Path of Destruction

by Cara Dee

  I'd spat venom at Morgan for months, considering myself beyond redemption and saving. With my self-worth down the drain, it'd taken me a long time to understand why Morgan even bothered.

  Therapy had been part of my sentencing, and that stubborn man had managed to get me to continue once I was done with rehab. To this day, I didn’t know where he got the energy to fight for me.

  I was eternally glad he did, though, and I wanted to pay it forward. Lincoln could regret the day he and I met for as long as he lived. I still wanted to help, in whatever capacity I could. I didn’t know what kind of trauma or issues a prison sentence scarred him with; it could be anxiety, depression, just being overwhelmed… Either way, I was gonna be there—even when he acted like a dick.

  Chapter 17

  Lincoln Hayes

  2008

  Once the bell rang, work hours were over, and the machinery shut down for the day. I reeked of the same familiar mix of chemicals and sweat. In addition to washing uniforms and sheets, the prison was contracted by local old folks' homes and hotels, and I'd probably seen more Egyptian cotton than most.

  Stepping out of the heat from dryers and steam washers in the laundry facility, we crossed the enclosed pathway between two courtyards, and I wiped sweat off my forehead. A shower would've been fucking nice.

  Sometimes I didn’t know how the administration reasoned. A shower in the morning woke us up, but it was in the evening we were in need of it. Wouldn’t it be more cost-effective if we showered before bed? Bed linen would stay cleaner longer—no need to wash them as often.

  Dumb-ass motherfuckers.

  Entering the main building, I made my way toward B-block and up to the second floor and our corner cell. I had some time to kill before dinner, so I was gonna wash up and then call Pop.

  The first thing I spotted in the cell was a letter on Kid's bed. I nodded to myself, hoping his parents were coming around. Then I glanced at my own bunk and saw two letters.

  Goddammit if it was another letter from Ade. Wasn’t it enough that I'd be her temporary neighbor at some point? I knew I'd said I hated the "he said, she said" and passing along of messages between her and Pop, but there was no fucking reason for her and me to become pen pals. Or any other type of pals.

  I grabbed the two envelopes and scowled. Sure enough, one was from Ade. I shook my head and flipped to the other, which caused my stomach to drop. Holy fuck. My chest tightened, and I stared at the state seal of Michigan until my vision blurred. This could only be one thing. Fingers shaking, I pulled out the piece of paper and scanned the content.

  Notice of parole hearing hereby given to offender Lincoln Hayes… The offender will be considered by the Board on the date listed above—

  My gaze flicked to the chart at the top. My name, case number…there—the date. Monday, October twenty-seventh.

  I slumped down on Kid's mattress, eyes fixed on the date. October twenty-seventh was just a month and a half away. "Jesus." I rubbed at my chest. Could my heart pound faster? I doubted it.

  *

  With the notice from the Parole Board rendering me useless, I lost an hour doing absolutely nothing but staring at that letter. So I waited 'til after dinner to call Pops.

  He took the news as well as Kid did when I told him in the dining hall that there was a letter waiting for him.

  "I'll prepare a letter for the Board," Pop said, audibly anxious and stressed. "Fucking hell, you're coming home, son."

  "You don’t know that yet," I bitched, though a weary smile threatened to appear, too. "I think I've jinxed myself enough." Just last night, I had I'm going home, I'm going home, I'm going home on a loop in my head, as if I was purposely tempting fate. Then again, when push came to shove, logic was beginning to defeat whatever parts of me were jaded and evidently superstitious.

  The Board didn’t really have any reasons to deny my parole. My misconducts were minor, and just 'cause I felt the world—or the judge—hated me ten years ago didn’t mean the Examiner would.

  "Want me to change the topic?" Pop asked knowingly.

  I blew out a breath and ran a hand through my hair. "I'd appreciate it."

  "No problem," he replied. "I talked to Ellis. He says he can get you a job in Detroit."

  My forehead creased. "Did I hear that right? Ellis?" That my father and his brother loathed one another was nothing new. My uncle was religious to the point where most cults seemed innocent. So yeah, it was fucking weird that Pop would mention said uncle's son. Estranged cousins was probably the best description for us. Ellis was some ten years younger than me, and we'd never been close.

