Bittersweet Chronicles: Pax (17 page)

I shudder thinking about her as she tumbled into my arms. I feel like I’m going to crawl out of my skin right now.

“You might not think that in a few minutes. There’s something you need to know.” I look at Vaughn, my heart racing, knowing that what I say next might be the end of a lifetime of friendship. “I’m pretty sure that bullet was intended for me,” I tell him.

He blinks at me a couple of times. “What?”

“I’ve been sitting here replaying it in my head over and over. She was hit in the left side. She was up onstage, and when she saw me, I told her to get down and come with me. She leaned down for me to help her offstage, and she had to lean to the left when she did. She leaned to the left just as that gun was fired and when she did she got between me and the bullet.”

Vaughn scrubs his hands over his face, and I can see that he’s had about as much as he can take. He glares at me then turns away, his face a mask of disgust.

“So it finally happened,” he tells me, his voice low and rough. “You finally went so rogue that you got somebody hurt.”

“Vaughn, I never meant—“

“To get an eighteen-year-old killed? Is that what you were going to say? Dammit! I went along on this with you, because I thought you cared enough about her not to push it too far. I thought you loved your family enough not to do something that would put them and you in danger along with Carly. But you did this even knowing Lagazo might find out who you really are. You’re so fixated on being the hero all the time that you may have gotten my cousin killed.”

He stands suddenly, striding to the wall where he takes a big kick at it and screams, “Goddammit!”

The door to the hallway opens instantly and Jason is there, one hand on his gun though it’s still holstered. He sees me sitting, elbows on my knees as I lean over in my chair.

“You okay Mr. Reed?” he asks, eyeing Vaughn.

“Yeah, it’s fine, just blowing off a little steam.” I almost wish it had been me Vaughn kicked instead of the plasterboard. Jason grimaces and nods before going back outside.

Vaughn leans against the wall, looking at the floor.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “I honestly thought it was under control.”

“She doesn’t deserve it,” Vaughn answers. “Not her dad, not Lagazo, not you. She’s a good person. She’s smart, and even after everything she’s been handed she’s never once been bitter, not once. She didn’t deserve to have you blow up at her like that, and she didn’t deserve to have you put her at risk because you’re a rich rock star’s son who thinks he’s invincible.”

My insides shrivel like a piece of newspaper in a fire, leaving only ash behind in my empty body. And bit by poisonous bit the reality,
my
reality, sinks in. It doesn’t matter what my name is, it doesn’t matter how far I run, or what I do for a living, I am Walsh Clark’s son, and nothing can ever change that. I can fool a few people for a short time, but in the end, they’ll always find out, and when they do, they’ll always see me in his light. The weight of it crushes me utterly.

“Why would they want to kill you?” Vaughn’s question interrupts my thoughts. “You’re only useful for the ransom—no offense.” He doesn’t sound like he really cares if I’m offended.

“I don’t think they were trying to kill me,” I answer, my voice weighed down with grief. “Maybe they just wanted to injure me, make it that much easier to grab me, put the fear of God into my folks.”

“Poor Carly,” he whispers, and my chest clenches, choking any words right out of me.

“My dad and Joss and Mike are on their way.”

He raises an eyebrow at me.

“They got a chartered jet. I’m not sure what happens next…”

He shakes his head like he doesn’t know either, but before we can wonder more the door swings open and the doctor I spoke to earlier steps in.

“Hi,” he says as he approaches us. We both stand immediately. “Your cousin is out of surgery. Everything went very well. We think we were able to save the kidney, although complications could still develop in the next few weeks. For now, she’s been moved to recovery and she can have one visitor at a time.”

“That would be me,” Vaughn says, shooting a look my way that makes it clear I’m not welcome anywhere near Carly.

“Okay,” the doctor says. “She’s in room 316, you’re welcome to go on up.”

The doctor walks out the door, Vaughn is a few steps behind him, but he stops before he leaves. “We’ve been friends a long time, and that’s meant a lot to me, but it may take me a while to get past this—if I even can. I don’t want you anywhere near her from now on. I appreciate your old man coming down, but my family will handle this from here on out. My mom’s on the way, we’ll be talking to the police and taking Carly back to Portland with us. I’ll get my gear out of your house before tomorrow morning.”

