Broken Strings (A Rock Star Novel) (19 page)

“Well, we’re just going to have to chance it. We’ve reacted
pretty fast. They probably think we’re somewhere inside, so they’ll be doing a
room search followed by all the offices and finally the grounds and then the
parking lot. If they go in their usual order.”

“You seem to know a lot about their search habits,” I
whisper.

“Well, I’ve been planning to get out ever since I got here
so...Dammit, the window’s locked!”

“Crap, what are we going to do now? We can’t go back out in
the hall.”

For an answer he grabs a heavy chair. “Soon as this breaks,”
he explains, “We give away our position. So run like hell for your car and I’ll
follow. Got it?” The chair soars through the window, leaving a wide trail of
broken glass. “Don’t cut yourself,” he calls out behind me.

My egress is a little slower than I would like, but I really
didn’t want to slit my wrist climbing over the threshold. Soon as I’m safely
out the window I dare look up and around. No one is in sight. I take off at a
dead run, Silas on my heels.

I’m not exactly sure where we are in relation to the visitor
parking lot, so I just run for the corner of the building, hoping my car is
just around it. We round the corner in no time flat and there’s my car, about
forty yards ahead. There is the posse as well, making their way around the
building. They haven’t spotted us yet. I point them out to Silas as we run. He
nods. Thirty-five yards and closing.

“There they are!” someone shouts, and the chase is on.

The instant we’re spotted I get a sudden kick of adrenaline.
It enables me to run faster than I ever have before. Thirty yards and closing.
They have the advantage of being ahead of us, but they’re off to our left side.
With the angle they have on us, I can’t tell whether we’ll get to the car far
enough ahead of them to get it going and get out of here. Twenty-five yards. I
can hear Silas’s jagged breaths behind me and I can tell he has fallen a little
behind. Initially he was faster than me and had to slow down. Now I find myself
slowing for him.

“Don’t… slow… down. You still… gotta…start the car.” he
manages to gasp.

I put on another burst of speed in response and I can hear
him fall farther behind us. Twenty yards. I can see the angry expressions on
the faces of our three pursuers. They’re not looking near as winded as we are.
We’ve been running longer than they have. But we have the added impetus of
fear—make that terror. I can’t be caught.

Ten yards. I’m gonna make it. I fish my keys out as I run
and promptly drop them on the ground. I give them a good kick as I try to scoop
them up on the run. I get them the second time and press the unlock symbol on
the plastic fob. I’m rewarded with a friendly beep. I don’t dare look behind me
now. I’m way too afraid to see just how close the enemy is to me. I dive in the
front seat and jam the key into the ignition.

I turn the key and the engine roars to life. A sudden thud
shakes the car. This time I look, and scream. The face I see mashed up against
my door window is not Silas. I don’t know whether to back up and pull out of my
parking spot or to just sit there. One thing I’m not willing to do is to hurt
anyone just to make my getaway. The nameless face goes flying backwards through
the air and lands with a thud against another car’s hood. I guess Silas is
willing to do whatever to get away. Suddenly he’s opening the door.

“Go!” he roars at the top of his lungs.

“I’m going!” I scream back and twist around. There’s a guy
standing off to the side, but not behind me. I hit the gas and go squealing
backwards, barely missing the guy as I turn the wheel.

Suddenly there’s a deafening crash by my left ear, followed
by an intense burning pain. “I’ve been shot! Silas, they’re shooting me!” I
scream.

“Drive, just drive!” he bellows.

I manage to put the car in drive and hit the gas. “Silas, I
can’t see out of my left eye!” I’m still shouting at the top of my lungs. My
voice sounds ragged in my ears, and my throat is burning. I can feel the blood
running down the side of my face.

“You’re fine June, you’re fine.”

“How...” I lower my voice as I ease onto the highway. “How
can I be fine? I’m blind in one eye.” My remaining eye is filling up with tears
and I can barely see where we’re going.

“You’re fine. They threw a brick through the window. You got
a few cuts, and it looks like some blood has run into your eye.”

“What? They didn’t shoot me?”

“Pull over. You can barely see, if at all, and you’re going
to get us killed. After that crazy jail break I do not want to die in some
freak car crash.”

His calmness is having the desired effect on me. My heart is
slowing, my breath is too, and my mind is no longer racing a hundred miles an
hour. I pull off the road and we switch. But before he gets in he checks my
face closely.

