True Body Rock (Rockstar Romance) (The Body Rock Series Book 4) (10 page)

Shifting in the chair, I winced at the twinge in my shoulder. “Why do you care if I play or not? You aren't in the band anymore, what does it matter to you?”

He turned his head suddenly, listening for... something. Taking another drag, Johnny let the grey haze flow around him. “You talk too much. Want more water?”

Why did he want to convince me to leave the band? To abandon Drezden?
I'd figured out why Sean had been struggling with it, but Johnny—no. My eyebrows shot up to my scalp. “You wanted me to leave so you could take my spot again!”

“
Again?
” His foot kicked a chair, sending it flying. I ducked my chin, expecting him to hit me. “Again!?
You
took
my
spot, not the other way around!”

My breath rattled; I chewed my tongue, trying to calm myself. Johnny looked rabid, on the verge of taking a bite out of me. I could see the raw edges of his gums, the cigarette illuminating it all up for me. He moved, hands coming down on my shoulders. “Don't touch me!” I squealed, leaning away.

“Touch you?” Clarity smoothed his features. Spitting out his cigarette, he crushed it under his heel. “Fuck—touch you? You think I'd do something like that?”

Please let his reaction mean that he didn't do anything awful to me while I was blacked out.
Instead of answering, I just stared, trying not to flinch.

Again, on the table, my phone vibrated.

Johnny moved away, guilt twisting his forehead. “Lola, I'm not that kind of guy! I don't just hurt people!” Remembering the way I'd slammed into the coffee table last night, I held back my argument. “Just calm down,” he mumbled. Was he talking to himself, or me? Lighting a new cigarette, Johnny dropped onto the bed and stared at the ceiling.

I noted his position, pulse darting like a flock of birds.
He can't see my hands.
Cautiously, I worked my wrists together behind me. As a kid, I'd played games with Sean where we tied each other up, pretending to be cops or robbers. They were silly games, and while they didn't help me in untying my binds, the memory gave me strength.

My phone, buzzing away, gave me even more.

People have to know something is wrong.
What time was it? The filthy blinds over the windows hid the info from me. Gently, never letting Johnny out of my sight, I kept tugging at my wrists. Whatever he'd used, it was starting to yield with my friction.

Tape? Is that it?
Not even electrical tape, but cheap clear stuff. Johnny really
hadn't
thought up some grand scheme.
He just wanted me to quit the band so he could stroll in and save the day.

But he can't now.

He has to know that.

There was no way I wouldn't tell everyone what had happened.
Beyond that, he has to know he'll get arrested for kidnapping.
Yet all he did was smoke, tapping his feet nervously, too much energy running through his lanky limbs.

The tape slid wide, enough room for me to inch my fingers out. Every motion turned my adrenaline to gasoline. One wrong move, I'd be set ablaze.

Letting Johnny into my hotel room was the last wrong move I planned to make.

My ankles were attached to the chair legs.
Free hands, but nothing to do with them.
If Johnny came close, could I do something?
Punch him in the teeth is what I want to do, but that won't help me escape.

Looking at my phone, it became clear.
If I can grab it, I can text, tell someone where I am.
My stomach coiled over and over.
But where am I?

Johnny hadn't said. Looking around, it was clearly a motel room. But which one? Scanning the floors, the walls, I looked for something iconic. A crumpled pile of towels revealed the name in poor, faded embroidery: 'Greenmill Motel.' It was like a drum exploded in my brain.
Sean told me that!
My brother had known the name; would know where I was.

Wouldn't he?

Rejuvenated with determination, I peeked at Johnny. He was on his side, his back to me.
This is it! This is my chance!
Inching my arms around, I leaned across, ready to grab my phone. My fingertips hovered just as it vibrated. The noise touched my bones.

“For fucks sake!” Johnny cried, rolling over on the old springs. “That damn phone of yours needs to shut up and—hey! How the fuck!?
Stop!
”

Desperately I snatched my phone, fumbling with sweaty palms to open it, to dial
anything
. Johnny was on me, digging his grip into mine, wrenching for the device.
No, no no no!
Inhaling to capacity, I started to scream for help.

