Raw Rhythm

by Cari Quinn

  He was amazed words still existed inside him after what he’d seen. There was a black hole in his gut, in his heart, just waiting to suck down everything that had happened tonight and churn it up as another reason to be bitter. To hate and mistrust.

  Until then, he was too raw, and her hand was trembling in his, and he wasn’t strong enough to keep her out.

  “It was me. I only saw you. Maybe if I’d moved faster, if I’d been a little closer to him too…” He trailed off and squeezed his eyes shut at the image of Randy moving forward, his gaze on the lights when the beam was coming down, swinging wildly, manically, its targets so clear.

  Mal had gone for Ricki. She hadn’t seen the beam. But if he’d shifted just a little to the left, perhaps he could’ve brought them both out of the way. An extra second or two, a moment where he wasn’t transfixed by Ricki and keeping her safe—

  “It was me,” he repeated, gripping her hand tighter. “I told you to run before. Tonight I was the one who ran.”

  Straight to her. Incapable of seeing anyone else, though he was the only hope Randy had.

  Mal let out an unsteady laugh. Fuck, he wasn’t meant to be a hero. Hadn’t he proven that tonight? It was his fault someone’s life was ruined.

  His fault he’d made a choice no matter how many times he told himself he hadn’t.

  She was his choice. Always. She was the reason he was even on that stage. Lila believed it was because of her and the strings she’d pulled. But the truest answer was the woman stretched out in front of him, bleeding and still.

  So still. The exact opposite to all the madness just outside the ambulance. Vehicles coming and going, sirens blaring, tires shrieking. Wailing. Not crying. Sobbing.

  He didn’t want to hear any of it. Couldn’t.

  Ricki’s lips parted and for a second, he thought she was waking, but no. That halfhearted moan was from pain. He was harming her even now, squeezing her delicate flesh until she bruised.

  Forcing himself to lessen his grip, he exhaled a ragged breath and lifted her pale hand to his cheek. She was so cold. “She needs a blanket or something,” he barked to the EMT, not looking to see if the order was followed. Because her lashes were fluttering, and her lips were forming something he couldn’t make out.

  Then the words escaped on a huff of breath, and he was sure she was dreaming.

  “Nightmare,” she whispered, and he knew she didn’t just mean tonight. Though it was. It so fucking was. “Nightmare,” she repeated, and he shut his eyes, knowing what would come next.

  “Beautiful nightmare.”

  Chapter Two

  She slept.

  Every time she started to open her eyes, she stopped. There was a weight there, holding her lids down. The same weight shrouded her, invisible hands pressing her into the bed. Her bedding was too heavy, her arm encased in something that didn’t give. She was trapped, and fighting required more strength than she had. Exhaustion held her hostage, and she didn’t try to struggle free.

  It was easier, safer, to retreat into sleep.

  Voices tried to intrude. She battled them back. Caring touches that made her shrink away into the starchy sheets. She didn’t want to wake up.

  To know.

  The war between waking and sleep continued for a lifetime. Two. She didn’t have a sense of time. Hell, she didn’t even open her eyes. Because then they’d realize she was awake, and reality would be inescapable. No one was holding her hand anymore, but they had. That rough grip, the harsh puffs of breath against her ear.

  Familiar, but not. Wanted, but feared.

  He was gone now. Had been gone for the century she’d been in this bed. Among the other voices, she’d never heard his again. Most she couldn’t make out. Didn’t try too hard either. She didn’t want to be guilted into waking before she was ready.

  She would never be ready.

  Then came the one voice she’d never ignore.

  “Ricki, if you don’t open your fucking eyes right now, I’m going to kick your ass. And I don’t care if you’re a girl. I know you can take it.”

  She opened her eyes, squinting against the over-bright lights, wheezing out a laugh even as her eyes filmed over. She couldn’t ignore her brother. Her heart answered him even when she didn’t have a voice left.