“You’re okay. The cuts are superficial. They probably hurt
like hell, but they should heal without a scar.”

Silas takes the driver’s seat and I slouch way down in the
other.

“Well, we did it,” Silas breaks a long silence.

“Yeah...we did.” But I don’t feel relieved or even one bit
happy. Yeah, I just did what I had to do to get Silas to the show, but at what
price? When are the police going to come knocking at my door or at work to take
me away?

After another longer silence I look over at Silas. He looks
wrecked! He’s covered in sweat, looks green around the gills, and is beginning
to shake. What the hell is going on with him?

“Silas, what’s wrong with you? You look like hell!”

After a long pause he replies, “I haven’t been completely
honest with you June.”

Oh, Christ. Now what?

Chapter Twenty-three

The Longest Ride

We haven’t been on the road for more than twenty minutes
before Silas needs to find a bathroom. At first I think it’s to pee, but when
he has to stop again after only thirty minutes I realize something more is
going on.

“Silas, you truly look like shit. What’s going on? I know
that last stop can’t have been to drain your bladder. So what’s up? You got the
flu or something?”

“I’m gonna go with, or something.”

“Well you let me know when you’re ready to tell me the
truth. Have you forgotten I work in the emergency room? This is not the first
time I’ve encountered symptoms like yours.”

“I’m going through withdrawals from heroin.”

“No kidding?”

This time he just groans. I think he’s too deep into the
process to form words longer than four letter swear words.

By the time we hit the Grapevine, we’ve had to make two more
unscheduled pit stops. If I wasn’t in the medical profession, I would think the
guy was well into the dying process and not the drug withdrawal one. I can’t
relax, and I can barely concentrate on the highway when I’ve got a moaning 200
pound beast strapped in the seat next to me.

“When was your last fix, Silas?”

I get nothing but incoherent mumbling. I guess I shouldn’t
expect anything else for a while. He must have been on the tail end of a high
the night before our meeting at Forbes. That means he has about four more rocky
days of withdrawal before he makes it over the hump and his symptoms start to
recede. He’s going to be in full blown withdrawal right in the middle of his
grand comeback show with the band. He’s going to be a stark raving lunatic
Saturday night, and not a rock god!

“Dammit! How could you do this to me, Silas? I came all the
way down here and have risked my career just so you can be a rock star again,
and you fuck it up by getting high at your drug treatment center.”

I am so pissed I can’t see straight, so I just pull off the
road. I unbuckle Silas’s seatbelt, then reach across and open his door. He
gives me a blank look and moans.

“Get the fuck out of my car. I’ve had it. You just ruined my
life and yours too, so get out.”

He just closes his eyes and slouches down in his seat.
That’s the last straw for me. I twist in my seat and bring my knees up to my
chest. Almost immediately he figures out what I’m about to do, but it’s too
late. My heels strike him in the shoulder and he goes flying out of my car,
falling flat on his back in the dirt. He looks at me in utter shock, but makes
no move to get up. Instead he just lays there on his back. Maybe he’s hoping
the coyotes will come and relieve him from his miserable life. Who, I wonder,
is going to relieve me from my miserable life? I’m just about to pull onto the
interstate leaving Silas behind when Stewart calls.

“Hello Stewart.”

“Have you got him yet?”

“Yeah, I have him—”

“That’s great! You just leapt over your biggest obstacle to
show of a lifetime.”

“Stew...I’m not sure that’s going to happen. Mr. Rock star
here is in no shape to be playing anything. He’s pretty much at death’s door.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What I’m talking about is your nephew getting high in
Forbes. He’s in the middle of a full blown heroin withdrawal. The man should be
on his way to the hospital, not to a rock concert.”

“I’m so sorry, I had no idea. So I guess we should pull the
plug on the whole deal then?”

“Not yet. I have an idea. I gotta go.”

A loud bang just about gives me a heart attack. Silas has
just crawled back into my car and slammed the door. As bad as he looks, I
wouldn’t have thought him capable of getting back into his seat on his own
accord. His seatbelt, however, proves too difficult to handle. After making sure
he’s buckled in, I pull out into the roadway full of hope. This might work out
after all. I just need to find a gas station or restaurant that we can park in
for a little bit. I don’t want some highway patrol guy rolling up on us right
when Silas is getting high.

Ten minutes later we’re sitting in the parking lot of the
Black Bear diner. I fish my backpack out from the trunk of my car, locate the
cigarette package and hand it to Silas, who is shaking so badly he can barely
hold onto it.

