Phoenix Rising Rock Band: The Series

by Kathryn C. Kelly

  “I know.”

  “I didn’t have time to bring you back to the house. I’ll reserve a room for you, Abby, and Bryn until we’re done.”

  “It’ll be fine, Georgie,” Abby promises, handing Bryn to Jason, and then stepping out.

  “For your eighteenth birthday, I’m going to throw you the biggest party ever,” Sloane says gruffly. “I’m going to do a jig that you’re finally legal.”

  “Will you perform at my party?”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “Yeah.”

  He winks at me. “Then yes, I’ll sing happy birthday to you.”

  “Let’s get this day over with so I can start planning my party.”

  “After we spend a few hours in bed,” he counters, opening his door.

  Giggling, I gear up for the press and follow his lead. Sloane is already at my side of the vehicle and holds out his hand.

  I’ve lost even more baby weight and I’m wearing a sapphire blue romper that Abby chose for me, as a fashion statement. The designer is a really good friend of hers. Her insistence that if I’m seen in his clothes, dude will catapult to fame instantly, is hysterically funny to me. When she wanted me to wear a pair of stilettos, I overrode her and put on my Chucks. I’m still me.

  The moment I stand, a big pow resounds and glass explodes around me.

  Bryn!

  Before I can ask about my daughter, an egg splatters against my head and, as I turn, Sloane jerks me back. More booms shatter the day. Gunfire, I realize. Agonizing pain seizes my upper shoulder and arm. I cry out, landing on the ground, Sloane braced above me.

  Screams are all around me. My face is wet and sticky with egg stuff and my arm and shoulder are hurting like crazy.

  “Where’s Bryn?” I pant out, not sure why my head is so foggy. “I need Bryn.”

  “Georgie, baby, you’ve been shot. Keep still. You’re losing blood.”

  “Shot? I haven’t.” I struggle against him. “I want my daughter.”

  “Sloane, all clear,” Kiln says in a rush. “Let’s get the fuck inside.”

  He moves off of me and I sway to my feet. A wall of bodyguards surround us. Bryn cries and I smile in relief.

  “She’s fine,” I mutter, before collapsing against Sloane.

  “Open your fucking eyes, Georgiana,” I demand, unable to move. If someone aims at me now, I’m dead. Georgie’s limp and blood blooms on her shoulder and arm.

  She’s not listening to me.

  I have to put her back in the SUV.

  I hate to let go of her.

  She’s shot, and I know it’s because of me. No, it’s for me. A crazy fan sought retribution on my behalf. I made everyone believe the worst of her and she’s suffering now.

  I’m sick and nauseated, my limbs frozen. I hold her and stare at the interior of the car. I swore to her I’d keep her safe.

  “Fuck, Sloane! Georgiana’s shot,” Kiln yells at me. “Get her the fuck in the car.”

  Despite Kiln’s harsh order, I keep my wife in my arms. Her blood is warm against me, but her skin is pale and she’s silent. She’s still.

  Kiln yanks her from me, moving away from the SUV.

  “Where the fuck are you going?” I snarl, grabbing his arm.

  He shrugs me off. “Taking her to the ambulance that’s just arrived, asshole.”

  I hurry behind him, barely aware that both Georgie’s and my details surround me. Police are swarming. News crews covering our arrival are fighting for space.

  Georgie is laid on a gurney. I want her to fucking move. Open her goddamn eyes.

  “We’ll work on her en route, Mr. Mason,” one of the EMTs tell me, sliding her into the ambulance. I start behind them, but he shakes his head. “You can sit with the driver, sir. Sorry,” he rushes out. “We need the space.”

  I’m not arguing. Turning, I almost collide with Maitland.

  “What the fuck’s happened?”

  “Georgie’s been shot,” Kiln answers.

  “Police escort have arrived, Mr. Mason,” Pres informs me.

  “Where’s my daughter?” I demand.

  “Jason is with her and Abby,” Pres explains quickly, seeing I’m on the verge of unhinging. “He’s securing a location for them to remain in until we can transport them back to the house.”

  I nod.

