With my money.
My gaze dropped back to the boy who had tried to rape me, blood trickling from the hair at his temple, and the whole surreal mess swirled in my stomach. I promptly threw up on the grass, hoping the blood I saw in it was from the cut I could feel throbbing on my lower lip. Shaking uncontrollably, I got to my feet, feeling hard and cold as I pulled up my jeans with my uninjured right hand and zipped them.
After struggling to get my backpack on my back, I protectively curled my sprained wrist into my chest and I ran, leaving behind my tent and, later I’d realize, my new coat.
My left eye started swelling shut, and what was left of my vision was hazy. I stumbled a few times and even fell at the sight of the cemetery gates. And by some miracle I got myself over those gates.
Having walked the streets many times, I was on autopilot. It was like my brain had made up its mind what to do before I could really process it. Keeping my head ducked down, I marched until I found the payphone I’d passed daily but had never used.
The change in my pocket was all that I had.
I had nothing.
No money.
And no guitar to make any more.
I had only one option.
After a few rings his masculine voice answering my call felt strangely reassuring. I couldn’t explain why.
“O’Dea?”
“Who is this?”
“Busker Girl,” I said, taking Mandy’s nickname for me. Then I swallowed my pride. In fact, the pain in my wrist swallowed my pride for me. “I need help.”
* * *
THE HEARTLESS BASTARD AGREED TO come get me if I promised to audition for him.
I had little choice in the matter.
He was just one more person I could add to my list of people I resented.
I was standing facing the phone booth when I heard the car pull up behind me. I tensed, not wanting to turn around in case it wasn’t him. Then I heard the car door slam and his voice asking, “Busker Girl?”
Turning to him, I finally understood how much of a mess I must have been in because O’Dea’s face slackened under the yellow glow of the streetlamp. Then it hardened and darkened with rage as he strode over to me. “What the fuck happened?”
“Can we get in the car?” I said, not wanting anyone else to see me.
He gently took hold of my right arm and guided me over to a black Range Rover. He pulled the door open and then helped me remove my backpack. I got in while he put my backpack in the trunk. Exhaustion hit me as I slumped against the car seat, the smell of leather and his cologne weirdly comforting. O’Dea jumped into the driver’s side.
“You left a few things out on the phone. What happened?” he demanded.
So I told him everything about that day and the boys.
“His friend hit him pretty hard,” I murmured, wondering if he’d hit him too hard.
There was utter silence from my right. I glanced at him out of my eye that wasn’t swollen shut. His fists were curled around the steering wheel, his knuckles white.
“I’m okay,” I said, realizing this was the first time I’d seen any real emotion from him.
“You’re pretty far from okay,” he snapped, starting the engine. “First we go to the hospital and we’ll let them contact the police.”
A new fear sprang up inside of me. “No. We can’t go to the hospital. We can’t contact the police.”
“Don’t talk shite,” he huffed, his SUV racing down the street. “Your wrist is sprained, possibly broken. If you don’t get that seen to, you’ll never play the guitar again.”
The thought made my chest ache worse than the blazing pain in my wrist or the throbbing in my face.
“He took my Taylor. It was . . . special. My mum had it specially made for me. I should have fought harder.” I sighed, shaking my head, decided. “No hospital. No police.”
“Drop the martyr act, Skylar. We’re going to the hospital and that’s final.”
My breath caught.
“You can drop the fake British accent too. As good as it is.”
Disbelief made my head swim even more. “You know who I am?” I asked in my own accent.
“Almost from the first moment I heard you play.”
“H-how?”
“Music is my business. I know music. At one point Skyscraper were actively on the lookout for a band like Tellurian.” He referred to my band by name. “A social media phenomenon, a commercially successful teen pop-rock band with more substance than most and millions of teenage followers that would make us lots of money.”
“More substance than most?” Despite my current situation, I still had pride. It could still be pricked. Something he had a knack for, it seemed.
“You. You were the substance. You have a four-octave range. Rolling Stone magazine once named you in the top ten greatest singers of the twenty-first century. They never once named your band in the top ten greatest bands of the twenty-first century, mind you. Too many angsty, angry teen love songs to be truly respected. But you were, are, respected. Your talent is respected.” He shot me an assessing look. “And the industry has no idea about your songwriting abilities.”
“I wrote nearly all the songs for Tellurian,” I argued.
“Aye, but those songs are nothing like what I’ve heard you singing lately. The songs you’re writing now can make grown-ups feel, not just preteens who are sick of feeling invisible at school.”
“Wow, you’re really into that ‘hitting them when they’re down’ thing,” I said, disbelieving that he was talking to me about this while I was struggling to stay conscious. “Let me out of your fancy car, Nurse Ratched.”
He ignored me. “Why don’t you want to go to the hospital? Because you don’t want anyone to find you?”
“That, and my visitor visa expires in two weeks.”
“Do you have travel insurance?”
“No.” Even if I wanted to be fixed, I couldn’t afford it.
O’Dea sighed. “Well, we need to get that wrist seen to, no question about it. I’ll explain you’re my client here on business and that you got jumped by thugs. We’ll sort out the medical costs later.”
“I don’t want to be found.” The idea of Micah and the others finding me shoved me further toward passing out.
“We’ll also make sure they know how important your privacy is. Plus, I hate to burst your bubble but no one over thirty will know who you are.”
“Not true,” I muttered sullenly. “We had fans of all ages.”
“Mostly teens though. I know your demographic, Skylar. I researched you.”
I shrugged and then winced as pain radiated down my arm to my wrist.
O’Dea noticed and scowled. “Hospital.”
“And I have no say in this?” My voice sounded shrill with fear.
“You do realize you have a swollen eye, a swollen cheek, split lip, a possibly broken wrist, and some vile little fucker who will get his comeuppance just tried to rape you. But you got away. You’re made of stern stuff, Skylar, so buck up and start facing reality.” He raised an eyebrow at my visible indignation. “You can be pissed off at me all you want, but I’m trying to keep you awake by talking to you and it’s working. Now . . . are you going to pull on your big-girl panties or go back to making bad life decisions?”
I glared at him with my good eye. “Fine. Hospital. I’ll add it to the list to tell the doctor.”
“What?”
“Of injuries. Eye, ribs, wrist, and now this insistent, condescending pain in my ass.”
DESPITE SUGGESTING OTHERWISE, O’DEA MADE me tell the absolute truth about what happened. After an X-ray of my wrist, tests, and blood and urine samples, the hospital did call the police and I found myself explaining to two police officers that I had been sleeping rough in my tent in a cemetery. That the boys had followed me back there to steal my guitar. I gave more detail about the almost rape than I had to O’Dea, confused when he abruptly slammed out of the private room we were in.
“It’s only natural,” the female police officer, Officer Calton, said when she saw my bemused expression. “Your boyfriend will be feeling a different kind of anger than you are.”