The Rocker That Holds Her (The Rocker...) (3 page)

“
You did what?!” Jesse exploded, only to grimace when she flinched at his harsh tone. “Emmie, do you realize how dangerous that was?”

Chin still trembling, she nodded her head. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. 

“Her mother did this?” Axton exclaimed, and I realized for the first time that he was still with us. Drake motioned him to the back of the room and started talking to him in hushed tones so Emmie couldn’t hear them.

“
Here we go, sweetheart.” Shane had a bag of ice and a bottle of Tylenol in his hands. “Let’s get you feeling better.”

She gave him a watery smile as she swallowed the tablets and put on a brave face as he placed the ice on her injured wrist.

“We have to go to the hospital, Emmie.” I combed my fingers through her tangled hair, trying to keep her calm even though I knew that even mentioning a visit to the hospital would do anything but.

Big green eyes widened in horror. “No. No, please no.”

“I’m sorry, baby doll. But if your wrist is broken it will have to be set.” I glanced at Jesse for help when she started sobbing again.

He crouched down beside me, taking Emmie’s good hand into his. “You have to be brave now, Emmie. No tears. A broken wrist is serious.” Emmie sucked in a few breaths, trying to stop the broken sobs. “I’ll be right there holding your hand while the doctors fix you up. Okay?”

“P-promise?”

“
Promise.” He lifted her into his arms and carried her to the door, leaving the rest of us to follow.

It was nearly dawn before we got Emmie home. I didn’t want her to go, but we all knew that she had to. Jesse held the now sleeping Emmie in his arms, her left wrist in a cast now. I knocked on the door with my three friends standing at my back while we waited for the evil bitch to open the door.

Two minutes passed before she opened the door, nearly stumbling out in her hungover state. Jesse growled something under his breath. I gave the woman a once-over, taking in her almost emaciated figure. Her face was so thin it looked like someone had pulled skin tight over a skeleton. I wasn’t sure how old she was, but she looked close to fifty. Her dyed red hair was dry and lifeless, her eyes empty just as her soul was.

“
Well look at you boys.” She leaned against the door frame, a cigarette hanging from her lips. “What brings the big shot rockers back to this hellhole?”

“
We need to talk,” I said, grinding my teeth.

A dark brow lifted. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” I pushed past her into the disaster of a trailer that Emmie had to live in. There were beer bottles tossed here and there, overflowing ash trays with things much stronger than what she was currently smoking stinking up the air, and even a few needles abandoned on the coffee table in front of the old couch.

Jesse, Drake, and Shane followed me inside. Jesse took Emmie down the hall to put Emmie into bed while we made a deal with the Devil.

A Deep Sigh Of Relief

I wouldn’t say that things got better after our stop in Ohio, but they didn’t get any worse.

After setting things up so that Emmie’s mother would have plenty of money to keep her drugged out of her mind for the most part—and keep Emmie
off
her mind—Emmie’s homelife became a little safer. We all called her several times a day, and I was doing better emotionally since we were now talking like we used to.

Even with the medication, my mom wasn’t doing any better. More often than not she didn’t know who I was when I went to visit her. But other than the dementia, she didn’t look unhealthy. The nurses were taking exceptional care of her and that made me sleep a little easier at night, especially when I was off touring with the guys.

Our name was getting out there. Our second album in three years had gone triple platinum. We were winning music awards and having our songs added to movies and television shows. I was starting to write more and fans were going crazy for my songs. I didn’t know I had such a passion for songwriting, but I was pretty talented.

Three years had flown by so quickly. There hadn’t been any downtime since our rocker life had started, and we were all feeling the need for a vacation. At the moment we were halfway through a tour with OtherWorld. Of all the bands we had toured with over the last few years OtherWorld was the most interesting.

We had all become friends, but we kind of adopted Axton into our brotherhood. If we were touring with him, he was on our bus more often than his own. OtherWorld wasn’t nearly as close as we were. With Demon’s Wings, we weren’t just bandmates, we were brothers. We had grown up together, seen each other at our lowest, and stuck together through the harshest of times. Jesse, Drake, Shane, and Emmie were my family—all I had in the world now that my mom was checking out in the mind department.

There were three hours to go before Demon’s Wings were scheduled to take the stage. I was sitting on the long couch backstage drinking a beer and tossing my phone up and catching it. I was bored out of my fucking mind. Shane was off getting cozy with two girls that had snuck backstage, while his brother was getting cozy with another bottle of Jack Daniels. Who knew where Jesse was, because really it could have been anyone’s guess. He could have been getting lost between some girl’s legs or off causing trouble with Liam and Zander.