  “Holy shit, that worked.” Nicky leaned forward and pressed his head to her chest, and she let out another wheezy laugh, ending on a racking sob as she tried to touch his hair. Soft and messy, sticking up in every direction. But her arm was bandaged, and she couldn’t move it right. She tried again, jerking farther up in the bed, panic stabbing through her as she yanked ineffectually at her arm.

  She waited for pain. Wanted it. Instead she felt just the barest hint of awareness, as if her arm had gone to sleep minus the pins and needles.

  “Hey, hey.” Nicky lifted his head, and his golden eyes were wet, the dark lashes starred. “Don’t jerk around like that. Easy does it.”

  “M-my arm.” Speaking took so much effort, and she didn’t recognize her own voice. “I can’t feel it.”

  “You’re going to be just fine.” He eased back and took her hand, the one on her opposite arm. She let out a relieved breath as the sensation of his callused fingers gripping hers registered. One still worked.

  Her left arm was okay. But the right, her playing arm…

  She started to ask. But she shook her head and shut her eyes tight instead, not wanting to form the question or hear the answer. She only had a fuzzy recollection of how she’d ended up there, and she didn’t want it to be more distinct. Knowing meant understanding, and she wasn’t interested in that now.

  Maybe never.

  Biting her lip, she turned her head slowly, not wanting to disrupt her equilibrium more than it already was. She’d heard once that you couldn’t pass out if you were lying down, but she was pretty sure that was BS since she was lightheaded and disoriented as hell. She wanted to shut her eyes against the bright light, but she didn’t until she ascertained that she and her twin were alone.

  None of her band. No Lila. No one but them.

  “Just us,” she whispered.

  He nodded and squeezed what she was already thinking of as her good hand. “Lila stepped out for a minute, but she’s here too. She’s been here the whole time. The others as well.” He cleared his throat, but she still heard the tears he couldn’t quite dispel. “You have a lot of people in your life who love you.”

  “Too many people need you. I need you.”

  Her head jerked back at the hazy memory, the movement tugging on her arm. Finally, pain flashed through her and she cried out in surprise. It wasn’t completely useless. Thank fuck.

  Nicky was on his feet in an instant. “Your arm? What hurts?”

  “Everything.” It wasn’t a lie. Her head was pounding now, the lights throbbing in time. “I can still feel my arm though,” she whispered, and he nodded, understanding in his gaze.

  Their playing arms were the most important part of them.

  “You’re on a lot of medications right now, and it’s only been a few days…” He trailed off, shifting uncomfortably as he rubbed a hand over his face. His beard was half grown in, and he was never anything but clean-shaven. Dark shadows layered under his eyes and his mouth was tight and drawn. He looked like shit, much as she felt.

  Then what he’d said sunk in.

  “A few days? How?”

  “You slept a long time.” He dropped his hand. “The doctors weren’t sure why. We were all so worried.”

  “I didn’t want to come back.” At his sharp glance, she lowered her head though it hurt to move. “I don’t mean like that. Not…not dead. The voices hurt. I hurt, and the sheets were too heavy. It was…safer to stay away.” A tear sneaked out and she rubbed it away with her left hand, hating the weakness. She’d always been one to cry far too easily. Her emotions felt so close to the surface at all times that getting high had been the one way deaden them enough for her to function.

  The
n music had become her high. She’d traded one addiction for another. Willingly. Happily.

  Her gaze slid to her wrapped arm. “What…what am I going to do now, Nicky?”

  She waited for the platitudes. The reassuring “there, there” that others would give her. But he only pulled his chair closer and gripped her good hand, telling her more than soft words of comfort ever could have.

  “It’s bad.” She closed her eyes, feeling guilty. Selfish. She should ask about the others first. If they were okay.

  But she couldn’t form the question, because somehow she already knew the answer. Even with the gaps and patches in her memory, she could feel the shroud over the room. It was too cold, and Nicky’s expression was too guarded. Not just for her. She knew him too well, and the haunted look in his eyes wasn’t only for her.

  She wasn’t ready to know for who else. She wasn’t.

  “You’re going to be all right. It’s going to take time,” he hedged, and she nodded, tipping back her head to stare at the lights to stave off the hot rush of tears.

