Path of Destruction

by Cara Dee

  "So, what, returning to your little hometown is your retirement? You'll finally get to chill when we get there?"

  "Partly." Fuck, yeah. I wanted a fucking home. A big house for all of us, though I suspected Madigan was gonna stick around in Seattle. In the past couple of days, he'd talked about opening a studio there. "I want our house to be everything I haven't had since…since I left in the first place, pretty much. Comfort, stability, peace and quiet, privacy…" I leaned back and scratched my bicep. "There will be no goddamn fame to speak of."

  He cocked a brow. "They talk about you online."

  "Let them." I shrugged. It couldn’t be too much of it. Madigan had mentioned a low buzz in LA around the time I got out, but Destruction was dead. Old fans reminisced maybe, then moved on. "I've got no representation. There's no way to find me if the interest isn't there." And it clearly wasn’t high. "When I get back to music and start producing, I doubt that'll change. Either way, it's why I want the studio in Seattle. Away from our personal life."

  The food was ready, so I dumped the container over two plates.

  "I'm not hungry—"

  "Have a fucking meal with me," I said. "It won't kill you. Ade cooked it."

  A minute later, we had food and sodas on the table, and I dug in, wanting to explain the other part of me. 'Cause like it or not, I was still Ade's rock star. I had no desire to start over at the bottom.

  "There's one thing I reckon you and I will butt heads over," I told him. "You're a carbon copy of your pop, and I'm the fucker he hated to love. Or like, is more accurate. I'm not modest, and I'll freely admit I miss the good life. Once we're outta here, I'm done with this frugal bullshit we've got going on now."

  He snorted and opened his soda. "We haven't had a choice, dick."

  "You do now." I waved my fork at him. "If we had it my way, we'd spend the rest of our time here in a hotel suite or a nice condo downtown. For fuck's sake, my toilet upstairs leaks, there's a draft in the living room, and I live next to a seventy-five-year-old pot dealer."

  Jesse killed his humor by shoving some food into his mouth. "We get it, you want it fancy."

  "I'm gonna start calling you Junior. You even sound like Morgan." I shook my head and forked up more gravy with the potatoes. "This is my comeback, Jesse. I'm trading the spotlights for studio time and groupies for your mother, but if I wanna take my family around the world, I will. If I wanna buy a new truck, I hope Ade will bitch at me 'cause angry sex is seriously hot."

  "Motherfucker!" he growled.

  I smirked. "Literally." We were gonna get along just fine. "You know I'm messing with you. She owned my ass way before I put a stamp on hers, and I'll probably end up asking for permission to buy anything expensive." Okay, I wouldn’t go that far; I wasn’t lying about angry sex, but I wasn’t completely immune to being pussy-whipped.

  "You're so damn frustrating…" He sighed and stabbed the food as if he pretended it was me.

  "But here you are." I set down my fork and got serious. "I hope you'll learn to see my intentions, the way I see yours. If I judged you by the way you treat me, I'd kick you outta this rat's nest. Instead, I know you're reluctant to accept me because you're protective of your family—and the memory of Morgan."

  He didn’t answer for a bit, though it spoke volumes that he stayed and shared the meal with me.

  I could be patient.

  "There are some good schools in Seattle," he said after a while.

  I nodded, taking it as a huge win.

  *

  Ade was quiet during dinner—our regular dinner—and I waited until everyone scattered before I pounced. Hands on her shoulders, I steered her away and took over doing the dishes. God forbid we bought a fucking dishwasher.

  "Something's wrong. Talk to me."

  "Huh? Oh, sorry." She was distracted, too. "Dr. Anderson called earlier. He wants to see me tomorrow morning. He sounded…somber. Tired."

  "Hm." Wasn’t a whole lot to say. It could go both ways, I guessed. "What time?"

  "He asked me to stop by around lunch."

  I could swing that. I had an hour and a half. "I'll be there—and don’t argue." Truth was, I worried. It wasn’t only this, either. Something had changed in the weeks following Valentine's Day. Since the Big Pregnancy Scare. A sliver of the happiness appeared forced on her end.

  I wasn’t projecting…much. Or so I told myself.