**

Jason refuses to let me go into Carly’s room until he’s seen the layout, so I stand in the doorway as he checks the closet and then the bathroom.

“You sure you want to do this?” he asks.

I nod. There’s no way I’m leaving this hospital without seeing Carly first, no matter what Vaughn says.

The nurse who’s dealing with Carly’s chart looks at both of us with some serious mistrust.

“Hi,” I give her a little wave as Jason ushers me in and steps back out into the hall to guard the door. “The doctor said she could have a visitor?”
      “One at a time, and she probably won’t wake up for a while.” Her tone is cold—she obviously thinks I’m not good for Carly either. She’s right.

“Thank you,” I mutter as she walks past me to exit. I pull up a chair next to the bed and sit, getting my first real look at Carly since she collapsed in my arms. Her skin is pale and her lips are dry. Her lashes lie like soft bird’s wings across her cheeks.

I gently lift a strand of hair off of her neck. “Hey,” I say, my voice soft and hoarse. “You scared the crap out of me.”

She breathes deeply, her lashes fluttering for a brief moment.

I smooth my knuckles over her soft cheek, swallowing hard at what I have to do now.

“Carly,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry that I accused you of selling me out. I’m so sorry that I got you mixed up in my stupidity at all. I should have been honest about who I was. Hell, I guess I should have been honest with myself about who I was. I’m not Pax Reed, I’m Pax Clark, and no matter what it’s who I’ll always be. But even though you knew all along, you never treated me like the rock star’s kid. Not once. I can’t thank you enough for seeing the real me, and wanting to be around that guy even though I’m an idiot.”

She sighs again in her sleep, and I see her eyes moving more under the lids.

“Vaughn said something to me earlier—he said that you didn’t deserve any of this. And he’s right. You didn’t. You deserve only the best. You’re beautiful, and fun, and so brave. You make my heart race and you make me want to spend every minute with you. I don’t want to leave, but I have to. I’m making things harder for you, Vaughn’s right about all of it.

“Your family’s going to take care of you now, and you’re going to get better, I promise. Maybe someday, when things are different for both of us I’ll get to see you again.”

I lean over and softly kiss her forehead. As I pull away, her eyes drift open.

“Pax?” she whispers.

I swallow. “Yeah. I’m here,” I answer as I stroke her cheek again.

She smiles and leans into my hand, sighing and drifting back to sleep almost immediately.

I fight back the wave of emotion that washes over me, the pressure in my chest that says if I leave her now I’m going to drown in my desperation.

If I thought leaving my family in Portland two years ago was hard, it was only because I hadn’t yet met Carly. Leaving her, alone in this bed, tubes and wires sticking out of her small body is by far the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I realize with a blinding clarity that my heart doesn’t live in Portland anymore, it lives with this girl, wherever she might go.

“Take good care of it,” I say. “It’s the only one I have.”

**

I leave the hospital, my head and heart heavy, and I wonder what this means for me next. I’ve lost one of my closest friends, the woman I might be in love with, and my anonymity. I know I can’t just go back to living on the beach in some little Alabama town and playing local bars. My head aches, my heart aches, and pretty much everything seems hopeless.

Then it comes to me—the producer in Birmingham who wanted to hear my stuff. Blake set it up for me and it’s not until next week, but I know my dad will have taken my ass home by then. There’s no way I’ll be allowed to stay in Alabama with Lagazo trying to kill me. Yeah, I could fight it, but I don’t have a death wish, and I couldn’t do that to my family. I check my watch and see that if I leave right away I can make it to Birmingham before five pm. My dad’s flight won’t be in until six or so. Maybe I can salvage something out of this after all.

“Jason?” I ask my new bodyguard as he stalks along through the parking lot with me. “I need to stop by my place for a few minutes, then I want to go straight to Birmingham, there’s a stop I’d like to make before we pick my dad up at the airport.”

“Okay,” he says as he unlocks the doors to a Lincoln Town car. I realize that in all the chaos I have no idea what happened to my truck.