  "Long story," Pop chuckled. "He ain't like my brother, though. He recently started some fancy PR agency in town, and he's got connections in Detroit, too."

  First of all, there was nothing fancy about our podunk town.

  "All right…" Second of all, I couldn’t say I cared where I ended up. Well, packing groceries would suck. I wasn’t even sure that'd be good, in case I was recognized. I had every intention of keeping a low profile.

  Either way, employment was mostly to show the Board I'd have something to occupy my time with. A way to "rejoin society."

  *

  I snorted as I opened Ade's letter. Amusement tugged at my mouth, and I guessed this wasn’t too bad. Persistent little bitch. It was a printout of a crossword puzzle, and all she'd written was, "I didn’t solve this one for you."

  "Hey." I tapped the steel frame of our bunks. "You've been quiet a while now. Anything good from your parents?"

  Kid cleared his throat. "Nope. Wasn’t them."

  "Oh." I set aside the crossword for now, tucking it under my pillow. "Friend?"

  "My dad's sister," he mumbled. "She wrote to explain why Mom and Dad won't answer my letters. Apparently, it's too much for them to handle, and I've created a scandal at the fucking club." Underneath the dripping sarcasm, the hurt was clear as day. "They might be moving to New York to start fresh."

  "Damn," I muttered. "I'm sorry, Kid."

  That sucked. What was it with people and their shitty fucking parents, huh? I felt for Kid. He deserved better.

  As for Ade… I released a sharp breath and stared at the ceiling. She'd deserved better, too. Would I be able to sit in front of the Board in six weeks and say I regretted what I'd done? Did I regret it?

  * * *

  1998

  The head rush flowed through me, and I leaned back against the wall, not that Ade seemed to notice. She had my leathers unzipped and my cock in her mouth, and she devoured me like she would a line of coke.

  Whenever someone pounded on the bathroom door, I told them to fuck off. They needed to stop acting like babysitters. Especially Morgan. He was on my ass like a bad rash lately.

  "Christ, baby." I hissed as my girl hollowed out her cheeks and sucked me harder.

  Music blared in the backstage area, leaving the door thumping with each vibration of the bass. I sighed in pleasure, my mind numbing but my body wide awake. Catching a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror, I sneered and grabbed the bottle of whiskey on the sink.

  One big swallow per memory I needed gone.

  "When did it start?" Asking the question made me sick, but I had to know.

  She rolled over on the mattress, giggling for chemical reasons. "When I was twelve, but he didn’t fuck me until I turned sixteen. Maybe he would've done it sooner if he and Mom didn’t break up…" Not for the first time since I met her, she played on invisible piano keys in the empty air above her. "When I was a little girl, he would watch me a lot. He made me wash him in the shower… Things like that."

  I took another chug from the bottle, my cock getting soft.

  Ade pouted up at me.

  I needed more. A week had passed, and I was becoming a bad goddamn lover. "Gimme a minute." I poured us some coke, which made us both happy. "I gotta—" I swallowed past the pooling of saliva in my mouth, and my eyes watered. This week's supply was strong as hell. "Shit." I coughed. "I gotta hit the sta
ge soon."

  "But not yet." She grinned and jacked my cock teasingly. Her makeup was a bit smeared under her eyes, yet she was the most beautiful creature.

  "Suck me, gorgeous." I caressed her cheek, doing my damnedest to focus on her. She did as told, and I exhaled in a long gust, eyes closing. "Perfect…"

  "He raped you. Molested you." The words tasted like acid, dry as ash and pungent enough to send bile up my throat. For hours, I'd tricked her with drugs and sex to get her to talk.

  Her stepfather forced her to call him Dad and Daddy. He beat her if she made a sound. He visited her at night, and—

  I shook my head quickly. Eyes open, then. Focus on the present, I snapped at myself.

  "I'll keep you safe, tiny dancer," I whispered. "I'll never let anyone hurt you again."

  She squinted her eyes and gave a small shake of her head, and I knew it, fuck, but whatever. She couldn’t be mad at me forever. A guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do to get his girl to spill the beans about her traumatic past.

