PLAYED - A BRITISH BAD BOY ROMANCE (37 page)

“Seriously! I don’t
know! She wouldn’t tell me! She wouldn’t even let me see the ticket! I just gave
her some cash. I have no idea where she is!”

“
Think
,” I commanded.

Steven held up his
hands.

“I don’t know! She
never said!”

My fist trembled. It
was ready to strike.

He called out in
fear: “It’s not just me!”

I paused, letting
that sink in.

“…
What.
”

“I mean. It wasn’t my
idea!”

I hesitated
furiously.

“You’d better start
talking, and
now
.”

“Waylon and Dylan, it
was their idea. Waylon’s been pissed every since you brought the bitch into the
bus. They’re already talking about replacing you. I’m doing you a fucking
favor, Trent.”

He looked so
absolutely fearful that I couldn’t help but believe him…and that only made me
angrier. He saw the venom in my eyes and recoiled in terror, his hands up.

“Wh-wh-what are you
doing?”

“Taking out the trash,”
I smiled evilly.

After roughing him up
across my living room and knocking him out, I carried him outside over my
shoulder. I strolled over towards the line of trash bins outside, contemplating
throwing him into them as one last
fuck
you.

Nah.

No reason to piss off the garbage crew.

Instead, I tossed him
to the curb and told him to get the fuck out of here. Brushing my hands, I
pulled out my phone.

There were some calls
to make.

I needed a plane and
a car.

There was only one
lead to follow.

I hoped with all my
heart that it would be enough to track her down.

Chapter 26

Angel

At least half a day
before Trent would be back home, I was already back out of the bus and quietly,
miserably waiting at my destination.

And that life, as I knew
it, was long gone.

I only had to wait at
the bus station for about two hours before Mom showed up, pulling up in her
battered, ancient sedan. It wasn’t surprising to me to see that it was still
marked with dings, dents, and a crumpled backseat door.

“Angel! Good lord,
girl, I thought I’d never see you again!”

Proudly boasting
ratty, unkempt hair and loud makeup choices, Mom gave me an awkward car hug as
I climbed into the passenger seat.

“Where have you been
all this time?” She suddenly demanded to know.

“I think I was
staying…with a friend, or something,” I told her reluctantly. “Nowhere near
here. The last little while, I’ve been living with…well, I guess it’s not
really important.”

“I see,” she nodded,
kicking us into reverse and peeling out from the bus station. “All that really
matters is that you’re back now. God, Angel, I was so
worried
about you these last years, I had no idea if you were dead
or alive…”

“I’m sorry, Mom. I
didn’t mean to scare you like that.”

“Then
maybe
you should have considered
not
running off in the middle of the
night,” she sternly lectured me. “What the
hell
were you thinking, disappearing into the dark? I searched for you for days!
Weeks! Months! We put out a report and everything!”

I found that odd,
especially since I’d only really been a few hours away. Granted, it
was
the middle of nowhere, so maybe the
report didn’t make it out there?

Mom briefly turned to
me, a sympathetic look on her face. “Why did you leave, honey?”

I shook my head.

“Now’s not the time,”
I whispered, trying to change the subject.

“Well…just stay with
me for now, and we’ll get you taken care of…won’t we, dear?”

“Okay, Mom,” I
nodded. “So… What happened to Roger?”

Panic seized my chest
as I uttered his name, as if he’d jump out of the shadows at any second.

“Like I said on the
phone, we got separated a few years back,” Mom smiled at me with freshly
whitened teeth. “It hit him pretty hard when you ran away… Especially after all
the time he spent helping you in the hospital. The man was in a panic.”

I bet he was…
I thought to myself.

“He…he isn’t still in
town?”

“No, sweetheart,” Mom
said. “I’m sorry. We fell out of touch. Haven’t heard from him all year.”

My panic began to
settle down.

“Okay…” I said
quietly, trying not to alert her to my fear. Mother would blame herself if she
ever knew the truth…

“Mhmm,” she nodded,
steering us onto the highway. The sun was setting, and there weren’t too many
cars on the road.

“Listen…I’m sorry to
call you up, out of nowhere,” I tried to tell her. I felt compelled to
apologize. “I know that it’s a lot, asking for help out of the blue…”

“No, no, not at all,”
Mom reassured me. “I’m just so happy to have you back. You have no idea. A
mother should never be separated from her daughter when they need each other.”

I thought on this,
and a silence developed between us. Mom took the time to turn on the radio,
flicking through a few stations.

I caught a brief
snippet of
Wicked Wilds
as she
flipped from signal to signal, and it made my heart sink.

Oh, Trent,
I despaired to myself.

If only we could have been together.

I miss you so fucking much.

“Ah, here we go,” Mom
chuckled, settling on a contemporary country station. Immediately, the twang of
a wailing, energetic acoustic guitar sang out, accompanied by the rich but
depressed voice of a rugged cowboy singer.

“
Down by the bayou, I saw you last / Beer in my hand, the past in the
past / On one fine hell of a winnin’ streak / We made love by the river’s
creek…”

Turning away from Mom
to gaze out the window at the dark, sailing trees, I let myself finally
experience the weight of the choice I’d made.

I did this for you, Trent,
I thought to myself.

But it didn’t stop
the tears from falling.

It was a couple of
hours later before we arrived back home in our tiny little stain on the wooded
Alabama wilderness. The familiarity of the small bridge over the tiny river –
the single decent landmark here – awoke the faintest wisps of childhood
memories…

I could almost see
it. I experienced a small barrage of scattered visions in the shattered glass
of my life before the accident.

Skipping and playing
through the trees.

A solitary school
bus, pulling up by the bridge every morning – bringing the kids a town over for
elementary school.

