Hell Bent (Rock Bottom #1)

©Copyright 2015 Katheryn Williams as 

Katheryn Kiden

KINDLE EDITION

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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To my dad.

Thank you for showing me that blood relation doesn’t hinder the way you love by loving my younger brothers as if they were your own.

Bennett would not be the same if you weren’t the way you are.

For
Wendi!

This book—Izzy, all of it—is for you.

You’ve wanted this book for so long and stuck with me through
everything
.

Thank you for pushing me.

This is for you; you deserve it for putting up with me when I’m an asshole.

Carnage.

Disaster.

Pain.

And oh yeah...the tree.

That damn thing just jumped out of nowhere.

I swear it did. One second I’m driving along perfectly fine, and the next thing I know that damn tree decided to fuck up my whole night. How inconsiderate. I mean, I don’t go around jumping in the way of the trees when they decide that they want to go on a midnight run to the store. 

God...

Staring straight forward, I ignore whatever the doctor beside me is saying. It isn’t that I don’t want to know how much damage I did to myself—I know most of it; I can feel it every time I move. I’m not an idiot, it’s just that I don’t want to know how much trouble I’m in. I knew the second that tree jumped out in front of me that my entire world would crash down around me. I’ve gone and fallen off the high horse provided by my perfectly-built kingdom and landed face-first into the pile of shit it left behind us on the road.

“One and a half times the legal limit—” The doctor’s voice interrupts my thoughts, but I quickly push it away. It explains why I thought the tree was jumping out in front of me but not why I’m such an idiot. Turning my head, I stare out the door and watch everyone rushing around. It isn’t until she grabs my hand that I turn back and force myself to listen to her.

Bad idea.

I shake my head, swallowing hard. She has to be wrong. I have to still be drunk. That’s the only possible reason I would ever hear those words come out of her mouth.

“Get out,” I mutter.

“Isabelle.”

“Get
out
,” I scream, flipping the table beside me, causing everything to crash to the floor. The doctor shakes her head silently but finally concedes and leaves the room. I climb out of bed, searching the room for my bag because I know there’s a water bottle full of vodka in it, but it is nowhere to be found.

“Looking for this?” Uncle Jason asks from behind me, making me jump. Well, he’s not actually my uncle, but he’s been around for as long as I can remember. He was part of my aunt Abby’s band, Thirty Ought Six, and now works for our company, IronSound Records.

“Fuck,” I groan, grabbing at my ribs when the movement shifts them. Tears well up in my eyes but letting them fall isn’t going to happen. I refuse. Limping over to the bed, I ease myself back and do my best to avoid his judgmental gaze. 

Wait a second...

“Don’t you fucking judge,” I bite out. “You have no ri—”

“I’m not judging you, Izzy.”

Jason steps a few feet into the room, and when I finally force myself to look up at him, all I see is pity filling his eyes.

“Don’t do
that,
either. Don’t pity me, Jason.”

“Well, what the hell
do
you want me to do?” he asks, sitting down in the chair at the end of the bed.

“Leave.”

“Not happening.”

“Why the fuck not?”

He sighs. Dropping my bag to the floor, he kicks his feet up onto the end of the bed and relaxes his head against the wall.

“Because this shit’s gone on too fucking long. Because there’s a waiting room full of people that don’t want to lose you. Because I know what you’re going through, and I would’ve killed for someone to straighten me out years before Vanessa got to me. I can keep going or you can choose one of those reasons. Whatever you decide, though, I’m not leaving.” Closing his mouth, he tilts his head to the side and shrugs, waiting for me to fight back.

My eyes drop to where my hands are fidgeting in my lap. “How long have you known?”

“Awhile,” he says, dropping his feet so he can scoot his chair closer to me. “I kept hoping that you were just rebelling because of what happened, and even if that’s why it started, it got out of hand. I should’ve stepped in sooner.”

“I have to stop,” I admit. 

“Yeah,” he agrees with a slight nod. “You do. Tonight was too close of a call.”

“No, Jason.” Taking a deep breath, I finally let the words that the doctor said to me sink in. As much as I don’t want to admit it, I know I can’t ignore what she said to me. “It’s the last thing I
want
to do, but unless what the doctor said was a lie, I
have
to stop. It’s not just about me anymore.”

Three Months Before

Have you ever had a moment when you knew your carefully constructed view of the world was going to come crashing down? That one thing could change your entire life? A change of wording, or a hesitation in handwriting, can set your nerves on edge. The strips of paper taped to the videos I have received from my father since the day he died when I was seven had notes attached to them—they marked what they were for, and always said the same thing—except this one. I guess the three added words on this disk were code for “Happy birthday, now let me fuck up your world.” 

I slip the disk into the DVD player but immediately press pause when my father’s face fills the screen. I know something bad is going to happen—I can feel it in my gut—so I pause it to take a minute to remember him. The way he looks in this video tells me it was done close to when he died when I was seven. His formerly bright-blue eyes are faded and sunken in along with the rest of his face. The more I stare at him, the more I see he had simply become a skull with skin draped over it. I can tell how tired he was, but the goofy smile on his face makes me laugh through the tears. 

Happy birthday, my beautiful girl. I’m finding it hard to believe that you’re turning eighteen today. Although, it’s harder for me to grasp the fact that I’m not going to be there to see it. If you’re anything like I believe you’re going to be, you’re smart, beautiful, and overly determined. I hope you’re like me, which would obviously make you hilarious and extremely talented.
 

He winks at the camera before running his hand through his thin, white-blonde hair and laughs. I bite the inside of my lip to keep from crying, quickly wiping the tears that have already fallen as my leg jitters up and down. This was supposed to be a happy day, but I should have known better because I always get choked up watching my father’s videos.