Synister: The Push Series - Book 1 (14 page)

Watching the emergency workers load the junkie onto the gurney, I was struck with the oddest sense of death. It was as if a sadness that I could not explain washed over me, making a stop at my chest long enough to stick the hottest, sharpest sword through my heart.

Come on, Brooklyn. Answer your Goddamn phone.
I wanted to shout those words into oblivion. The feeling that was in my heart passed through the rest of my body. I felt like I had just come off a four-day bender—weak stomach, wobbly knees and legs. With every rotation of the gurney’s wheels, the tortuous sound of the metal scraping across the pavement only buried the pain deeper.

By the fourth ring, I knew I was going to get voicemail again. Pressing
End
on the phone, I tapped the window of the SUV. “Big T, I’m headed in there. She’s not answering her phone, and we need to get out of here before the press is crawling all over this place,” I explained. With a thumbs-up, Tony started the engine and was prepared to make a high-speed exit once I had found B. I turned away from the car. The medical workers were no more than ten feet away from me as I dialed B’s number again and then started toward the club to retrieve her. In that moment, I became laser focused on B and her safety. Decision made. I was going into that club and drag her out of there in front of everyone. I didn't care if I looked like a caveman. She was going to explain why she was ignoring me. Dialing her number again for the one hundredth ninety-sixth time... That was when I heard it.

The sound that changed every outcome, every step, everything I thought I was going to do for the rest of my days. The sound that made dealing with my other
situation
seem like child's play. In an eerie moment of silence amongst the chaos, the chords of Angels Fall’s “Drunk Enough”
collided with my ears. Brooklyn was somewhere in that crowd of people.
Oh, thank fuck, she’s all right.
It was the ringtone I had set for myself on her phone. With my phone still at my ear, I had no idea if she would answer, but she had to be close.

A sense of relief that I had found her settled within me before the raging pissed male took over for her worrying me like that. I felt like a complete asshole for thinking she was ignoring me, but dammit, I was dying out here. She had to be in the massive crowd. Walking with my phone at my ear, in case she answered, I was in complete find and seek mode. I was like a bloodhound tracking a scent.

I categorized everything about those seconds. The way the air blew across my face, the smells of alcohol, spoiled garbage, and piss coming from the alley. The way the noises of the passing cars and the crowd talking all seemed to fade away like a television turned down to a volume you could barely hear. I knew where I was but had no idea where I was. I dialed the number again. Again I heard the sounds indicating she was close by. Oddly, it was as if she was getting closer, but I could not see her. As the knot in my stomach turned, I realized my fate. I wished I could tell you I made it farther than I did before I found her. I wanted to change that outcome every moment since that day. I pounded across the pavement as the gurney closed in on me. The moments were processed in fragments. Moments of space and time. That feeling you get when you were watching a scary movie all alone and then the floor creaked behind you and you weren’t sure if you were going to piss yourself or puke.

The alley had provided privacy where the crowd was standing, but now as they approached, the street bits and pieces of the activity were illuminated by the reflecting of streetlights, the lights of the ambulance, and the immense full moon above. It couldn’t be her. I refused to accept it. It had to be another girl from the club. Yeah, that was what happened. Brooklyn gave one of the girls her phone to make a call. I tried to convince my brain as my eyes began to sting with the emotions I did not want to accept. Looking at the woman as she lay there, broken, clothing ripped, her face so bruised and swollen she was unrecognizable, I could not believe that was my baby girl. I would not believe it.

With a thump, the gurney turned to be loaded onto the ambulance, and it was as if a meteor had collided with the sun. For a moment, my eyes could not process what they were seeing. I couldn’t hear, and my body became consumed with fear and hate. I began to shake my head, answering a question that was not asked. I had no idea, but it was as if all my worst nightmares were realized when my eyes finally focused on the victim just a few feet away from me. With a jolt to the metal gurney and then the level change from the pavement to the ambulance ramp, a shot vibrated through the victim, and my world crashed down in front of me. From around the side of the medic, a hand tumbled off the gurney and dangled in the night air like the last petal on a dying flower. Before my brain processed the image, my heart burst in my chest.
Oh fucking no... Please, God, no.
I noticed the red nails first; then the ring made from the inside of a clock—exactly like the one B always wore on her middle finger. As the realization washed over my mind, I dropped to my knees. I watched as the paramedic worked on her, pumping his hands and breathing into her mouth. There was a ton of activity around her. Cuffs being placed on her arms, bags being hooked up to God knows where. What were they doing to her? I wanted to scream, but I remained still on the ground. It was as if my legs had become completely useless and my feet were made of lead. Why wasn’t I getting up? I needed to get to her.

I had flashes, fragments really, of memories after that. I ended up in the waiting room of a shithole hospital in the middle of the morning. Big T told me later that I tried to grab her off the gurney. That the police tried to arrest me before he stepped in. I didn’t remember any of that, but I did remember Tony putting his hands on my waist to prop me up as he loaded my ass into the back of the SUV. We barreled down the road behind the flashing lights. She was leaving me. I felt the tears wash down my cheeks. Two tears. One for the life that I would never have with her, and one for all the times I had wasted. Brushing them away, I realized that if Brooklyn was taken from me I had no reason to fight. Scottie would never forgive me, but so help me God, if that beautiful soul left this world, then so would I.