A time before I knew
of mountains and oceans.

Before I knew of
great castles and bustling metropolises.

I swallowed the
tension that appeared in my throat. This was a place that I never liked to
dwell on, and it was the place to which I had resigned myself.

I was going to live here
again.

No friends.

No job.

No
nothing
.

As if reading my
gloomy mind, Mom chirped up. “Oh! My disability check should be in the mail
again any day now. Until then, I’ve got some food in the fridge you can have. I
picked up your favorites when I knew you were coming…got you some of those
juice popsicles you used to like so much, some cherry Pop-Tarts, some
Lunchables…”

 
“Mom, I never liked those popsicle
things,” I told her. “And what about stuff like bread, or vegetables, or fruit?
Can I go get some of that?”

“Nonsense!” She
smiled toothily. “We’ve got some bread at home, some peanut butter…no jelly,
though…and I think I still have some grapes or something. Let’s wait for that
check, and then we’ll take a look at what we can get you.”

“Wait…did you say
that you collect disability now?”

She glared at me.

As if I’d questioned
her moral integrity.

“
Of course
I collect disability. My knees are so weak, I can barely
get anywhere! Always hobbling around, I’d fall and hurt myself otherwise! And
without that son of a bitch ex-husband of mine, I’ve got to support myself
some
way!”

I snuck a discreet
glance down at her legs.

They looked fine.

“Okay, Mom,” I smiled
faintly. “I’m sorry that I offended you. And thank you. For getting me, and
everything else.”

“Of course, dear,”
Mom sweetened slightly, pulling into our drive. We scattered gravel as we drove
past concealing trees and foliage, finally exposing the green, barely livable,
large shack of a house. “Anything for you, my sweet darling.”

I was wrong earlier.

THIS
is when I resigned myself to my fate.

Well…at least Roger’s not here.

It was the only
solace that I had now.

Chapter 27

Trent

There was only place
I could think to look for Angel, and that was where I’d met her.

The last time I was
in Alabama, I’d been reduced to the resources that my tour had provided me
with. Namely, we were given access to a sleek pair of fresh but ultimately
cumbersome jeeps.

Not this time.

This time, I rode in
style.

It was just the way I
liked it.

I revved the
handlebar of the motorcycle, feeling the engine rumble with satisfaction
between my thighs.

This
was the way to do it.

As I whizzed between
cars on the interstate, whipping from lane to lane, I kept an eager eye out for
the proper exit. At my last stop, I’d paused to re-evaluate the directions, and
I knew my turn was coming up soon.

But not just yet.

Which gave me time to
think.

Steven had crossed
the fucking line. He had been a self-righteous loser and a pain in my ass from
the start, but now he had interfered with my personal life.

And now, here I was.

Cleaning up his
fucking mistakes.

Taking back what was
rightfully mine.

And there had been
co-conspirators.

After everything that
I’d done for them, half my band had turned on me. Everyone from the manager to
the drummer had been a part of this.

But not my bassist.

Nice to know there
was
someone
I could trust.

I shook my head,
clearing it for what was coming next. Because there were more pressing matters
to attend to…

There it is.

Riverton.

When we’d left in one
of those silly jeeps, I thought that was the last time I’d see this backwater
scrape of a town. Nestled serenely between the
sticks
and the
ass-crack of
nowhere
, I figured that was that.

Funny how life turns
out, I guess.

As I found my way
onto the main highway through this boring little town, I felt my mind wander. I
remembered what it felt like, feeling like I was covered with filth all the
time. Dirty. Disgusting. A hideous creature, relegated to the shadows.

The filth, burned off
by the light…
Angel
was my light.

I was drowning in
brightness. Why the fuck did I leave her behind?

You’ve changed me so much,
I whispered in my
head to her.
I don’t care what it takes.
I’m going to find you, and I’m going to bring you back.

After a few minutes,
the ramshackle bar came back into view. It looked even worse with no darkness
to hide its decrepit nature.

I crunched gravel
beneath my tires. Stabilizing the motorcycle, I brought it to the side of the
building, kicking down the support stand.

Pulling off my helmet
I heard the door creak open, then a pause. I could only imagine what was going
through his head as I had my back turned.

After a moment came
the sound of mirthless, angry chuckling. “Of course it was fucking you,” rang
out the defeated mutter of Old Greg.

I hung the helmet
from the handlebar, turning to face the crotchety old man. As I did so, I heard
the click of his rifle, and gazed upon his furious, wrinkled form.

“You have some
fucking nerve coming back here, boy.”

“I need your help,” I
responded.

He laughed, spitting
into the grass. “My help? You took her away! You swooped out of fucking nowhere
and you stole her away from me!”

“She’s gone,” I
replied, ignoring his rifle.

Angel’s lost.

I can’t die now.

Maybe when I know she’s safe.

“She’s…gone?”

“You’re the only
person who knew her,” I answered, holding my hands up – out of respect, rather
than any fear. “I care about the girl. I’ve come here to find answers. I need
to know what happened to her, and I think you know more than you’ve told her.”

Old Greg’s eyes
quivered with fury, but he slowly lowered the rifle. “I’ve told her everything,
asshole. The problem is that she can’t remember any of it.”

“Help me find her,” I
pleaded. “Someone near me sent her away, alone and afraid. I’ve come to keep
her safe. But I can’t reach her. Do you know where I can look for her?”

He planted the head
of the rifle against the floor, leaning on it disdainfully. He stared at me
angrily for a moment, and finally sighed and shook his head.

“You love that girl?”

“More than life,” I
replied, not a moment of hesitation in my voice.

“I guess you’d better
come inside, then. We have a lot to discuss if you want to find my
granddaughter…”