  Time. She had a lot of that. But someone else didn’t. Someone else’s time had run out.

  She had no reason to know. So much of that night was a blur. Both the good, and the bad. But the pit in her stomach was too vast, her intuition too strong. She could see the truth on her brother’s face.

  Someone was dead.

  Someone they loved.

  Someone had died while she had lived, and she was so selfish that all she’d cared about was hiding in sleep and fearing for her precious arm.

  Tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes, slipping down her cheeks to soak the collar of her dreaded hospital gown. Nicky cupped her cheek, rubbing away the tears with his thumb as his own eyes filled again. The bond between them was so intense that if she cried, sometimes he did too, and vice versa.

  Right now, she didn’t want that for him, as much as she normally feared being alone. But he didn’t belong in the dark any longer. He had a beautiful wife and family. He’d earned all the goodness in his life. He didn’t deserve to get mired in her hell.

  You deserve the pain. You lived and he died.

  He?

  The door opened, and she narrowed her gaze on Nicky’s beloved golden eyes. So different from her own blue. “Mal?” she whispered, and she didn’t know why.

  Of all the people she should have asked about, Malachi Shawcross was the absolute last. He was an asshole. A prick. Didn’t care about anyone but himself.

  Yet she couldn’t get his face out of her head.

  Nicky frowned, not answering. The answer came from the doorway.

  “You remember?” Lila asked before shaking her head and rushing to the side of the bed. She looked no better than Nicky, and unless she was mistaken, Lila wore the same suit she had the night of the concert. Parts of it anyway. The same skirt, the same blouse, with a flannel shirt over it that had to be her brother’s. Her hair was swept back in a braid, her makeup scrubbed clean so that her blue eyes were far too naked.

  And as full of pain as Nicky’s.

  “You’re awake,” Lila breathed, moving around to the other side of the bed and cupping her other cheek. She pressed a hard kiss to the top of Elle’s head and Elle reached for her sister-in-law’s hand, needing to hold on to her too. “How do you feel?”

  “Hollow,” Elle whispered, and Lila nodded, darting a quick glance at her husband. Nicky hadn’t moved back a fraction, though he reached across the bed with his other hand to take Lila’s free one.

  For a moment, the three of them held on to each other, heads bowed, breaths held. Or maybe that was just Elle, because she knew she had to ask and she didn’t want to.

  With all her soul, she never wanted to know.

  “Mal?” she asked again, her voice quivering.

  Her brother and Lila exchanged looks again. Their silent communication usually made her smile. They were such a solid unit, so ridiculously in love with each other that they could say volumes with the briefest of glances. Just as they were right now. They were concerned she couldn’t handle whatever they had to say.

  At the moment, Elle wanted to rage at them not to censor things for her. She could take it. She had to take it, didn’t she?

  She couldn’t sleep forever, no matter how much she wished she could. She didn’t mean death. No. She would never long for that. She just wanted peace.

  That was all she’d ever wanted and had so rarely been able to find. The few times she had, it had always been snatched away too soon. Leaving her aching for something she obviously wasn’t meant to have.

  “She keeps asking for Mal,” Nicky said, obviously stalling since Lila had been there both times Elle had mentioned him.

  Lila brushed Elle’s tangled hair away from her face. “What do you remember?” she asked carefully.

  Too carefully.

  “Not enough.” Elle let go of Lila and pushed at the annoying IV cord taped to her opposite hand. “Just tell me about Mal.”

  “Why would you ask about him if you don’t remember?” Lila’s gentle voice didn’t soothe her in the slightest. “It’s not as if you’re friends.”

  “No, he’s a colossal dick, but I need to know he’s okay. And no, I don’t know why, and no, I don’t want to answer any more questions. I’m not the one with the answers, all right? I’ve been in this bed for days, apparently,” she kicked at the sheets, feeling every bit like a petulant child, “and I don’t really even know what happened.”

  Nicky exhaled and moved back to lock his hands behind his neck. “He saved you,” he said finally, not elaborating for so long that Elle glanced between him and Lila for confirmation.