  Take shit slowly.

  After doing the dishes, I had ten minutes before I had to go home. Kid was gonna call me at eight, and I was planning on cursing him out for not picking up the phone as often as he should. It wasn’t like I could call him.

  "Wanna do something this weekend?" I leaned back against the counter and drew Ade close.

  "During the day, sure. I have the night shift both Saturday and Sunday." She rested her head on my chest, and I dropped a kiss to the top of her head. "Can you play for me soon? I miss it."

  "Of course." I lifted her chin and kissed her. "I should get back so I don’t miss Kid's call. Come over later. You haven't spent the night in a while."

  "Okay." She smiled gently and gave me another kiss. "Love you."

  "You, too." There was something left unsaid, I could fucking feel it. Hopefully, it was only the crap about her job. That would be settled tomorrow.

  I returned to the neighborhood's number one pot house, and a couple minutes past eight, I accepted a call from the prison.

  "Lincoln?"

  "Hey, Kid." I sat down at my creaky kitchen table. "How're you feeling?"

  "Good," he lied. "You?"

  I shook my head to myself and looked down. "You're a horrible liar."

  Why the fuck wouldn’t he tell me? Every time I spoke to him, he sounded more depressed than the last time. It'd gotten to the point where the prison counselor recommended me to visit, which we'd put on the application, along with proof that Kid's parents had moved away.

  "I don’t know what to say." His voice was all but dead. "I'll be fine."

  Goddammit.

  He wanted to see me, I knew that much. He'd helped out with the paperwork I couldn’t handle on my own, and he'd met with the lawyer I paid for once. The rest was just…I didn’t know. He barely touched the money in his account. He hadn't mentioned the beanie I'd sent him, so I wasn’t sure he'd gotten it.

  "Nunez gets out tomorrow."

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Oh, yeah?" That meant Kid would really be alone. "Has he introduced you to anyone?"

  "I guess."

  It fucking sucked feeling helpless, and the defeat in his tone gutted me.

  "I gotta go, Lincoln." His voice cracked at the end, sending anguish through me, and he hung up before I could say anything.

  "Fuck!" In a fit of rage, I threw the phone against a wall.

  He needed something to look forward to, and knowing he had a family to come home to wasn’t enough. I'd wanted to save the details of our move for when I could see him face-to-face—if I was granted visitation rights—so I'd only told him I had a surprise for his parole. I had to rethink that now. Next time he called, I would tell him everything.

  *

  The next day around eleven thirty, I took a cab to the clinic and found Ade pacing outside.

  "Keep the change." I stepped out of the cab and walked over to her. "I thought you'd be inside already."

  She bit her thumbnail and glanced at the door. "It's dark."

  I frowned. True, the waiting room was dark. The door was unlocked when I tried it, though. "Come on, baby. Only one way to find out what's going on."

  She blew out a breath, and I held the door for her.

  "What if I get fired?" she asked.

  "Then you get to sleep in more than me." I wasn’t gonna have this conversation with her again. I'd made myself clear. She could look for a new job all she wanted, but there was no goddamn rush—or she could start researching shit for our move. Schools, house listings, activities for Abel—anything.

  Visibly nervous, though d
etermined, she told me to wait, and then she went down the hall and knocked on Dr. Anderson's door.

  For the record, I never promised to wait here. The moment the doctor opened and let her in, I stalked closer and folded my arms over my chest. Shoulder resting on the doorframe.

  "No patients today?" I heard Ade ask.

  "Ah, no. We're closed for the time being." There was a pause. "I…I want to apologize, Adeline. Most of all, I'm saddened that you had to go through this. I want my clinic to be a safe workplace, not only for patients but fellow coworkers." So far, so good. "Unfortunately, I can't prove that John has done anything wrong."

  I couldn’t say I was shocked. The preying motherfucker seemed well-versed in covering his tracks. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to pull his shit for so long.

  "I believe you, though," the doc continued. "I've known him for twenty years, and I suppose you coming forward removed my blinders. I noticed his behavior toward a few of the mothers and how defensive he became when I confronted him. I won't have that on my conscience, so I'm in the process of buying him out." Good doctor. "I can't work with him, much less run a business with him."

