okay, Sunshine. Please be okay."

  HARLI TRIED HER BEST to force her eyes open for several long minutes, but they refused to cooperate, and when she did finally succeed, the pain in her head nearly blinded her. She bit her split lip hard to keep from crying out, and tasted blood.

  Selicia was in the seat next to her, still screaming. Screaming about how Harli had ruined her life. How Harli had stolen her dreams. How everything was Harli's fault.

  Like she hadn't already said that throughout Harli's whole life.

  Harli had tried to reason with her. She'd tried to explain how sorry she was, and failing that, she tried to explain why chasing her own dreams didn't steal Selicia's.

  That was when Selicia had hit her with the baseball bat.

  Harli squinted, trying to lessen the pain. There was blood
everywhere. Some was hers, but not all. Selicia's left wrist was a bloody, mangled mess, still dripping with blood, but slowly. Her mother must not have cut deep enough to cause any real damage.

  "You took my happiness. I'm going to take yours. Do you hear me, you little bitch?" Selicia screamed.

  Harli winced against the pain. She'd been terrified of this woman her entire life. This was every nightmare she had, coming true.

  "Fight her, Harli. You don't deserve this. Fight her for your life."

  Harli felt Angie's cool hand against her cheek, soothing the pain. She could see Selicia's phone, thrown on the dashboard. If she could get to that phone, she could call Kim. But how?

  The car swerved around a corner and the phone, as if pushed by an unseen hand, slid across the car and fell onto Harli's lap.

  "Thank you, Angie."

  She recognized the mountains around them. She saw the National Monument sign. They weren't actually very far from town, and she wondered what they had been doing for the last two hours. Praying the phone was on silent, she swiped her finger across the screen.

  It wasn't on silent.

  Selicia turned her head, her eyes snapping immediately to the phone in Harli's hand. She screamed, something terrifying and unintelligible, and lunged for the phone, clawing it out of Harli's hands. Her eyes were dark and cold and crazy. Like she was possessed, or… or like she'd completely lost her mind. She forgot entirely about driving and turned her fury on Harli, hitting her again and again.

  "Fight her, Harli. Or she'll kill you."

  Harli sat up and flung herself across the gear shift, knocking Selicia into the window with a sickening thud. Selicia moaned, and the car swerved dangerously. Harli grabbed the wheel and jerked them off the road.

  Selicia slammed on the gas and pulled the wheel away from Harli, and the car rocketed forward, straight for oncoming traffic. Harli grabbed Selicia's hands and yanked hard, flinging the car back to the side of the road.

  Selicia grabbed Harli's hair, jerking her head back. Harli screamed and threw her elbow up, hitting Selicia in the chin. Selicia's teeth snapped together with a tooth-shattering crack, and she spit blood all over Harli's face.

  They were going to kill someone. If Selicia kept driving, they would hit someone, some innocent driver, and that person would die.

  Harli couldn't let that happen. Seeing the cement barrier up ahead, she slammed Selicia's leg down so her foot stomped on the gas, and she pulled hard on the wheel. The car rocketed forward toward the barrier.

  There was no bracing for that crash. She didn't have a seat belt on, she was laying sideways across the two front seats. They hit the barrier and she felt her body, as if in slow motion, fly forward into the windshield. That was the last thing she remembered.

  "LEVI! LEVI, WE THINK we found her!"

  Levi gripped the phone so tightly, his hand started to shake. "Where? Is she okay? I'm almost there. About five minutes out."

  He could hear Jace on his own phone in the background, talking to the police. He caught snippets of his conversation before Kim started talking.

  "We're following a car. It was driving all over the road and then we saw them fighting. We're on the outside of town, West Highway 98."

  "I'm almost there! Where is she?"

  Kim screamed.

  "What? What happened?"

  "They're everywhere all over the road. The car's swerving—"

  Kim screamed again, and this time, Jace did, too. "Harli!"

  "What?" Levi yelled. "What happened?"

  "The car—the car—Oh my gosh. Levi, Harli—"

  "Kim! What happened?"

  He heard the door open, heard Kim sobbing, breathing hard, pebbles crunching under her feet. "Harli! Harli, please," she sobbed. "Harli!"

  "Kim!" Levi bellowed, but she didn't respond.

  "You bitch!" Jace yelled in the background.

  "Jace! Help me! Help me get her to—Jace!" Kim screamed.

  Levi pushed down on the gas, going well over 100 miles per hour as he flew around the canyon roads.

  "Jace! Come back!"

  "I'm gonna kill her!" Levi heard Jace screaming in the background.

  "Jace! I need your help. We have to get Harli to a hospital!"

  Levi shot around the corner and slammed on the breaks. There, on the other side of the road, was half of a car, Jace's car behind it, sideways. Levi jerked his own car off the road and got out, hurdled the cement barrier and landed hard on the other side.

  "Is everything okay?" a man asked, his car idling behind Jace's.

  "No. No, it's not. Can you stop traffic on that side?" Levi yelled.

  Then he found Kim, kneeling on the ground, covered in blood.

  Next to Harli's broken, lifeless body.

