After Effect

by Leann Belle

  I let my head fall slightly to the side. Another bed. A man breathing steadily in a comfortable sleep.

  Finch.

  We’re alive. Both of us. I smiled despite myself.

  I let my vision shift back to myself. My right fingers twitched. My left did, too. Not broken. Not paralyzed.

  What about my legs? My vision drifted further downward. One leg rested on the hospital bed. The other…

  No no no! I jerked my ankle from its restraints, propped up above my head. A white cast formed a hard shell around my leg from the shin down, and excruciating pain shot through my entire body as that cast hit the bed.

  “Fuck!” I screamed amidst the loud, increasing frequency of my heart monitor beeps. “I need a doctor!”

  I hadn’t even finished saying the words when a nurse came running into the room. He immediately helped my ankle back into suspension and checked my morphine drip.

  “What happened?! How long was I out?” There was no reason to be shouting, but my voice kept coming out that way.

  “You were brought in a couple hours ago.” The man assured me. “It was a terrible accident. You’re lucky to be alive.”

  “What about him?” I motioned toward Finchy’s bed. The nurse snickered silently. Heat filled my face. I’m sure that was an awkward car accident to come up on…

  “He’ll be fine. He’s just resting. He was in and out of consciousness when he got here and went into a bit of a frenzy every time he came to, so we had to sedate him. We can wake him up any time.”

  “G-good.” I paused to stare at his peacefully resting face for a few extended moments. The nurse didn’t seem to know who I was. I guess that’s not that shocking. And it’s for the best, really. I’m not that famous...

  Right! Famous! I still have a show to go to! I didn’t miss it!

  I glanced at my broken foot, then at Finch, then back to my foot again.

  Inconvenient.

  My eyes drifted back to the nurse. “Hey so… I think I’m feeling pretty much all better. Would you mind waking up my buddy over there so we can get out of here?”

  He stared at me blankly. Total disbelief leaked from his expression.

  I smiled sweetly. “Pretty please?”

  “I’ll… get the doctor.”

  ###

  Finch Corbin

  Waking up in the hospital felt familiar in all the wrong ways. My body ached. My mouth was dry. Had I aged another year?

  … Had I lost another loved one?

  I didn’t have the courage to look around. The lights were dim and my mind was such a fog of painkillers and sedatives, I could barely see anything anyways.

  I know we had both been transferred here. I was conscious enough for that. But if Lilly wasn’t in the bed beside me, I wouldn’t have the strength to bear it. I can’t look.

  I took a deep breath.

  Be strong, Finch. Be strong for her.

  I tested my limbs and sat up straight once my brain gave me the all clear. I was fine. Nothing broken. Just whiplash. I pressed the call button, then willed myself to turn to the bed beside me.

  Lilly wasn’t in it. The room was empty. It was just me and a sterile bed.

  I didn’t speak. Just stared at the empty bed. Nothing registered. I don’t know how long I had been staring when I realized the nurse had already come in and was calling my name.

  “Where’s Lilly?” My words were barely audible.

  The nurse gave me a smile. “She checked out earlier. She’s a bit worse for wear, but she’s alive and healthy.”

  Alive and healthy. I released a breath into the atmosphere. “Am I alive and healthy, too?”

  “You are.” He responded with a gentle nod. “Though you might be pretty banged up for a bit. You didn’t hit your head or anything, but you seemed to have blacked out as some kind of a trauma response.”

  “I was…” I stopped myself there. He didn’t need an explanation. What actually mattered right now was the Bass jumpers Tour. “What day is it?”

  “Friday, June 11th.”

  “Time?”

  He glanced at his wrist watch. “About 1:00PM.”

  Fuck, I’m going to be late. But there’s still time. We can still make the show. I put on my best calm and collected persona and looked the nurse square in the eye. “I’ll be going then. Can you retrieve my clothing?”

  The nurse’s voice grew frantic. “I think the doctor wanted to monitor-“

  “I wasn’t asking your opinion. I’m alive and healthy after all. My suit, please.”