  I pinched my bottom lip, waiting.

  "I understand," Ade said warily. "What does this mean for the children? I mean, you help the community a lot. Where will they go now?"

  "I've referred John's patients to another clinic similar to mine," he answered. "It's only temporary until I've hired another doctor. Two, in fact. I'd like to expand and help more. I hope to reopen fully in another month or so."

  "Okay."

  I missed the next sentence because my phone rang, so I stepped away slightly annoyed and answered as I reached the waiting room.

  "Yeah?"

  "Hello, may I ask who's speaking?"

  "Lincoln. Who's this?" I replied irritably.

  "Hi, Lincoln, this is Connie Smith. Do you remember me?"

  I tensed up. "Is something wrong with Casey?" I didn’t see any other reason for the prison counselor to call me on my cell phone. As far as I’d known, she didn’t have the number.

  She let out a breath. "I'm afraid he's in the hospital."

  *

  I remember Ade telling me she felt powerless against people with higher rank or status. She doubted her worth next to them and tripped over her own insecurities, causing her voice to falter. Now I knew what that was like. I wanted to fucking sue the prison, or at the very least tear some new assholes, except I couldn’t. My hands were tied by a set of rules I couldn’t break, unless I wanted to risk going back to prison.

  "Mind your neck and count your blessings," my parole officer had told me.

  Detroit was in the rearview, and my knee wouldn’t stop bouncing. Silver lining: Ade had learned to drive in LA, so she knew how to floor it.

  I checked my watch. We would've been on the road sooner if I hadn't been required to get a form signed by my parole officer.

  "We'll be there in time, hon." Ade passed another couple cars before switching lanes. "I can't fucking believe this. How did they let this go so far?"

  That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it?

  The counselor had broken a few rules and pulled strings to make this possible, and if that didn’t mean this was serious, I didn’t know what would. Not only had she betrayed Kid's trust by telling me he'd taken up self-harm as his latest hobby, but she'd used whatever influence she had to get me my visitation rights. On top of that, she'd deemed the situation dire enough for me to be allowed to visit him at the hospital.

  Back when she was my counselor, I remembered thinking she should get out. Who the hell in their right mind would voluntarily work in a prison? She was forgettable. Until now. I had a feeling I'd remember her help forever.

  "Sorry I pulled you away from the doc." I rolled down the window so I could smoke.

  Ade shook her head, dismissive. "We were done, anyway."

  I side-eyed her, exhaling some smoke outta my nose. "You okay?"

  "Yes." She nodded once. "He told me I was welcome back when they reopened, and I declined. Politely."

  "Seriously?" Who was this chick, and what'd she done with my tiny dancer?

  "I did offer to help out," she conceded. "But when I sat in there, it kinda hit me how done I am. I'm almost twenty-nine…going on eighty. I deserve a small break, don’t I?"

  "Or not-so-small." I wasn’t in the right mind-set to joke around or be happy, but I grabbed her hand and kissed her knuckles. "It's about damn time."

  "I'll kill you if you get sick of me," she said frankly.

  Fuck, how I loved her. "I dig that I draw out the crazy in you."

  She laughed.

  *

  Two-and-a-half hours and one pack of smokes later, we arrived in the little town where the biggest employer was the prison. I had my paperwork in order, and I'd set the alarm on my phone for when I had to check in with my parole officer.

  "I'm just gonna drop you off, okay?" Ade made a turn, following the signs toward the hospital. "I'll drive over to the motel so you can have some privacy."

  Let's see… I flipped through the forms to double-check my authorization for the overnight stay. "I have the address here. Can you make sure the phone works in our room?" I'd been advised to do that, which meant it was probably a shitty motel. This town didn’t offer much else.

  "Of course. Try to relax, honey."

  The irony of her telling me that…

  Before long, we reached the hospital.

  "Go hug the crap out of him." Ade popped a kiss to my cheek, but that wasn’t enough. I turned my head and kissed her deeply, her presence centering me noticeably.

  "I'll see you soon." I left the truck and headed straight inside where I was instructed to go to the third floor.

  On the way, I shrugged out of my jacket and removed my watch.