  A heavy knock on the door caused me to jump, and I laughed at the insane clusterfuck my life had turned into. Here I was, in a bathroom with a girl who was supposed to be random, coked-up to forget, getting blown without being into it, utterly fucking helpless… I laughed harder and took another swig of whiskey.

  Fuck my life.

  *

  "Shit." I screwed my eyes shut and flexed my fingers. The spotlights were hotter than fire tonight, the crowd louder than normal, and my skin was uncomfortable. Dizzy and sweaty, throat parched, I bobbed my head and focused on Mikey's beat, then eased into the song again.

  I'd hit the wrong chords tonight enough times that I could practically feel Sam's glare. Tony was as high as I was, though he didn’t fuck up, so he'd just be annoyed. Mikey never gave a rat's ass.

  I was losing it. In a moment of clarity, I saw the way I was spiraling out of control. In the days that followed Ade's forced confessions, I'd been so angry. It ran through me, white-hot and blazing, and it was eating me alive. My head swam, and sheet music flew past me before closed eyes; I fucked up the background vocals, assaulted by the images my own brain conjured. I could see her. Twelve years old and scared out of her mind when a man who was supposed to care for her did anything but.

  I was breaking all my rules, doing pills and coke before lunch 'cause I couldn’t cope with a reality that wasn’t even mine. A few days ago, we spent my birthday arguing and destroying a hotel suite, and it was my fault again. Her story didn’t end with abuse and rape; there was the aftermath too, and I didn’t know how to process it. I kept bringing it up, which pissed her off, which spiked her anxiety, which made us fight…

  Drugs united us after each fight, and we fucked in the path of our own destruction. If we ruined each other, could we heal each other, too? Could I fix her when I could never say no? I couldn’t erase her past. Only temporarily. For the night. It was what I was good for. A quick fucking fix. If I needed to save her from anyone, it would be from me.

  The song ended.

  My pulse thundered in my ears—or maybe it was the crowd. Sweat shone over my exposed torso, my fingers slid along the strings, and I ripped into the opening of "Dead Man's Crawl." I let the music seep into my core. It became my erratic heartbeat as my mind kept swimming with images I'd never asked for. I shredded the four-note lick, repeating it several times while the arena exploded with energy.

  I was the dead man, and I crawled for Adeline every night because I didn’t have the balls to help her.

  There would be no encore tonight. I couldn’t do it, and we had a signal to let the others know. A line that belonged to Tony. Once we finished the set, I returned to my mic, and I rubbed a hand over my face, seeing double.

  "You've been fuckin' fantastic, New York." My voice was hoarse, and I didn’t stick around. I hadn't set my eyes on Ade for an hour and forty-five minutes; it made me antsy and unsettled. Walking off the stage, I removed my guitar and handed it to Madigan who happened to stand closest.

  A PA was holding my T-shirt, and I grabbed it in passing and put it on.

  Sam was quick to catch up with me. "Dude."

  "Don’t start." My jaw tensed.

  "Hey." He grabbed my shoulder, and I almost swung at him. Even my six-three had nothing on him, though, so the second he flinched forward and fixed me with a hard look, I shook it off and settled for a glare. "I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with you, but handle it. Or we gotta cancel shows."

  I sniffed and wiped my nose. Goddamn coke was giving me cold symptoms. Ridiculous.

  "I'll play better next gig."

  He lifted his brows. "Uh-huh, and maybe make sure you're thanking the city we're actually in?" Oh, shit. "Yeah, we're in Boston, asshole."

  I winced. Tabloids were gonna have a field day with that one.

  *

  "Where's Ade?" I dragged a towel over my face and grabbed a bottle of water. The backstage area was littered with crew, groupies, and who-fucking-knew. Booze was being poured, and I squinted. The lights were too bright, the walls too white—as if they'd just been painted.

  "Lincoln!" Only one guy called me by first name, and that was Morgan. The others usually used Hayes. So I looked over my shoulder and saw him coming in the same direction I'd just come from. "We have to talk, man."

  "Where's Ade?" I repeated, this time ready to pounce if I didn’t get a goddamn answer. Looked like his infamous words weren't only a trigger to panic when a girl said them. Though, I wouldn’t know from my own experience.