  “Please, sir, we need to-“

  “Listen to your nurse, Finch.” My eyes shot to the door, where Mark Corbin stood in the entryway. He looked down at me through his narrow eyes, the way he always did. He frowned the way he always frowned. His arms were crossed the way they were always crossed. Unapproachable, harsh, and not open to outside influence.

  I paused long enough to collect my wits before I addressed him. There were other people around, so I couldn’t call him Mr. Corbin right now. I settled for the expected moniker. “Father.”

  “We need to talk, Finch.” He glared at the nurse. The nurse took the hint without needing further provocation. He scurried from the room.

  I hadn’t seen Mark much since I started with ALIVE. I’d finally gotten my own place, and I was working so much, I rarely had time to visit. He must have come up as my emergency contact.

  I didn’t know if I should be happy or terrified that he was here now after all I’d seen. I had no idea how anyone fit into this picture, and I was starting to worry if Mark Corbin wasn’t the “kind stranger who took me in” that I thought he was.

  Despite having a lot of questions for him right now, I wasn’t ready to actually face him with them yet. So instead, I deflected. “I… I’m sorry about the car. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t see-” I fixed my gaze on my lap as he stepped closer.

  “Save it, Finch. I don’t care about the car. I’ll buy you another one. That’s not what this is about.”

  “Then is it-“

  “It’s about Christian.” My adoptive father’s voice was heavy. “What kind of deals have you made with Christian Baek?”

  “Deals?”

  “You heard me.” Mark paced across the room and took a seat by my side. The heart monitor gave away my quickening beat. His eyes watched the beeps for a bit longer than an extended second, then he turned to me. “I’ll drive you home, and we’ll talk more there.”

  Mark Corbin checked me out of the hospital. My every muscle protested as I climbed into his Mercedes SUV, battered and bruised from the impact. I tried to keep my mind off the time. Lilly was set to go on in three hours. I needed to be there. But without my own transportation, I had no way of getting there. I had a feeling Mark wouldn’t be letting me run off anywhere for a minute anyway.

  I knew he had some connection to Baek, obviously. Baek himself had implied as much. Just hearing the way he had said Corbin that first time- the way Andrea had said it, the way that Psychotic Mr. Rogers had said it- everyone knew his name. But his tone felt much too grave to just be casual disappointment in the debt I’d racked up.

  I watched his profile as he sat in silence beside me. He pulled out of the parking structure and turned toward his downtown high rise. I couldn’t tell if he hadn’t started speaking to me because he was concentrating on the road, or if the awkward silence was some form of punishment.

  Once I got to the point that I couldn’t bear it any longer, I inhaled deeply through my nose, then opened my mouth to speak.

  “How much do you owe him?” Mark interrupted me before I could even begin.

  I bit my lower lip for a moment, contemplating my answer carefully. “About a quarter million, I guess. I’ve paid most of it off with…”

  “Let me guess: ‘favors’?” He winced. “And what exactly is your leverage on this quarter million dollars?”

  “Leverage?”

  “Do you think money is free, Finch?” His tone w
as flat and emotionless, but the words held more than enough meaning on their own. It was such an obvious question that I found myself completely dumbstruck. What… was my leverage? Why hadn’t that ever occurred to me? All along, all I had to offer was…

  I offered…

  “… Me. I… I leveraged myself.”

  Mark stared straight ahead. Unflinching. Silent. I felt sick to my stomach and I didn’t even know why.

  “So what if I leveraged myself? People do that all the time when they buy houses or cars. When you start a business. How is this any different than that?”

  He remained quiet for a few more seconds before he spoke. His voice didn’t reveal any emotion when he did. “What happens when you can’t pay back that loan?”

  “I… I don’t know. You… go bankrupt or something? They take away your house or your business or whatever, and it’s harder to get loans in the future? Are we having the birds and the bees talk, just with economics? What’s the big deal?”

  “That’s what a bank might do. But you didn’t offer yourself to a bank.”