His backhand shut me up, but it didn't stop me. Releasing the phone, I rolled forward, knocking the chair over beneath me. Holding onto his legs, I wished he would crack his skull on the table as I brought him down.

No such luck.

“You little fucking bitch!” He buried his grip in my hair. “I told you to stay quiet, you lying—aahh!” I'd buried my teeth into the meaty part near his thumb. Dug in, and just worked my jaw as hard as I could.

When he hit me that time, I saw spots of white.

Next to me, I noticed the phone. I could read the missed calls.
Drezden. So many calls from him.
Johnny shoved the gag in my mouth, tied it so tight I struggled to get air. “Shut up.” There was no sympathy anymore. “Fuck, were you always the sort to betray people, or did you pick that up from Drez?”

Along my tongue, I tasted coppery blood. It filled me with glee, knowing I'd managed to hurt him. Grunting, Johnny lifted my chair up, forced my arms back behind me. “You actually got the tape off?”

Yanking at him was pointless, but I tried anyway.

The sound of something plastic, scraping; he bound my wrists with more tape. But that wasn't enough, and we both knew it. “You're more trouble than I was ready for,” he muttered. Cloth wrapped next. Socks? A shirt? I didn't know.

Picking up my phone, Johnny frowned. “You think the cops can trace this?” Glancing at me, he waited, like I could answer. “Or... shit. Guess it doesn't matter.” Looking around, he stomped out the smoking remains of his fallen cigarette. “They're going to find me eventually, huh? Fucking fuck.”

He just realized what he's done.
Watching blood drip down his arm from my bite marks, I shivered.
He really didn't consider what to do next. What would happen to him next.

It did nothing to settle my terror.

It meant Johnny was now debating what to do with
me
.

––––––––

“W
hy the hell would you
bring
her to meet Johnny!?”

Sean bent over the steering wheel, one great hump of regret. “I didn't know he would do something like this!”

It was a waste of time asking how he could be so sure Lola
was
with Johnny. My gut, cold and turbulent as it was, knew it was the truth. I knew it in every fiber of my being; Johnny Muse had Lola. The girl I would crush a town to dust for, just to find her safe.

The girl I would do anything for.

Fuck the consequences.

Johnny didn't know what he had unleashed.

But he'd find me—it—on his doorstep soon enough.

“How much further?” I growled, ignoring the pain in my thighs. I'd been digging my fingers into my jeans the whole ride.

Squinting out at the growing evening, Sean sighed. “I'm not sure. Fifteen minutes? Maybe?”

“Maybe.”

He shot a glare at me, hammering on the gas to make us go faster. “The motel is on the edge of the city, I can't magically make us appear there!”

“You'd be more useful if you could.”

“Why the hell are you so pissed at me?” he asked, pulling us sharply around a turn. “I took Lola to meet Johnny, but it isn't my fault that the crazy motherfucker grabbed her!”

It's not his fault, I know that.
Scrunching my face, I looked out the window.
Is that how it happened?
I tried to picture it, sliding puzzles pieces together.
Sean took Lola to Johnny, then he took her to the Hilton. If she checked in like Brenda said, but then her hotel was a wreck... she wouldn't answer her calls... did he really grab her from her room?

The images fueled my rage even more.

“Now you've gone silent on me,” Sean muttered. “Seriously. Why are you such an asshole to me?”

The question caught me off guard. “Pretty sure you've been just as big of a thorn in my side.”

His eyes darted up, then away. “I had my reasons not to like you.”

“Then we're even.”

“We're not fucking even!” He punched his fist onto the wheel. “You started this shitty thing between us! You had
no reason
to be such a dick to me years ago, what did I do to deserve your shitty treatment?” In the darkness of the vehicle, his eyes were glowing. “What did I do to you that made you want to hate me so
much?
”

My lower back was hammering me. What had Sean done to make me sour on him from the beginning? Closing my eyes tight, I breathed through my nose.
All he did that day... that entitlement, the heat in his stare of disbelief when I denied him the right to be in my band...

