Michelle Mankin: Irresistible Refrain

Instead, he honed in on my weakest spot.

Bryan.

An explicit YouTube video of the infamous bad boy guitarist of Tempest became the final wrecking ball that demolished the wall I’d carefully built around what remained of my heart. The wall that had already started to crumble, the wall that wasn’t nearly as strong as I’d needed it to be.

After that I gave in and regularly took what Martin had offered before. I did whatever, whenever. Why shouldn’t I? Forgotten and abandoned by those I’d loved, it was inevitable where I was going to end up. Better to get it over with and fast pass the trip.

I learned to compartmentalize my life. I stuck the bad stuff into a box and pretended it didn’t exist. And when the needle was under my skin, when the drugs hit my bloodstream, everything else did fade away. I lost the will to care about anything. I stopped dreaming about the future, and settled for shuffling through the lucid times like the living dead until the next time I could get high.

I waited up late that night for Martin. He came back as promised, but he hadn’t come alone. Strader was with him. Tall and thin with a gnarled face, Strader’s brand of evil made Martin’s seem angelic.

I rose from the couch, pulling my robe tightly closed with one hand fisted over my chest. Outwardly I tried to project confidence. Inside my nerves were all over the place. It wasn’t lost on me that both men tracked my movement with anticipatory gleams.

This wasn’t good.

“I’ll just leave you two alone to discuss business.” Chin down; I hustled toward the back bedroom.

“I’ll go with you.” Strader’s mouth practically drooled with lascivious intent.

What? No!

Eyes going wide, I looked to Martin for help.

“No, wait.” Martin held up his hand. “Let me talk to her first.”

Strader looked like he was going to refuse, but then his expression changed. “Sure.” He gave me a lurid grin, gaze raking me head to toes in a way that made my flesh crawl. “But just so you know, it’s gonna happen, willing or not.”

And there it was. There was no longer any doubt what he wanted, what he had come to get.

Me.

My heart began beating so fast it felt like my chest was going to explode. It was extremely unlikely I would be able to convince Martin to change mind. He owed Strader a lot of cash. Being under Martin’s thumb had been one thing, becoming a disposable plaything for a man like Strader was entirely another. I’d reached the end of the road, and I refused to go further, deciding right then and there that I’d rather die than endure whatever Strader had planned for me.

But I wasn’t going down easy.

A deadly calm fell over me as I watched Strader give Martin a tight nod. “I’m going out to the car. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

As soon as the door shut after him, I turned to Martin, chin lifted, hands balled into fists at my sides. “I won’t go with him.” I was so proud that my voice didn’t quiver.

He laughed. “Like you have any choice.” There wasn’t an ounce of mercy in his eyes.

What a fool I’d been to believe a man like Martin Skellin had ever cared for me.

He reached for me.

“No,” I managed to rasp though fear had sucked the air from my lungs. I shook my head vigorously and took a step back.

A mistake.

“You strung out bitch.” Martin’s eyes flared. He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me so hard my teeth clattered together and my thoughts became rattled. “You can and you will.”

“No.” My eyes burned, but I didn’t cry and I didn’t back down.

That’s when he lost it. I didn’t even see the blow coming. The force of the impact knocked me back on my heels. I tasted coppery blood in my mouth. He glared at me. I glared back, never hating anyone more than I did him in that moment. I went after him, pounding my fists ineffectually against his solid chest. He easily knocked my hands away and smacked my face again with his open palm.

I backed away covering my burning cheek with my hand. He’d hit me before, but he’d never looked at me with such malice. The entire left side of my face was a fiery blaze now. Frantically I retreated, looking around the room for something to defend myself with. Then he rocked me with another blow. His fist felt like a brick as it blasted into the left side of my skull. I reeled into a side table, knocking it over. Everything went black for a moment. When I blinked away the haze, I found myself on the floor with his body looming over me.

“Ok,” I mumbled. “I’ll go. I’ll go.”

Those lips I’d once thought handsome spread across his face into a dark as death smile. “Knew you’d see things my way.” He offered me his hand to lift me up. I offered him my left, but the fingers of my right hand closed tightly around the base of the broken lamp beside me.

As he leaned down, I swung it at Martin’s head with all I had in me. Brass and bone came together with a sickening crack. He lurched face forward into the carpet, and he didn’t get back up.

I fled down the hall and out into the night with just the clothes on my back and the engagement ring he’d given me to pawn.

Shaken by the memory, I shoved my trembling hands into my jeans and stuffed those dark thoughts back into the box. I leaned back against a column and forced myself to refocus on Tempest’s performance. The guys were well into their set now. They were polished and confident, and there was no awkward space where I’d once stood.

Not needed.

Not wanted.

As the disheartening reality of that sank in, my gaze stalled dispassionately on War. Wet and plastered to his head, his brown hair looked almost black. I watched him throw the tail end of his long lavender scarf behind his sweaty back as he strutted confidently across the width of the stage.

He’d made it so easy to resume our old relationship. I didn’t know why he had wanted me back, but he had, and I was grateful. He seemed to want to pretend that the past two years with the RCA deal and Martin had never happened, and that was just fine by me. We were on the same page in that regard though our reasons were undoubtedly different.

With Bryan, on the other hand, I was afraid there was never going to be a way back to the close friendship we’d had before. We never talked about the night we had spent together, but it was always there, an awkward and unbridgeable gap between us.

My eyes followed him as he prowled dangerously around the stage with his guitar, by far the sexiest guy I’d ever seen. Lids lowered, face an intense mask of concentration, I watched his fingers flying over his Les Paul. His instrument screamed like a complex climax above the rhythm of the current song. My blood heated remembering those nimble fingers and the effortless way they’d played my body with strikingly similar results.

Long after the music ended, my gaze lingered on Bryan and the puzzle he represented. There was still much of the handsome playful boy I remembered, but now some additional things much beyond his age. I wondered at the faint lines around his mouth and the guardedness in his manner that had not been there before.

I guessed the past two years had put some hard mileage on all of us.

“Where you been?” Every spike of Dizzy’s bleached hair was gelled into place when I arrived for sound check the next afternoon in Boston.

“Working out in the hotel rec room.” I set my iPhone in the dock and started to tune up my guitar.