  The ambulance doors are slammed closed and I don’t bother with anything else. Before I’m left, I slide into the passenger seat. As we pull off, two motorcycle officers take the lead.

  I don’t know if it’s on my behalf or hers. Not that it matters.

  Whatever it takes to get her to the hospital faster and save her life is fine with me.

  Mother, Parnell, and Josh sit in the media room, desperate for any breaking news on Georgiana’s condition. We aren’t big television watchers. That pastime is for ordinary, mundane people with no lives, only interested in a built-in babysitter to further dumb down the country.

  I’m not sure who received the call about the shooting, but my mother, my husband, and my son all swooped to my house at the same time. The moment I saw Parnell in tears, looking as if the world had ended, I knew whatever they needed to relay to me pertained to my daughter.

  As usual, I was right.

  They were wrong. Did they really expect me to care? My biggest complaint is her life’s become breaking news because she gave birth to Sloane’s brat.

  Just as Sloane’s arrest, dropped charges, announcement of his fatherhood and news of his marriage has been recycled ad nauseum, the moment Georgie was shot is, too. Two bullets hit her. One in the arm and one in her upper chest, right side. Or as I see it, the wrong side. Too many times to count, I’ve had to watch Sloane throw her to the ground and shield her with his body.

  “Mother?” Josh settles himself next to me and covers my hand with his. I sit in my theater seat, rigid with anger and shock. He’s mistaking it for concern.

  “She’s in surgery.”

  His voice is trembling and hesitant.

  “How bad is she?” I ask, my tone faraway.

  I can’t believe this is happening. Mother paces and her cheeks are wet.

  She’s crying.

  For Georgiana.

  Has she ever shed tears over me?

  “Mom?”

  Nostrils flaring, I glare at Josh, nausea churning in my belly. “Don’t call me that! That’s what she calls me.”

  Heavy silence descends at my snarl, and the blare of the huge screen becomes white noise in my head. Dislodging my hand from Josh’s, I rise up and look at all of them in disgust. Parnell doesn’t allow me to speak. He steps forward and hugs me, shaking, searching for comfort.

  “Sloane’s sending his plane,” he says in a broken voice. “It’s making a stop in Hortensia, so Bryn and Abby will be under the protection of Cash and his biker friends.” He kisses my lips. “Georgie’s critical, but she’s expected to pull through, Cass.”

  “Is that a good thing?”

  Time stops at my question and the static in my ears continue. Parnell’s surprise morphs into hurt, and then disgust.

  “Are you kidding me, Mother?” Josh snarls.

  “Cassandra!” Mother gasps.

  Lifting my chin, I glare at her. “Would you cry for me if I were the one who was shot? No! Because I’m not a superstar’s wife and I’m old, so my time would be up. You’d just let me go. Yet, you’re crying for Georgiana, who’s nothing. Nothing,” I scream, my own tears running down my face. “You’re on my side, making her go away, getting her little bastard for me and Parnell to raise. I loathe her.”

  Parnell sags into a seat. His face is ashen, but Mother’s is inscrutable as she stops in front of me. Her hand cracks against my cheek and I stagger back, holding the side of my face. I can’t believe she hit me.

  “Georgiana is your daughter. My granddaughter. I’ve balanced rallying behind you and protecting that child, but this is enough. You’re stopping this insanity now. She’s been injured. She needs you
, and you’re going to her.”

  “No! Fuck, no,” I amend, still dazed that she put her hands on me so hard that my skin is burning with pain. “Fuck her. She has Sloane, who swooped in and rescued her instead of letting her go to whatever hole you were sending her to, never to be heard from again. I can’t believe he did that!”

  “He didn’t,” Mother says coldly. “I did.”

  “What?” I believe the word fell from my lips, but I’m not sure. I’m stunned at Mother’s heartless revelation, and unwilling to believe it. I shake my head. “No. You said—”

  “To protect you,” she snaps in annoyance. “But let’s lay the cards on the table, Cassandra. Once and for all. I do what I must, as necessary, to take care of you and Georgiana. She is sterner than you think. There are only one or two methods that will effectively keep her in line. The child’s loyal. The only thing she’s ever asked for, ever required, was love. Sloane Mason loves her. He never wanted you. He didn’t want you when he slept with you. It was just something for him to do, so Georgie didn’t take him from you. He was never yours.”