How could I explain to him that he had just reminded me too much of my father?

“Nothing,” I said flatly, “you didn't do anything.”

“Then why? Was I really so bad at guitar? Was that enough reason to—”

“No, that wasn't the reason.” Grabbing my forehead, I dug through the wave of migraine. I was feeling the exhaustion from my overnight trip home, but more so, the emotional drainage from it.
And now, with Lola missing, I...
“Listen. This will suck to hear, but...”
Honesty.
“That day, you just made me think you wouldn't cut it. I knew guys like you.”
One guy.
“Men who couldn't handle the idea they weren't made for greatness.”

Men who tried to destroy those better than them.

Looking over, I saw Sean staring straight ahead. “You're better now than you were years ago,” I said flatly. Those blue eyes flicked my way. “But your sister is miles better.”

A relief I hadn't expected surged through me when Sean snorted with laughter. He allowed a tiny smile onto his face. “Fuck you. Yeah, I know she is.”

“And?”
Is he angry over it?
“Do you care? That Lola could go as far as she wanted, and you might never get there? Do you hate her for that?”

In my mind, I pictured the rage on my father's features. How his mouth had writhed like a python, his knuckles coated in my mother's blood.

Sean lifted his eyebrows high. “Hate her? Lola?” The engine rumbled softly, the van slowing as we crawled a hill. “Lola's my little sister. I couldn't hate her if I tried, even
if
she got everything I ever wanted and I didn't.”

Warm compassion, something I didn't feel prepared for, filled me as I listened to him speak.
I judged him wrong.

Sean was nothing like my father.

“There,” he whispered, turning the headlights off. Looking out, I saw the small, barely lit motel sitting in the parking lot. It was hunkered down, the flickering sign proclaiming it as our destination. “This is where Johnny was staying, last I knew.”

All at once, my blood began to stir. “You think they're both here?”

Sean hesitated, removing his seat belt hurriedly. “If they aren't, I don't know where else to look.”

His words were heavy.
If Lola isn't here, then we have no trail.
Pushing the door open, I flared my nostrils in the putrid air of the lot.
She has to be here.

She just had to.

Quietly, we approached the building. It was a ghost town, an occasional room showing pale yellow lights. All the doors faced out into the parking lot, some missing numbers on their cracked fronts.

Wordless, Sean and I prowled beneath the rooms, ducking to not be spotted so easily in the windows. Nothing we glimpsed looked useful, the shadows growing the further we moved down the doors.

Are they not here?
My heart was crumbling with a wave of distress.
Where do we go next, what do we do?

What do I do?

Touching my pocket, I felt my phone. The idea came to me like a battery on my tongue. Squatting down, I grabbed it and began to dial in the dark. Sean came beside me, and as he saw what I was doing, pulled out his own phone.

I was calling Lola, hoping to hear her ringing, any noise at all through the motel walls. For a long time, there was nothing. Crickets sang, and in the far distance, a car honked.

Looking over, I wondered who Sean had dialed.
He can't be trying Lola, too, can he?

As I heard her number go to voicemail again, my stomach burning at it happening for what seemed the hundredth time, I caught a sound that stopped my breath.

“Fuck!” A gritty voice shouted down the way, a mere two rooms over. “Shit shit shit, now they're calling me, dammit!”

Sean looked me in the eye.
Yes, right. He had Johnny's number. That's who he...
I didn't finish my thought. Together we moved, uncaring in our blooming excitement.
He's here, she has to be, too!

We didn't have a plan, but that was fine. Both of us wanted the same thing. A shared look was all it took.

Together, we slammed our shoulders into the motel door. Inside, I heard Johnny's swear of surprise; it just fueled me more. The wood was old, not well made. In two, three hits, Sean and I took it down.

And then there she was.

Lola. Lola, who's beautiful blue eyes were boggling at me not in disbelief—no, she had
known
I would come for her—but in satisfaction. I'd taken her away from strife just by appearing.

Lola. If it was fate or divinity or some other fucking magical thing that had brought us together in life, I didn't know. I didn't care. All that mattered was that she was mine.

I would never lose her again.