  “It’s work. And I’ll have it paid back as quickly as I borrowed it. Lilly is-”

  “You’re lucky to be alive right now. Bart Karas must be rolling over in his grave right now.”

  My eyes narrowed. He’s never once used my birth father’s name against me in the eight years since he adopted me.

  “You got me this job in the first place. What did you think was going to happen? This is the music industry, and I want to succeed. I came in knowing I would have to take some risks. Did you think it would be free?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Why don’t you tell me how you and Baek know each other so I can at least kind of understand where this is coming from.” I had danced around the question long enough.

  “Christian and I worked together for a lot of years.” He paused . “He worked with your father, too.”

  “My father?”

  “He owes me a favor, and I thought he could let things lie. But clearly he still holds a grudge.”

  “A grudge? What are you talking about?”

  “Your accident wasn’t an accident, Finch. Just like Bart’s wasn’t.”

  “I knew my father’s accident wasn’t an accident. I was there.”

  “But do you know why it happened.” Mark took his eyes off the road long enough to look me in the eye.

  “I… don’t. I was told that kind of information would only put me in more danger.”

  “Right.” He moved his eyes back to the road and let me sit in uncomfortable silence for entirely too long. Then he spoke again. “His lifestyle wasn’t free. It cost a lot to maintain the images we had.”

  “You mean racing.”

  More silence. Long and deep. “We did a lot of things that we shouldn’t have. Sold a lot of people down the river. Christian Baek was a scrub. But he knew his role.”

  I let out an exasperated sigh. “You’re talking in riddles. How am I supposed to protect myself if you won’t just tell me what I need to protect myself from?”

  “He killed a man... Well, he’s killed several, but there was one who was much more of a problem.”

  “How is killing anyone not a problem?!”

  Mark rolled his eyes. He ignored me and continued. “I took care of the corpse. I took care of the story. I got him a clean slate and a respectable business.” Mark was no longer hesitating. I stared at him wide-eyed. I wasn’t sure I felt better hearing it. “But apparently that wasn’t enough. I’ve been out of that world for a long time. But Christian… As you said, there are a lot of deals that often must be done in the music industry.”

  “This is… a lot to take in. And it’s… what does that have to do with me? Why would my deal be any different than anyone else’s?”

  “ALIVE is a big company. It needs a lot of money and investors to stay afloat even when it’s doing well. And you… as far as he believes, you’re my son. He can use you.”

  “For what? I still don’t get how any of this comes back on my deal with ALIVE and Lilly. And if he’s tied to… to all that, why would you get me this job at all?”

  “You weren’t supposed to be rocking the boat like this.” Mark pulled into the garage and let the door close behind him. He got out of the car and didn’t speak another word to me.

  What was that supposed to mean. I didn’t do anything wrong. I was succeeding at my job. I was climbing the ladder. We were making waves in only two fucking years. Did he get me this position expecting me to fail? Did he think I was some kind of lazy twenty-something frat boy?

  My muscles cried and protested as I tried to hoist myself out of the car to demand an explanation. The longer I sat, the more my body hurt.

  I’ve gotta stop crashing in canyons.

  I opened the door that connected the garage to the house, I could hear Mark’s voice from the deck, too muffled by the sliding glass door to understand a single word. He must have been on the phone.

  Phone….

  It’s the Bass Jumpers Tour!

  In my mind, if the damage was done, I could at least take advantage of the benefits from my mistakes. I should have done more than enough to buy Lilly her spot. And I should have done more than enough to buy her publicity. If she was even healthy enough to show up.

  The bag full of my things was resting on counter of the breakfast nook. I dug around my wallet and my lighter and a box of half broken cigarettes for my phone. My finger scrolled to Lilly’s name with well-honed muscle memory.

  One ring, two rings, three… voicemail. I yanked the phone from my ear to stare at the time. 5:08PM. She should be going on right now. Even if I stole Mark’s car and drove over with felony levels of speed, I wouldn’t make it before her show was over.