When my phone rang I knew who it was. Knew that she was calling to tell me how her day was. Emmie and high school were not mixing well. For one, she didn’t do the whole friend thing with girls. Most of the girls that she went to school with knew that Emmie was under our protection, so they only ever approached her in hopes of getting to approach
us
. And… well… Emmie was strong willed with a temper to match her hair, and a mind that saw everything from every angle.

I was smiling as I hit connect on my cellphone and lifted it to my ears. “Hey, baby doll. How’s my favorite girl?”

Instead of jumping into bitching about her day she was quiet. I could feel her tension even over the phone. My stomach bottomed out as I tried to keep all the possibilities out of mind—Emmie hurt, broken, bleeding. If her mother had dared to hurt Emmie again I would tear her apart this time.

“
Em?” I croaked out.

“
Momma’s dead. She overdosed.” Her voice was devoid of all emotions. It was like I was talking to a robotic Emmie. “I called the cops, but they said it could take them a while to get the paramedics out here to get the body…”

I was already on my feet, already mentally making a list of what had to be done. “Are you okay? Where are you now?”

“At the trailer… but the cops said social services will be coming to get me soon…”

I started jogging, the urgency to get back to Ohio hitting the red zone now. I couldn’t let social services take Emmie. I would never see her again. She would get lost in the system. And only god knew what would happen to her in a foster home. “I’m coming. We will be there by tonight.” Even if I had to hire a private jet to get me there I was going to be there that night. “Hide. Do you hear me, Em? Hide. Don’t let them take you.”

“Okay.” She sounded so calm and I figured she was in shock.

I didn’t want to but I hung up. I found Jesse and Drake down the corridor hanging with Axton, Liam, and Zander. They were passing a bottle of Jack between them and laughing about something. Zander I liked, while Liam was a hit or miss for me most days. He had a borderline drug problem that I couldn’t wrap my head around. Drugs were something I hadn’t ever touched and didn’t ever plan to. Emmie’s mother’s drug use had made her life hell and I wasn’t ever going to do that to her.

When Jesse saw me he frowned. “What’s with you?”

“
Emmie.” That was all I had to say and he and Drake were on red alert. “We have to go. Now.” I would explain to them on the plane. Right then I had other things to deal with. I looked at Axton. “We’re out. Don’t know when we can make it back.”

“
Yeah, sure, man. Go deal with your family. I’ll take care of fuck-face Branson.”

Finding Shane was easy enough. First bathroom we came to and I could hear the girls moaning. I didn’t waste time. Just walked on in. With one on her knees and the other sitting on the edge of the sink with Shane’s hands between her legs they were obviously having a good time. “Emmie needs us. Let’s go.”

Shane pushed the girl on her knees away and stuffed himself back into his jeans. “I’m coming.”

“
No you aren’t,” the blonde still on her knees giggled.

“
Shut up, bitch,” the brunette on the sink told her friend.

It took us four hours to get to Ohio once we got the plane sorted. It was nearly nine-thirty by the time we pulled up in front of the old trailer that belonged to Emmie. There was a cop car sitting in the gravel driveway close to the front door. The trailer was dark but the cop was sitting on the front steps with a woman that had a clipboard in her hands.

I breathed a sigh of relief. They hadn’t found Emmie yet.

Jesse started to get out of the backseat of the Cadillac SUV that we had rented at the airport, but I grabbed his arm before he or the others could get out. “Keep a level head. We have to play this right so we can take Emmie with us.”

My band brothers nodded, their jaws clenched hard as we all finally got out of the SUV and headed for the social worker and the cop. I was beyond happy that the social worker was a female and young. She wasn’t bad to look at, but she wasn’t anywhere near beautiful. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun that made her face look too harsh to be pretty. Her body, while slender, was hidden under unflattering clothes that hung off her body in an unappealing way.

The cop was someone I remembered well. He had been one of the cops that had arrested Drake when he had beaten his sick-ass stepdad unconscious six years before. After Drake and Shane’s mother had killed the bastard, the cops let Drake go. The man sitting on Emmie’s front steps had even come to Mrs. Nelson’s funeral.

Recognizing us, the cop stood. “Boys.” Officer Brady nodded his head in greeting. “I figured you would be showing up sooner than later.”

I offered the man my hand. “She’s ours.” It was a simple enough answer, but a true one. Emmie had belonged to us since she was five years old.

“This is Miss Hill. By law she has to take Ember. She’s only fifteen and as far as I know there are no living relatives.”

I shook my head and pulled out the paper that I had been waiting three years to use. Three years of paying five grand a month to the Devil for this one piece of paper. I would have paid more—double, triple, fuck ten times that amount—each month. Emmie’s mother had set that amount and I wasn’t going to tell her no. Not when she had given me what I wanted.

I unfolded the simple sheet of paper with the woman’s handwriting on it, and more importantly her signature at the bottom, and handed it over to Officer Brady. “She’s Jesse’s sister.”