  "Hey, I'm visiting Casey Teague," I told the lady at the nurse's station.

  "A second, please." She tapped away on a computer before finding his room number.

  I shouldn’t have bothered. The second I peered down a hall, I spotted the guard outside his room.

  With a hard swallow, I sucked it up and went over. I didn’t recognize him.

  "Hey. Uh, Lincoln Hayes. I got a permit to visit Casey." I extended the paperwork and my ID, and he read it carefully.

  "All right, you get an hour." He handed back the papers and picked up a plastic box from under a chair. "Any loose items go in here—phone, wallet, watch, keys, belt, shoes." Trust, I knew the fucking drill. "Standard visitation rules. You can hug once before and once after the visit, you may not touch the inmate's handcuffs, and your visit will be monitored."

  "You forgot the bit about not saying anything incriminating," I noted.

  He gave me a look that said it'd been a minute since he got laid.

  I dropped everything in the box, refraining from making another wisecrack, and then I was let inside the hospital room. It put a lump in my throat right away. Okay, I wanna leave. He wasn’t supposed to look that fragile.

  Cuffed to the railing of the bed, he had tubes coming and going, and he was pale as fuck. As I approached, I noticed the bandages along his arms.

  "Kid." I stopped at his bedside and touched his shoulder carefully.

  He stirred, opening his eyes slowly, and cracked a lazy grin. "I thought—" Too hoarse, he tried again. "I thought they were joking when they said…that you were coming."

  I eyed one of the wiry tubes, wondering what magic they had him on.

  "You pissant," I whispered. I leaned over him and palmed his cheeks. "You wanna give me a heart attack, huh?" With a brief kiss to his forehead, I sat down in the chair behind me and dragged it closer to him.

  I couldn’t even see his arms. Connie had mentioned a homemade shank out of something plastic but sharp he'd probably found in the kitchen. There were scratches along his neck, too. Had he clawed at himself during a complete fucking meltdown? Hysteria hit sometimes. I'd been there a time or two.


  "It's good seeing you." He smiled, bright blue eyes shining. "Are you all right? I feel fine."

  "Yeah, I bet you do," I muttered. Right now. "Care to share the juice?"

  He chuckled drowsily. "I'm savoring it. Savoring—that’s a weird word."

  I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees, and tented my hands, thumbs under my chin. "Connie told me they labeled it a suicide attempt."

  He blinked and looked at the ceiling. "I don’t want to die."

  My eyes stung. He'd lost muscle mass. His jaw and cheekbones were more prominent. His dark hair messy and matted.

  "I'm not strong like you, Lincoln." He kept looking anywhere but at me. "I can't shake the nightmares, and the sounds are too loud. I freak out. The walls close in on me."

  I gave his hand a squeeze and threaded our fingers together atop the metal bars. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the guard watching.

  "So you think becoming an addict is the answer?" I could do the math from here. The COs were obligated to take him to the infirmary if he was hurt enough. Once there, they'd give him something to calm down, a few hours' rest, and then back to the cell.

  He shrugged slightly. "I didn’t mean to go this far… Though, the food's better here."

  "Don’t joke about this," I whispered. The other thing Connie had mentioned was his recent diagnosis of depression, for which he received medication. "Did you get the beanie I sent?"

  He nodded. "I like it."

  "Good." Shit, part of me almost wished I could sit the remainder of his sentence with him. Almost. "It's another seven, eight months, Casey. I'm gonna need you to be strong, 'cause moving halfway across the country right after you get out ain't gonna be a walk in the park."

  He frowned, confused. "What?"

  I nodded. "You're gonna put in a request to do your parole in Washington. All of us—you included—are moving there before Christmas." I wondered if I could persuade Ade to fly out and look at houses so everything was ready by the time we got there. "I told you, you're stuck with us now. I meant it."

  His Adam's apple wobbled, and he bit down on his lip.

  "Ade can't wait to meet you," I murmured, smiling a little. "She'll mother you to death." Kid was only a couple years older than Jesse, so maybe they'd have something in common. "You'll like the others, too." And instead of a job, I was sending the little fucker straight to college. Pop told me they'd opened a state college in my town.