“Shit!” I yelp. “My truck! When we drove up we left it at the emergency entrance—“

“Then it’ll be in the impound lot,” Jason answers. “Happens all the time at the ER. They won’t even charge you to get it out. It’s safe for now, we can deal with it later.”
      I breathe out a sigh of relief. “Okay, let’s get on the road.” As Jason gets settled in the front of the car, I stretch out in the back and pull out my phone, breathing in the familiar scent of a hired car. As much as my parents tried to give me a normal childhood, I spent my share of time in hired cars, being chauffeured from hotel to concert venue, vacation house to airport. Ten minutes later I’ve let Five Star records know that I’m coming, and the receptionist has said that the president, David Lake, might be there when I arrive.

**

And hour and a half later we pull up to the doors of Five Star Records, It’s a regional label with solid connections to one of the New York houses. Getting signed by Five Star would definitely be a great thing for my career and I can only hope that my very unorthodox approach right now won’t sink my chances permanently.

“So, Jason,” I say, trying to sound as authoritarian as possible. “I need to go in and drop off this demo, but I think it would be better if you stayed here in the car.”
      “Sorry,” he says curtly, “I can’t do that.”

“Look, I know you’re just trying to do your job and all, but I need to make a good impression on these guys and if I come waltzing in there with a bodyguard in tow, like I think I’m some sort of big shot, they’re going to decide I’m either crazy or a total douche.”

“I’d like to help you out, Pax, but I’m being paid to keep you safe and alive, not to worry about whether you look like a
douche
,” he says the word with a little twist to his lips like it’s distasteful. “There’s no way I can let you go into an unsecured building without protection.”

I look around the parking lot, which is fenced and has a guard at the gate, although they don’t seem too concerned about access.

“What if you went in and scoped things out, while I stay here. If you’d seen where I’ll be would that be good enough for you?”
      He shakes his head. “Mm mm, I can’t leave you here by yourself, kid. That’s not the way this works.”

“Come on, work with me here. Look, the parking lot is secured, I’m in a Town Car with tinted windows, and no one’s going to nab me in the next five minutes. Go inside, ask the receptionist some dumb question so it looks like you have a reason to be in there, and check it out. All I’m going to do is go in and give them this demo for Mr. Lake.” Really I’m hoping to talk to Mr. Lake, but I don’t mention this to Jason, because then I’d never get into that building without him shadowing me.

“Look man, I don’t want to get killed anymore than you want me to get killed. I promise. I won’t do anything risky, but this is so important to me. It’s the last thing I need to do before I have to go home to Portland and give up my independence.” I mean every word of it, but I don’t mention that my definition of risky is probably different than his.

He sighs, and I see him looking all around us at the parking lot. “Give me your phone,” he instructs. I hand it over and he programs in some numbers.

“That first one is my number, the second is my backup at the office. I’m going inside for no more than three minutes. You are to stay in this car, no matter what. If anyone approaches the car you dial me immediately, you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” I give him a little mocking salute. I’m normally not sarcastic, but he’s so serious I can’t help it.

“I mean it, Pax. This guy who’s after you—I know him. He’s not someone to screw with, and I know from Ethan that there are a lot of people who care about you. I’ve got a kid near your age. You think you’re an adult, and in most ways you are, but you guys don’t always understand the risks you’re facing in the real world. You promise me you’ll follow my instructions?”

“Yes,” I answer seriously. “I hear you, and I’ll do exactly what you say.”

He sighs again. I can tell he doesn’t want to do this. “Okay, I’ll be back in three minutes.”

He exits the car, flips the locks with his remote and goes inside. I relax in my seat, close my eyes and think about Carly. The look on her face when I accused her of selling me out still pierces my heart. I hope with everything I’ve got that she’ll remember me being by her bedside at the hospital more than she’ll remember my vicious accusations.

Before I know it, Jason is sliding back into the car. “Everything look okay?” I ask.

“Yeah, nothing to set off warning bells. Pretty standard office setup. Here’s what I need from you though. There’s a hallway that leads back to the recording studios. I don’t want you going there.”

“Okay,” I agree readily, even though I’m determined to go wherever they ask me to if it means they’ll listen to my demo.

“Without me along, there’s no way to guarantee your safety once you go down that hall. The offices all open to the reception area, so those are pretty visible, and it’s really unlikely that anyone would try anything in that environment. But those recording studios are the perfect place to nab someone or hurt them. Soundproof, Pax, remember that. No one would be able to hear you, and all that equipment and soundproofing material might block the cell signals so you couldn’t even call me if there was trouble.”