The man raised an eyebrow at the lie but didn’t say anything as he read the paper that we had been smart enough to have notarized. If there had been time I would have made that bitch go one step further and had a lawyer draw up the right legal documents, but there hadn’t been time.

“Mr. Thorton, is this true?” Miss Hill asked after reading the notarized sheet of paper in the dim light that came from the cop car’s headlights. “You are Ember Jameson’s brother?”

Jesse’s father had died from a massive stroke just two years ago so there wasn’t anyone that could dispute our claim. Unless they wanted a DNA test, but with the notarized letter there was no reason for that. Jesse nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I’m her brother.”

The social worker frowned down at the paper then let out a frustrated sigh. “Well, we will have to speak to the notary that signed off on this. But I am sorry to inform you that Ember has run away.”

I shrugged. “I’m sure she is just upset about her mother. We know all of Emmie’s hiding spots. Finding her won’t be a problem … that is if you are letting us have her?”

Cool blue eyes looked right through me. “No. I am not letting
you
have her.” My stomach actually twisted into a knot until she turned that cool gaze back to Jesse. “But as her only living relative, I will sign her over into
your
custody, Mr. Thorton, as soon as the notary has authenticated all signatures.”

There was no describing the relief I felt. Knowing that Emmie was ours now—okay, Jesse’s but whatever—was like having the pressure of the world lifted from my shoulders. The social worker handed Jesse a stack of papers, told him he would have to come down to her office first thing the next morning with Emmie, and left with Officer Brady. I waited until the cop car’s taillights had been out of sight for a good ten minutes before calling Emmie’s cellphone.

“Nik?”

“
Are you hungry?” I suddenly felt as if I were starving. “How about some pizza?”

“
I’m not hungry.” She sounded tired but there was still no emotion in her voice. I couldn’t begin to understand what was wrong with Emmie until I had her warm, fed, and safely tucked into bed back in the hotel I had reserved for us.

“
Let’s get out of here, baby doll.” I glanced at Shane, Drake, and Jesse. They were all looking a little anxious to get out of here. “We’re all tired and need a good night’s sleep.”

“
Are the cops gone?”

“
All gone, sweetheart,” I promised her.

“
I can go with you? They aren’t going to take me away?” There was a small hitch in her voice this time. 

“
Ah, Emmie. Do you honestly think we would let them take you from us? No way! You’re ours now.”

The phone disconnected and at first I thought maybe something had happened to her. “Emmie?” I glanced around, hoping that she had hidden somewhere close by. “Emmie!” I shouted her name when I didn’t get an answer.

The others started calling for her too. Drake and Shane headed off to some of her usual hiding spots. Jesse rubbed a hand over his bald head, worry in his eyes. “Em?” He turned in a full circle. “Where are you, Em?”

The sound of tin bending caught my attention, and I had a sense of déjà vu when I saw thin legs crawling out from under her trailer. Only this time Emmie wasn’t a beaten little rag doll, hiding from her mother until we could find her and keep her safe. Now she was ours and we were taking her home with us.

Jesse was like lightning. I still couldn’t get over how fast and smooth that big man could move. Before Emmie’s head could come out from under the trailer he had her in his arms. “Stop, I smell bad,” she complained when Jesse held on to her for dear life.

“
Don’t give a fuck.” Jesse laughed as he swung her around and around. “God, Emmie, it’s so good to see you again.”

I grimaced. We hadn’t seen Emmie in person in nearly eighteen months. Texting and phone calls throughout the day didn’t show us how she was growing. And she sure as fuck had grown since the last time I had laid eyes on her. She was at least four inches taller, her auburn hair hanging half way down her back. And even in the dim light of a distant streetlamp I could tell that Emmie was no longer my pretty little baby doll.

Fifteen year old Emmie was beautiful!

--

It took us four days to get everything situated with Emmie.

We made sure her mother—may her soul forever burn in the deepest bowels of Hell—had a proper funeral for Emmie’s sake and nothing more. That was easy compared to having to fill out all the paperwork the social worker, Miss Hill, made Jesse handle. When he kept stumbling, Emmie took over and did the paperwork herself, giving it back for him to sign his name at the end.

Of course there was school to worry about, but I found an alternative for that. She could be homeschooled via internet while we were on tour. I bought her the best laptop and made the tech guy put all things she would possibly need on there, and a few things just for fun. I wanted to make sure that she didn’t get bored while we were on the road.

Instead of packing up her clothes in that disgusting trailer, we took her shopping. She didn’t want us to buy her anything, but she needed it. Deserved it. The only thing she ended up taking with her from her room was a backpack full of pictures. All of them were of us. Pictures of us when we were all younger. Things she might have gotten out of magazines or tabloids. She had started a scrapbook, something to help her when she missed us the most.