I swallowed to moisten my dry throat.
Bryan sauntered across the stage in heavy biker boots and met War at center stage. War clapped him on the shoulder before plucking the mic out of its stand. Giving me a wink, War then faced the audience, his hands draped lazily over the mic stand waiting while a man in wire rimmed glasses finished the band’s introduction.
His spiky platinum hair gleaming beneath the stage lights, my brother plugged in his favorite Gibson Plaintop, made an adjustment on his footboard, gave Bryan a thumbs up, and flashed me his infamous double dimpled smile.
I smiled proudly back. I didn’t envy Dizzy his success. He deserved to be out on that stage. He was one of the best rhythm guitarists I’d ever heard, though I was a little biased for sure. His steady reliable pacing gave Bryan the freedom he needed to go all crazy on lead. My heart squeezed. I’d missed my easy going brother so much. Maybe if he’d been around, I would’ve had the guts to leave Martin sooner.
2 weeks prior
“Go ahead and leave, bitch,” Martin told me in that same disaffected voice he always used whenever I threatened to leave. Which wasn’t often anymore.
I had no money, and I wasn’t welcome back in my uncle’s house. I’d tried to go back there the first time Martin had hit me. “You’re just like your mother,” he’d told me.
I pressed my lips together, my vision blurring as I stared at my arms. Just looking at them made me long to shoot up again. I hated what I’d become, and I hated Martin, but I loved the drugs more. I craved that next high more than food or water, more than oxygen, more than life, more than love. I’d do just about anything for that next fix. And that’s what gave Martin the power he had over me.
My gaze slid to Martin as he slipped the Glock into his shoulder holster and pulled on a jacket. His eyes hard and dark as flint met mine. He was handsome, except for his eyes. If the eyes really were windows to the soul, I should have realized much sooner that he didn’t have one.
His gaze was cold, emotionless, and calculating as he studied me. A growing sense of unease flooded my body, making my pulse pound and my respiration increase. There’d been thinly veiled statements from him lately, pressure to do things that I’d been able to deflect, but didn’t know for how much longer.
When we first met he’d been kind, and I’d believed there’d been something worth having between us, but now I was just as certain it’d been wishful thinking. I’d been wrong about so many things.
One thing I was sure of- guys just wanted a piece of me. They would say or do what they needed until they got it, and then they were gone.
Bryan was the first to make me feel that way. I never realized how much I needed and took his approval for granted until it was withdrawn. My throat clogged remembering his callous dismissal of what I’d thought we shared.
My mother had been right all along.
A part of me, the part with dreams, the beautiful part, had been snuffed out by darkness. Fear had replaced hope and apathy had replaced fear until all that remained was this empty frame, a place card for the woman I’d once been, still pretty to look at, but hollow inside.
Martin grabbed my shoulders, squeezing just hard enough to hurt. I looked up at him, gritting my teeth together, keeping my expression as neutral as possible. I’d had to adapt quickly to survive his sadistic streak. He enjoyed breaking people down so he could control them. Most of the time he didn’t get physical, as long as I didn’t show weakness. It was strength he admired. My backbone. What remained of it anyway, that he respected.
“I’ve got some China White coming in tonight.” His coal black eyes searched mine. “I’ll bring you a bindle.”
“Alright.” My lips curved up into a thin caricature of a smile.
His answering grin was a travesty as well, feral and predatory. He didn’t even try to hide his disdain for me as he went out the door. Why should he? He had me. He knew that. He always seemed to know everything. Just like he’d known how susceptible I’d be to him and his brand of fake charm the first night we’d hooked up together.
I’d had an idea who Martin Skellin was before that night. His reputation had always scared me away, but after being tossed aside by everyone I’d ever trusted, I hadn’t really cared what happened to me or who I did it with.
I should have…
because although Martin was attentive in the beginning, using his influence to get me a job singing at a local club, his true colors began to bleed through shortly afterward. He was into some serious illegal shit. I woke up nights, seeing and hearing things that I wished I hadn’t. Suspicion became a reality that I tried but couldn’t ignore.
Then Tempest hit it big and Martin had a new game to control me, a more effective way to break me down. He began showing me articles and pictures of the guys and loved to point out what a big success they were without me. I tried pretending it didn’t matter thinking eventually he would give it up and move onto something else, something less painful, but he hadn’t.
Instead, he honed in on my weakest spot.
An explicit YouTube video of the infamous bad boy guitarist of Tempest became the final wrecking ball that demolished the wall I’d carefully built around what remained of my heart. The wall that had already started to crumble, the wall that wasn’t nearly as strong as I’d needed it to be.
After that I gave in and regularly took what Martin had offered before. I did whatever, whenever. Why shouldn’t I? Forgotten and abandoned by those I’d loved, it was inevitable where I was going to end up. Better to get it over with and fast pass the trip.
I learned to compartmentalize my life. I stuck the bad stuff into a box and pretended it didn’t exist. And when the needle was under my skin, when the drugs hit my bloodstream, everything else did fade away. I lost the will to care about anything. I stopped dreaming about the future, and settled for shuffling through the lucid times like the living dead until the next time I could get high.
I waited up late that night for Martin. He came back as promised, but he hadn’t come alone. Strader was with him. Tall and thin with a gnarled face, Strader’s brand of evil made Martin’s seem angelic.
I rose from the couch, pulling my robe tightly closed with one hand fisted over my chest. Outwardly I tried to project confidence. Inside my nerves were all over the place. It wasn’t lost on me that both men tracked my movement with anticipatory gleams.
“I’ll just leave you two alone to discuss business.” Chin down; I hustled toward the back bedroom.
“I’ll go with you.” Strader’s mouth practically drooled with lascivious intent.
Eyes going wide, I looked to Martin for help.
“No, wait.” Martin held up his hand. “Let me talk to her first.”
Strader looked like he was going to refuse, but then his expression changed. “Sure.” He gave me a lurid grin, gaze raking me head to toes in a way that made my flesh crawl. “But just so you know, it’s gonna happen, willing or not.”
And there it was. There was no longer any doubt what he wanted, what he had come to get.
My heart began beating so fast it felt like my chest was going to explode. It was extremely unlikely I would be able to convince Martin to change mind. He owed Strader a lot of cash. Being under Martin’s thumb had been one thing, becoming a disposable plaything for a man like Strader was entirely another. I’d reached the end of the road, and I refused to go further, deciding right then and there that I’d rather die than endure whatever Strader had planned for me.