Synister
- Pray...Just Pray

Pulling up in front of the ER entrance, I was out of the SUV before it had come to a complete stop. Sprinting across the pavement, I reached the back of the ambulance. I could see Brooklyn inside and a woman working on her. As fast as my heart was racing, the rest of the world was moving in slow motion. Bits and fragments of time, sound were all I was processing. Gripping my right hand around the handle of the door, I started pulling at it to open and pounding on the window at the same time. I knew I was making a scene that was properly going to end up with me in jail, but I didn’t care. Plus, it wouldn’t have been my first overnight in the big house anyway.

As a paramedic exited the vehicle from the driver’s side, a tall, blond-haired man approached me. “Excuse me, sir. I’m going to have to ask you to move away from the ambulance.”

“You put your hands on me, motherfucker, and you’re going to need medical attention.” I was definitely securing a place in jail.

“Sir, one last time or I will call the police,” the medic explained. He was being polite, but I was not oblivious to his right hand balling up in the I-will-punch-you-if-I-have-to fist.

As my right arm retracted and exploded toward the face of the medic, two huge arms encircled my torso and pulled me away.

“Tony, what the fuck!” I screamed.

“You want to get arrested, Syn? You think that’s what she needs right now? For you to be sitting in a jail cell and not with her? Get your shit straight, man.” As he let go of me, I turned away from him.
Shit.
I watched as Tony approached the medics who were now unloading Brooklyn from the ambulance. After a brief exchange of words, they headed inside with her, and Tony walked my way.

“They’re taking her inside for evaluation, and most likely surgery. You need to get your shit right. I will not take you inside there all piss and vinegar. She’s in the right hands. You need to be waiting and cool when she wakes up and needs you. You got me?” Big T locked the SUV and headed to the glass doors with the giant red letters
Emergency Room
written on them.

Luckily, Scottie picked up on the second ring. When the phone connected, and before he spoke, I knew I was on speaker because I heard the faint sounds of music and acceleration in the background.

“She’s hurt really bad, man.” The minute the word
hurt
left my lips, my voice cracked and broke the dam holding back the tears. I fucking lost it. I was sobbing so hard I couldn’t hear Scottie. He was saying words, sounds, but nothing was making sense. I dropped my hand to my side, my chest heaving as my eyes burned with the pain of the tears I was crying for Brooklyn and all the tears I never cried for myself. In that moment, everything and nothing mattered. The shows, the fame, being a fucking rock star—none of that mattered. I was no different than anyone else. The pedestal I was on had come tumbling down. All the years of isolation, pushing Brooklyn away, the booze, the drugs, and the sex—all an attempt to keep myself hidden had fallen away, leaving me exposed, vulnerable, and capable of being hurt again. It was as if I had no choice in the matter. Life, fate had determined that no matter how well I had tucked myself away, it kept delivering blow after blow. I would never be happy. Karma was damn fucking determined to make that happen. I would never be safe from the heartache of feeling. I would never know love. This was it for me.

I looked down at my phone and knew Scottie was still on the line because the call timer was running. Bringing the phone to my ear, I cut him off mid-sentence, “How much longer until you get here?”

“Turn around, man. I’m walking toward you.”

Dropping my hand to my side, my eyes felt like they had been washed out with sandpaper. I couldn’t focus on anything. As the early morning air blew over my face, I leaned up against the metal post below the ER sign. For the first time in my life, I had no idea what I was going to do next. When Scottie reached me, he stopped just short. He looked into my eyes and gave me the same look that I had so many times when I protected him from Vince. He was telling me that everything was going to be okay. That he was here for me, as much as I wanted to believe him. Oh, Jesus, I wanted to believe him, but he had not seen her. She was so broken.

Stepping up to me, he reached out his hands and pulled me into a hug that until that moment I had no idea I needed so badly. When I felt his arms wrap around me and the scent of smoke and body wash fill my nose, I knew he was the strong one. All these years of treating him with kid gloves, and in that moment, he was holding me together.

With the tears still running down my cheeks, I pulled out of the hug a little more abruptly than I had planned.

“Scottie, she is so bad, dude. I just can't fucking take this. Why her, man? Why her?” While I paced back and forth in the glow of the neon light, Scottie just dropped his head and rubbed his hand across his forehead.

“Synister, all those times you protected me? You were the reason I was never afraid. You need to be that for her. She is going to need you to be strong and to tell her that everything is going to be okay.”

Turning to Scottie, I threw my hands in the air and shouted, “Really, dude?
Me
? You think I can walk into that fucking death trap and tell her that everything is going to be okay? Who the hell am I but a broken and thrown away soul.”

Scottie took two steps toward me, and that was when I landed the first punch. Connecting with his ribs, I watched him wince in pain, but he never toppled over. Well, I guess we could thank Vince for that. If he taught us anything, it was how to take a punch. I expected Scottie to pull back, to gain distance between us, but he just stood his ground.
What a stubborn asshole.

“You about done?” Scottie asked.

“Fuck you, man,” I replied.

“You ready to go in, or are we going to fight this out right now?” Scottie stood with his arms crossed.
Defiant prick.

“I don’t think I can go in there. What if it is worse than I can handle?”

“Synister, I promise you this. If you don’t go in there and see her and something happens, you will never forgive yourself. And neither will I.”

Scottie walked away from me, leaving me alone to process the ultimatum he had just laid down. I knew he was right. If something happened to Brooklyn, and I wasn’t by her side, I would never be able to move forward. So begrudgingly, I turned to Scottie and walked in to face my nightmare.