  She’s wearing the floor out. Walking back and forth, making a little circle and doing it again. Not caring that each of her words hit me like bullets, tearing me apart completely.

  “I almost regret not sending Parnell on his way, so he could find some peace and happiness with Abigail.” She pauses, directly in front of me, ignoring my sobs, and points a finger at me. “Everything…everything I’ve done recently has been for you. Do you appreciate it? No. Do you care? No. What’s your main concern? Age. Yours. You’re a fool and an idiot. The remedy for not growing old is dying. If you detest being a beautiful, knowledgeable, middle-aged woman, kill yourself and be done with it.” She stops her rant, stops her pacing and looks at me. I’m expected to respond, but I can’t. I have nothing left in me. Mother has taken the last bit of me, and what I naively believed I meant to her. I’m broken and empty.

  “What’s the use in talking to you,” she says in frustration, snatching her purse. “You aren’t invited to Georgiana’s side. Sloane so graciously included you as her mother. I revoke it. Don’t know what was wrong with the boy, offering in the first place. Joshua?”

  “Grandmother?” Josh responds.

  “Please see me out to my limousine. What time should we be at the airport, Parnell?”

  “In a few hours,” my husband responds in a flat voice as if his soul has been sucked out today, too.

  He’s fifty-six now. At one time, he’d been handsome and fit. Very distinguished looking. That’s no longer the case, and I wonder if it isn’t only Georgiana he grieved for, but his lover, too. Abby. If we’d divorced, would he have gone to her?

  My husband once had a thriving company that included contracts with the Federal Government. Mother took everything away from him. She had the power to do it, just as she had the power to rid me of Georgiana.

  I wouldn’t have to look at her and wish I was young again. There’d be no envy of her gorgeous eyes and midnight hair. No jealousy of her resiliency. She’s always had…strength. Girl power, we called it. I taught that to her. Once upon a time. Before my life became a dark, hopeless tunnel I’ve lost myself in.

  “Cassandra, I’m going to pack.” Parnell’s cold voice is devoid of any emotion. He’s never sounded so toneless.

  Parnell hasn’t left yet, and I’m not sure when Mother and Josh departed. My head hurts, and I just want to go, be far away from these people who hate me, and this life that has nothing to offer me but ridicule, wrinkles, and gray hair.

  “Go ahead,” I say bitterly. “Tell me what a bad mother I am. Finish what Mother started.”

  Sadness enters his eyes, and his half-smile is poignant, heartbreaking. All the years we spent together race through my head, how much I once loved him. But then I stopped being enough for him.

  He caresses the spot where Mother hit me. “I loved you. I may not have always shown it, but to me, you were the most beautiful woman in the world in my eyes. That never changed, Cassandra. But I won’t tell you that you’re a horrible mother. I won’t insult you or argue with you.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and his face falls a little more. “Those things takes energy. It shows a deep investment of emotion. And I don’t have that for you anymore. I don’t feel love or hate for you. Nothing.”

  He kisses my forehead, and I know when he departs he won’t return. He stares at me and swallows, before walking away, leaving me totally and completely alone.

  I’m not sure how long I stay in the media room, surrounded by silence and pain, attempting to recall the reason we have a home theater. If memory serves me correctly, Josh wanted it. Or, maybe I heard it was the ‘in’ thing.

  Tiredly, I go to the second floor, bypassing the room I shared with Parnell for so many years and head to Georgie’s suite. It’s dark and silent, still with vestiges of her presence. Her pink two piece outfit she’d had on when I got her from Sloane’s hotel and locked her away, lays neatly on her chair, the pair of stilettoes she wore on top.

  I lift the sparkly top and bring it to my nose. A faint trace of perfume lingers, and I sob. If there’d been no Georgie, Sloane would’ve wanted me. If there’d be no Sloane, I would’ve continued to tolerate Georgie.

  I would never have known that Mother thought so little of me. As long as I had her, I wasn’t alone, but she’s deserted me, too.