  But Lila, as usual, wasn’t giving a damn thing away.

  “Saved me? How?”

  “There was a falling beam. Part of the cage around his drum kit. Stupid piece of shit. Why bands today insist on fancy crap like that instead of sticking to the music, I’ll never know.”

  “Nicholas,” Lila interjected. “Stay on task.”

  He rolled his eyes at his wife and Elle wanted to smile. It was such a moment of normalcy in the center of insanity that she wished she could hold on to it with both hands.

  But nothing would ever be normal again. Not like it had been before.

  “He pushed you out of the way just in time,” Nicky continued, his voice thin. “If he hadn’t been there, if you hadn’t gotten out of the way…”

  “Why me?”

  Neither answered her, so she pressed on. “Why would he save me? He hates me. I’d almost think he would let me di—”

  “There are things you don’t know,” Lila said sharply. “But that’s untrue.”

  “No shit, Sherlock. I don’t know what happened. I understand even less. But he wouldn’t save me. He thinks I’m beneath his contempt.”

  “Everyone is beneath his contempt. For what it’s worth, I think he feels the same way about himself.” For once, Lila’s dry tone didn’t match the brightness of her eyes. She was about to cry too, and answering tears rose in Elle’s own eyes. “He was there for you, and we can’t thank him enough.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” she whispered, looking around again though it hurt to strain her neck. “He supposedly saved my life, but where is he? He doesn’t even care if I wake up. That’s the Mal I know. Not some misplaced hero.”

  “He can’t come here right now.”

  Elle frowned at her brother. “What does that mean?”

  Lila picked at the sheets, not meeting Elle’s gaze. But there was no missing the dampness on her sister-in-law’s cheeks. “In the…aftermath of what happened, there’s been a fair bit of media attention. Word got out what he did, and he’s in hiding.”

  “What?” Elle laughed, the sound as dry and hacking as if she’d been down for weeks with pneumonia. “He’s Superman now?”

  Nicky shook his head. “Look, this isn’t important right now. You should be resting, not worrying about any of this.”

  “How are you b
oth even here right now?” She glanced between them. “What about the girls? I know you don’t like leaving them at the same time, and you had to come here for this, for me.”

  “Shh, the girls are fine,” Lila said soothingly. “They’re with Jazz and Gray, having a grand time playing with Bri and Dylan.”

  Bri and Dylan, Molly’s niece and nephew.

  Molly.

  “Is Molly okay?” Elle whispered, a metallic flavor blooming on her tongue.

  Fear. She was so fucking afraid that with every question, every answer, she would lose someone she loved.

  Had already lost and just didn’t know it.

  “Molly’s fine.” Nicky’s voice was rough, his jaw tight.

  All the proof she needed that she could go down the list verifying who was okay, but eventually, she would reach someone who wasn’t.

  She gripped a handful of her hair and realized it was matted in that one spot, crusted with a rust-colored substance. Not much, just a little. Enough to make her stomach heave and her heart clench.

  “It’s been days, you said. How many?”

  “Three.” Gently, Lila tugged her hair out of her hand and smoothed it back behind her ear. “You’ve been in and out a lot. The band’s been here. Some of them had to get home, but they all camped out here as long as they could.”

  Home. Back to California. It felt as if her home was on the other side of the world.

  “E-everyone? But Mal?” Even she could hear the hope in her voice.

  Maybe she was reading things wrong. Could be someone had been seriously hurt, not killed. She didn’t even know what had gone wrong. And she’d survived, hadn’t she? She had injuries, but she was alive.

  Because of Mal.

  Nick and Lila exchanged another of those wordless glances. “Yes. Everyone,” Nick replied.

  Elle let out a shuddery breath. “So they’re all okay. No one else got hurt?”

  “No one else in the band was hurt.” Lila was so careful. So precise in how she spoke.

  She frowned, unable to let it go even as relief coursed through her system. Because there was more her sister-in-law wasn’t saying, she could feel it. “Oh God, not Lo.” Her eyes prickled. “She was near the stage.”