  "Harli." He fell to his knees next to Kim, jerking his shirt over his head. Keeping one hand against her torn up face, he pressed his shirt against as many of the wounds as she could see.

  Kim, too, struggled out of her jacket and pressed it against Harli, trying to stop as much as the bleeding as she could, her hands shaking so hard she could barely grip the material. "Harli, please. Please be okay."

  With his free hand, Levi checked for a pulse. "She's alive," he breathed. His hands were shaking as hard as Kim's, and he fought to reach the phone lying next to them. Kim's phone. Still on a call with his phone.

  He hung up and called 911 just as the bystander stopping traffic yelled, "Ambulance is on its way!"

  "Stop the bleeding as much as possible. Don't move her in case she's got a neck or back injury." Kim rattled off information and Levi followed her orders, but inside he was screaming and crying and begging Harli with everything he had.

  Please keep fighting.

  "I left her alone. I should have come back with her. This is my fault. I pushed her to audition. She kept saying Selicia would kill her—and I—I didn't listen. She had to fight her alone—"

  "She wasn't alone, Levi. I was with her."

  Goosebumps raced across his skin as Kim spun around, eyes wide. "What—who?"

  "Angie," Levi whispered.

  "We're fighting for her, Levi. We're holding her hand."

  In the distance, he heard sirens. There was nothing he could do to help her. Nothing he could do, but pray.

  We're holding her hand.

  Chapter Thirty

  "I ALMOST KILLED HER, LEVI." JACE sat at Harli's side, his head in his hands. "I was so mad, I left Harli to go after Selicia. Kim begged me—"

  "Jace," Levi cut him off. "You thought you were doing the right thing. You were defending Harli."

  "No." Jace shook his head, finally raising his eyes to watch as Harli's monitors beeped steadily. Levi had barely taken his eyes from them since he'd been allowed in her room. As if staring at them would keep them going. If he didn't blink, she wouldn't die.

  "No, I wasn't defending her. I abandoned her."

  Levi sighed. Kim was asleep on the couch, still whimpering and still covered in Harli's blood. "Jace, you couldn't have done anything. I was there and there was nothing I could do."

  "You were there. I guess that's why you have her and I don't. I go running off and leave her, and you're the one that stays. Even when you leave the damn state."

  Levi frowned, wondering if they were still talking about the accident.

  "I left her and got new girlfriends. I left her and went to college and other girls. I left her and tried to kill her mom. Oh, I always come back," Jace laughed harshly. "But not when she needs me. That's where you and I are different."

  "Jace, you can't think like that. It will drive you insane."

  Jace stood up. "I need some air." He brushed his fingers across Harli's battered face, and then stalked out.

  Levi hadn't heard Angie since she'd spoken at the accident, but he could still feel her there, right by Harli's side. Never leaving, offering her strength. "Keep her here with us, Angie. Don't let her go," he murmured.

  The cool brush of air told him without a d
oubt that his sister was fighting for Harli's life.

  He took Harli's hand, kissed her knuckles, and leaned his head against her bed. "You are my Sunshine, my only Sunshine," he started singing. His voice broke, and he was unable to go on. Again, he felt the cool brush of air, and he started singing again. "You make me happy when skies are gray."

  "You'll never know, dear," Kim joined him, having moved silently into Jace's seat on Harli's other side. "How much I love you—"

  "Please don't take my Sunshine away." Jace leaned against the door frame, tears soaking his cheeks.

  LEVI STRUMMED HIS GUITAR, playing softly, making up songs as he went along because he'd sung everything he knew about thirty times. Sometimes, Colin came and brought his keyboard. Sometimes Jace came with his guitar. Singing may not have made a difference to Harli, but it soothed their souls.

  It had been a week. Harli's bruises had turned an ugly shade of yellowish green, which meant she was healing. Her cuts and scrapes and torn skin were fading from angry red to pale pink. They'd washed the blood out of her hair, and Kim had braided it. Every time she came in, she brushed it and re-braided it so it wouldn't get matted.

  There was a constant stream of visitors. People all over the world were praying for her. JoAnn stayed for hours every day, having put her current tour on hold.

  Like I should have done. If I'd been here—

  "Stop it, Levi."

  He was used to hearing Angie by now. Honestly, he wasn't sure if he would have survived this without her. So he stopped with the self-blame and started playing again.

  "Hey." Jace appeared through the doorway, Kim on his heels. "Have you eaten?"

  Levi ran a hand over his face. "I don't know. What time is it?"

  "Almost four."

  "Oh. Then… no. I don't know."

  Jace dropped a bag of food in his lap. "Eat."

  Levi set his guitar aside and dug through the bag. Even after all this time, Jace still knew his favorites.

  "So, Selicia is out of the hospital and on her way to jail. They're trying to decide if she's fit to be tried." Jace shifted uncomfortably. One of the main reasons Selicia had been in the hospital was because of him. Levi had never gone to visit her, but Jace had. To apologize, because he didn't want to be like her. She'd told him that she'd talked to Michael at Prom, that she'd convinced him that the best way to get rid of Harli was to convince her that she was threatening Levi's career.