  Georgie wins. She’s taken everyone who ever loved me, and pulled them firmly on her side.

  Anger overwhelms me. I scream at the top of my lungs, ripping away her bed linen and curtains, swiping her lamps to the floor, kicking over her vanity and matching stool, crushing her perfume bottle beneath my feet. I go to her study and attack her scrapbooks, tearing each page away and balling them in my hands, until her painstakingly collected information is destroyed. White hot rage consumes me and I scream at the framed photo of Sloane, but I can’t bear to look at it or touch it.

  I run from Georgie’s suite, Mother’s conversation playing in my head.

  Throwing open my door, I halt when Parnell appears in the doorway between the sitting room and our bedroom. He’s holding a pair of trousers in his hands and frowns in my direction.

  “Cass, you’re overwrought.” Regret fills his voice. “I’m going to call your doctor.”

  “I don’t want you calling anyone for me. I don’t want you here anymore. Get out. You’re so special because a younger woman wanted you,” I sneer. “A younger man wanted me. He fucked better than you ever could. I don’t know what Abby saw in you. You’re a pathetic old man. Leave!”

  His lips tighten, but he nods. “I’ll be out in fifteen minutes.”

  No! He isn’t supposed to say that. He’s supposed to beg me to allow him to stay, beg my forgiveness for the affair he had with Abby.

  Instead, he backs into the bedroom and slams the door shut.

  I trip toward my closet, seeking comfort from my things. I find none.

  Tearing off my clothes, I go to my sofa and lean back, fingering my pussy. I need relief and work my body into a frenzy by imagining Sloane inside of me, crying out when I come against my hand.

  My phone buzzes, still in my jacket pocket. Believing my mother is calling to apologize and reassure me of her love, I dare not ignore it.

  Not Mother. Josh has texted me. Mother read this. There’s a link attached. Pressing it, I’m led to a headline about Georgie Mason, wife of Phoenix Rising’s front man. She’s in recovery, but will survive.

  I slam the phone against the wall. I can’t do this. There’s no room in the world for both of us. As long as she’s here, I’m invisible. My own mother betrayed me.

  No one wants me? Well, fuck them. I don’t want them either. My mother told me to kill myself? That that would be the remedy to my problems?

  She’s a goddamn traitor, just like all of them.

  This is it for me. My life ends here. It should’ve been years ago when I was still young. Memories of me would’ve been forever frozen
in youthful beauty. Now, they’ll remember me as how Mother referred to me. I’ll be pitied and labeled as the mother-in-law of…the mother of…live or die that’s my future.

  Angry, hurt, and confused, I grab a sturdy belt. My blood runs through me in a wild rush and I’m panting, crying. Once I have my stool in place, I find my phone and go to messaging, adding Mother’s number as well as Josh’s, Parnell’s, and Georgie’s. I want them all to know that they drove me to this, especially her.

  I hope you can live with yourselves for throwing me away. Are you happy, Georgie? You have my blood on your hands.

  I press send. For a moment, I consider slashing my wrists, just as Georgie did. But, no. I refuse to allow any comparisons to her.

  Arranging the belt around my neck, I loop it around the chandelier and kick the stool out from under me. My feet dangle and my body does a macabre parody of a dance. Already, I feel deprived of oxygen. Tears rush to my eyes as the noose chokes me and I gasp for air, clinging to life, even as I let it go and wait for death.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I’ve just been informed that Georgie’s in recovery, and I thread my fingers through my hair unable to keep still. Her blood is all over me. Clean clothes lay in a chair that my father personally brought to me after he rushed to my side upon hearing the news. Jaeger, Kiln, and Dad haven’t gotten a respite from their ringing mobile phones.

  We’re in a little private room. Through the glass panel in the door, I see Pres, the band’s security detail, and LAPD.

  “This is the best place for her,” Dad tells me when he hangs up from his latest call.

  “The fuck it is,” I snarl. This is a public hospital, and members of the fucking press beat our arrival here, awaiting us when the ambulance pulled into the ER.

  “She can’t be moved right now, Sloane,” he snaps.

  I haven’t mentioned her being moved, but it is what I want. “In a few hours—”