  “Fuck!” I hit a fist against the countertop, then yiped as the impact further bruised my sore muscles. No time to lick my wounds. I dashed to the living room and grabbed the TV remote from the wall holder. It should be live on Channel 4.

  The screen lit up with a cheering crowd. Parrot Marionette’s “Flying South for the Apocalypse” seeped from the speakers. Of course they would focus on the main stage instead of Lilly. They’re the headliners. I slumped onto the couch and ran a hand through my hair, then letting my loose fingers fall down to my shoulder, then into my lap.

  Sorry Lilly. There’s nothing I can do.

  Then the camera shifted.

  I sat up straight. Eyes wide. Jaw on the floor.

  Chapter 13

  Lilly Cisneros

  I got out of the cab, my casted foot first. I winced as I tried to haul my battered body upright on my crutches. I hadn’t taken any painkillers since I left the hospital. I didn’t want to risk being drowsy when I got on stage.

  But the pain of my existence was almost enough to make me puke. One step. I stifled a cry as the crutch pressed into the bruise on my ribs.

  That little yelp was enough to alert the crew, and in an instant I was surrounded by the event coordinators. “Ms. Cisneros! What happened?!”

  “I’m fine, I’m fine.” I forced a smile through the waves of excruciating, life crushing pain. Thank fucking god I’m a masochist, or this would seem insane. “What direction is the stage?”

  The crew managed to find me a wheelchair from the medical team, and a strapping young man from the sound crew sprinted my chair across the lawn. I stared at the passing grass in focused delirium.

  What the fuck am I doing here? I should be resting in the hospital, yet here I am, so desperate to succeed, that I’m dragging my fucked up, broken self onto a stage to perform for… a couple hundred of people?

  Was I just doing this for the money? My ego? Or… because I wanted to save Finch from the deal I had made.

  I knew the answer. I didn’t need to lie to myself. I owed this to Finchy.

  I let them push me in the wheel chair to the stage, then I walked the last few feet on my crutches.

  Drake Morgan, the master of ceremonies, a young surfer
looking dude dressed in socal beach levels of formal, was on stage where I should have been, making an announcement to unhappy fans. His voice boomed through the speakers.

  “We apologize for anyone who was here to see Lilly Cisneros. She was in a car accident and won’t be able to make the show after all. But, if you’d like to see her at a future date-“

  Crutches forward. Secure on the metal ground. Lift and move. I took my first step onto the stage. Everyone fell silent.

  One more step.

  “Lilly?!” Drake Morgan stared at me in complete and utter shock. Satisfaction pulled my lips into a grin. I took another step, and another, hauling my broken ankle to the center stage. I reached out a hand, and Drake gave up the microphone without protest.

  Then I turned to face the audience.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Los Angeles!”

  The crowd fucking screamed. A couple hundred people suddenly turned into a couple hundred more. Camera flashes exploded like machine gun fire. Another couple hundred people. Then another. It went from respectable to packed in an instant.

  I was the star of the show. The star of the whole fucking tour, as I stood on that stage with stitches under my right eye, not masked by makeup, contusions on my bare shoulders, revealed by my sleeveless shirt. My jeans were ripped, my hair was a mess. But my belt buckle was shining in the stage lights, and my single cowboy boot was planted in the moment.

  This is what it’s all about. The rush of adrenaline through my veins masked the sharp ache in my leg.

  “Drake here is correct! I was, in fact, in a little bit of an accident some, uhh…” I glanced down at my watch, “I guess maybe fifteen hours or so ago. I’ve been better. But then again, the last time I broke my leg, my ever-proud Puerto Rican father still made me show up for my little league soccer game. So this is way easier than surviving ‘aim for the cast’ from the goal net.”

  The crowd chuckled along with me. Every word helped my resolve.

  “But the show must go on, right? I broke my leg, not my throat, after all.” I cast a warm smile toward the audience, then turned to the emcee and gave him a pat on the shoulder. “Thanks for covering for me, Drake! But I’ll take it from here.”