  "At the bar across the street with Leo's wife," he replied, impatient. "She's fine. Let's go."

  "If it's another one of your speeches, I'd rather not." I followed him down a hall—toward the backstage exit, I realized—and his brisk pace put me on edge. "Who pissed in your cereal? We gonna talk or not?"

  "In here." He produced a key and stopped in front of a door. Upon opening it, I saw what looked like a break room for staff. Maybe janitors. Hell if I knew. It was small and lifeless.

  A calendar with naked chicks from '94 hung on the wall, and in the kitchenette in the corner was a coffee pot that hadn't been cleaned in ages.

  "Make it quick." I yanked out a chair from the round table in the middle of the dank room and slumped down. "I wanna get back to Ade."

  "That’s the problem." He chose to pace instead of sitting his ass down. "Tonight, you officially gave your worst performance, Lincoln. You're off your game, you're drinking way too much, and it's all because of her."

  I rolled my eyes and lit up a smoke. "Way to make her out as Yoko."

  He shot me a bitchy look. "I want to help, you dick. Something's obviously changed in the last week."

  You could say that.

  Morgan hadn't hidden his concern, hence my comment about having way better things to do than listen to another speech. Ade was shutting people out more and more, and what would happen if I pushed her in the wrong direction? She'd shut me out, too.

  "She told you, didn’t she?" Morgan stared at me. "Something happened to her, and she's let you in."

  "Jealous?" I smirked wryly.

  "Get over yourself," he replied flatly. "The question is what she could've said to make you act like her bodyguard all of a sudden." That had me narrowing my eyes. "You think I haven't noticed?" He cocked a brow. "You notice a lot when you pay attention. With Adeline, for instance. Refuses to discuss her past, escapes to drugs—"

  "I get it, you're Sherlock fuckin' Holmes," I snapped.

  The coke was leaving my system.

  Only, not entirely true. There was a top and bottom layer. The top was the ultimate sliver of energy and excitement. It needed to be refilled too often and wore off quickly. The bottom layer was getting thicker and heavier for every day I used more than I could handle. It gave me mood swings, took longer for my body to get rid of, and turned my skin into a suit in the wrong size.

  "Want me to keep guessing?" Morgan challenged. "Abusive ex-boyfriend, maybe? Perhaps she had a fucked-u
p childhood and bad parents…" He caught my flinch and got quiet.

  In the meantime, I grew increasingly impatient and itched to find Ade. My knee bounced, and I took a few deep pulls from my smoke before crushing it under my boot.

  "Lincoln." He sat down, some of his frustration giving way to patience and more of that never-ending Morgan concern. It should be trademarked by now. "Why won't you push her to get help?"

  "Because I'll lose her," I blurted out, and there it was. It pained me to admit it out loud in front of someone else. I'd never felt weaker.

  It was the truth, though. I'd lose her, and I couldn’t let go. My hands became clammy, my heart rate grew rapid, and the constant unease gained strength with a somersault that wouldn’t stop churning.

  Chapter 18

  Adeline Ivey

  1998

  It shouldn’t take that long to close our tab, dammit. I'd do it myself if I wasn’t afraid they'd ask for my ID. Miriam had ordered all the drinks tonight while I kept to the back of the bar that reminded me of a hangout for stockbrokers. It'd been a stupid idea to come here.

  Just as stupid as I was. I'm seeing things. Wasn’t it enough that I was triggered by every damn white Range Rover I saw? No, now I had to hallucinate and scare myself half to death by thinking I'd seen my stepdad. As if he wasn’t dead and gone. As if he'd ever go to a rock concert.

  He'd seemed so real… I shook my head and chewed on my thumbnail. It was halfway through Destruction's show I thought I'd spotted him. Not very close—and I was high, it was dark, there was mayhem. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  At the time, I'd been grateful for Leo's wife. She'd seen my reaction and had promptly guided me out of the arena. I'd sucked in gulps of fresh air, and then we'd ended up here for drinks.

  Now I couldn’t even remember the image of him. No recollection of what I'd hallucinated. No expression that stuck, no face—just that bone-chilling feeling.