“Do it. You’ll never be able to do the show tomorrow night
if you’re in full blown heroin withdrawal. Then I will have risked my career,
my very freedom, for nothing. I need you to get high so you can do your part
here. Do you understand?”

 He nods and frantically tears into the cigarette pack. I
can’t help but watch the whole thing with a certain morbid fascination.  The
cooking process, the initial insertion of the needle, and the squirt of blood
as he draws back on the syringe making sure he hit a vein. How is he able to
manage this when a minute ago he could barely hold onto the cigarette pack?

I look up at his face as the drug is pushed into his
bloodstream. The story is in his eyes. I can see the manic agony of withdrawal
leave and a dreamy heroin high comes seeping in. His lids fall to half-mast as
he slides down in his seat. His athletic frame goes from rigid to wet noodle
all in the space of about fifteen seconds.

It’s really quite remarkable to watch, and scary too. I
check to make sure he’s breathing normally before pulling out of the parking
lot. It would not do to be driving around with a dead rock star in the seat
next to me.

We drive on in silence for about an hour and a half before
Silas begins to wake up. He looks over at me with an odd grin on his face.

“Are you for real?” he asks, poking my arm.

“Hey,” I exclaim. “You’re supposed to pinch yourself, not
poke me, idiot.”

“Oh yeah, sorry ‘bout that.”

“Nice to see you finally decided to join the land of the
living.”

“Yeah...so why’d you do it?”

“Why’d I get you out, or why did it give you the drugs?”

“The drugs.”

“How well do you think you would have played Saturday night
if I hadn’t let you get high before the show?”

“Probably not much worse than I’ll end up playing anyhow is
my guess.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“If it’s still standing...”

He closes his eyes once more and drifts off into a deep
sleep. I am finding it hard to keep my eyes on the road. I find myself counting
his breaths every couple minutes just to make sure he’s still alive. If he
overdoses before the show, and before I can get him back to Forbes Clinic, then
my life is really over.

I can’t believe what I just did. I’m a member of the medical
community who just became a fugitive. I just broke someone out of a secure
facility, smuggled in heroin, and helped an addict relapse. I nearly ran over
two people with my car and I’m on the run. I need to talk to someone. Gabbs,
that’s who I need. I fish out my phone and punch in her number.

“Hello?” she picks up on the first ring. “June, you okay?”

The tears begin to flow. “Not really...”

“What’s wrong?”

I recount everything that’s gone on since I arrived Forbes.
When I’m finished, there’s a long pause before she begins speaking again.

“You know June, I don’t think things are quite as dire as
you think,” she begins. Then she outlines a plan of action that I think will
actually work for all involved. “He just better play his heart out Saturday or,
as they say, all bets are off.”

“And therein lies the real problem. No one knows if he can
play, including himself. His Uncle Stewart doesn’t think his nephew is capable
of playing. I’ve asked Silas and he won’t give me a straight answer. I think
he’s afraid he’ll jinx himself.”

“Does he know what’s on the line here if he can’t play?”

“It’s been made abundantly clear to him.”

“Well June, just make sure he lives long enough to play,
yes?”

“Yeah...that’s not gonna be so easy, actually.”

“I’m sure you’re right about that one. Now I gotta get
going. I’m covering part of another nurse’s shift so I got an extra-long night
ahead of me. See you Saturday.”

“You got off?”

“Hell yeah, you think I’d miss your big triumph?”

“Or my big downfall. Either way Gabbs, I feel much better
knowing you’ll be there. Thanks. Oh, you haven’t forgotten he’s gonna be crashing
on our couch for a couple nights right?”

“Of course.”

“Thanks Gabbs.”

“Hey, what are best friends for, right?”

It’s approaching midnight when we finally pull into our
driveway. Silas has been asleep or passed out for the last five hours or so,
but at least he’s still alive. Getting him from my car to our apartment proves
to be harder than I thought. I didn’t think I was going to have to carry him to
the door. When we finally get there, I barely make it to the couch before he
passes out for real. I pull up a chair and try to make myself comfortable.
Looks like I’m on guard duty tonight. No way am I going to let my future rest
in the hands of a heroin addict. One, I might add, who is probably on the verge
of dying from an overdose...one that I helped administer.

Soon enough, daylight brightens the room. Time to get Mr.
Rock star ready for his big performance.