Broken Strings (A Rock Star Novel)

Broken Strings

by Brynn O'Connor

Copyright © 2013 Brynn O'Connor

All rights
reserved. This document may not be reproduced in any way without the expressed
written consent of the author. The ideas, characters, and situations presented
in this story are strictly fictional and any unintentional likeness to real
people or real situations is completely coincidental.

Dedication

To my sons Ethan and Diego.

Contents

Prologue

One
- Will The Real Kirk Hammett Please Stand Up?

Two
- Searching For Silas Mann

Three
- Backstage

Four
- The Dancing Zebra

Five
- Backstage Again

Six
- Lunatic June

Seven
- Brand

Eight
- A Chance Meeting

Nine
- Revelations

Ten
- Dinner And A Mess

Eleven
- Midnight in The Den of the Rock Star

Twelve
- The Awakening

Thirteen
- The Bad Girlfriend

Fourteen
- I've Been Hacked!

Fifteen
- Busted

Sixteen
- Reunited

Seventeen
- Confessions of a Lunatic

Eighteen
- A Little Birdie Told Me

Nineteen
- Go Greyhound

Twenty
- The Con

Twenty-One
- The Phone Call

Twenty-Two
- Jail Break

Twenty-Three
- The Longest Ride

Twenty-Four
- Welcome to the Grand Illusion

Twenty-Five
- Show Time

Epilogue

Prologue…

Its pouring rain and
something tells me I should be slowing down more going into this curve but
we’re going to be late for my little sister’s acting debut. Sure it’s only the
school play, but it’s her dream to become an actress. If you ask, she’ll rattle
off an impressive list of A-list actors who got their start acting in their
school plays; much like the one my sister is going to be in. It’s a comical
rendition of Shakespeare’s classic, The Taming of the Shrew.

“So you got your lines
down sis?” I ask for the hundredth time. Call me paranoid, but I really want
her to succeed.

“June… I could say them
backwards.”

I hold up my hand to
stop her before she does exactly that.

Last year she went to a
casting call for this big budget teen vampire and werewolf movie and actually
got a call back for one of the speaking roles as the main character’s closest
friend. That main character turned out to be Tom Cruise’s son Brandon or whatever
his name is.

That ended up being his
breakout role and it could have been my sister’s as well. We were both ecstatic
that she got a call back, but crushed that the part went to someone else.
Still, she remains positive about her chances in Hollywood and nothing is going
to deter her from her goal.

I glance her way. “Just
making sure,” I reply.

“Yeah, well maybe-
Watch out!” Her scream makes me jump in my seat and my head jerks so that my
gaze is focused back on the road in front of me. Only problem is, all I can see
is this blinding yellowish-white light, then I’m engulfed in darkness.

I hear screams!

In fact, I think I’ve
been hearing them for a while now, but it just didn’t register until a moment
ago. Who’s been screaming? The sound goes for another couple minutes before
they’re covered in silence. I’m also becoming aware of a kind of deep ache
beginning somewhere in my lower legs and radiating up into my spine. It’s not
agonizing, it’s just damn uncomfortable.

The screaming begins
again.

It starts off quietly and
seems to be somewhere in the distant night, but as my head begins to clear so
do the screams. Suddenly they’re not some far away fogged out noise; they’re a
series of sharp cries of agony that tear through my skull, ripping my eyes wide
open.

All I can see around me
is twisted metal and fragmented glass from a windshield that is way too close
to my face. In the eerie light the glass has taken on a dark reddish hue,
almost like blood.

“Blood!” Oh my god,
what happened? Suddenly everything comes rushing back. I must have drifted off
into the other lane and hit a car head on! I move to sit up, but am instantly
stricken with agony in both legs. I force myself to be still. If I panic it’ll
just make everything worse. Slowly I will the pain to die down. The screaming
also stops which makes me wonder if I was the one doing the screaming. I’m just
about convinced of that when they start again.

“June!”

I look to my left, and
scream myself. Camille is sitting up, rigid as a board in her seat. Her mouth
is open wide and she’s screaming at the top of her lungs. Her arms are flailing
about like she’s trying to do something but just doesn’t have the control over
her limbs yet.

The source of the blood
on the windshield becomes abundantly clear. She’s got a huge gash in her
forehead and her precious life is just pouring down her face and into her white
blouse. I reach out to wipe the blood from her face but an errant arm bats mine
out of the way. This time I twist around to get a better reach but my own pain
hits me so hard this time my vision goes and I blackout again.

I have no idea how long
I’m out before I hear sounds coming from somewhere close by. It sounds like
glass and twisting metal of something similar. I start to sit up but remember
my legs and decide to lie still. I look over at Camille. She’s still bleeding,
but now her arms are motionless at her sides.

“Camille…Camille, can
you hear me?”

Suddenly I realize
there’s a man at my side. I start to turn my head to see who it is but his hands
and his voice stop me.

“Don’t turn your head
miss!”

He’s holding my head in
his hands.

“I’m okay. Please help
my sister…”

“What’s your name
miss?” He asks.

“It’s June. Why aren’t
you helping my sister? I don’t need your help. See what you can do for her.”

Despite my
protestations he seems bent on taking care of me instead.

“An ambulance should be
here any minute,” he says. “Can you hold your head still? I want to check a few
things.”

“Yeah sure but I-“

“What?” He asks.

It takes me a moment to
push through the pain and form words again. “Sorry,” I gasp. “It’s just that my
legs…unless I stay perfectly still they hurt like a bitch!”

“Yeah, you should
probably try to keep as still as you can. I don’t know what damage you’ve got
down there, but moving your legs is not going to help matters. Now really try
to keep your head still. I need to do a quick exam here.”

I catch myself starting
to nod, then I mutter, “Thanks.”

I feel his hands as
they begin to probe the top of my head, then either side, and down my neck
before he begins to check my face. He is fast and thorough and only takes a
couple minutes before he finishes up by checking my pulse again.

“Well?” I ask through
clenched teeth.

“I’d imagine you’ve got
yourself a pair of broken legs June, and some cuts and bruises. Beyond that, I
can’t tell. You could have internal injuries that aren’t going to be found
until they get you to the ER.  The fact that you’re feeling so much leg pain is
good. That means we may be able to rule out any lower spine injury.”

“Now check my sister.”

He looks at me. I can
tell from his expression there’s something he’s not telling me and instead of
checking my sister he just looks at me.

“Why aren’t you checking
my sister?” I bellow so loudly it reverberates around the closed in space of
the car.

“It’s too late June.”

“What?”

“I checked her first,
before you woke up. She…she wasn’t breathing and she didn’t have a pulse June.
I’m sorry but it’s too late.”

“But…but I-I saw her.
She was screaming and moving her arms around. I tried to…I tried…” I’m finding
it harder and harder to talk. “I tried but she just batted my arms away. But
she was alive when I passed out.”

“I’m sure she was,” he
begins. “But when I got here she was no longer breathing and her heart had
stopped. You could have been out for 30 minutes or more. People don’t often
take this road anymore now that they finished the highway. You’re lucky I
decided to take it or you may have bled out too.

“But I heard screaming
just before I woke up to find you here.”

“Yes, and that was you
June. You were screaming and you woke yourself up.”

“You’re lying. No one
does that. I would know if it was me screaming and not my sister.”

“Sometimes when you’ve
been in a serious accident your mind plays tricks on you. It even keeps you
from facing reality…” He trails off, watching me intently.

“She can’t be dead she
was just screaming…she just can’t…I was…she…”

Suddenly I can feel my
grip on reality is slipping away. This can’t be happening. We’re on our way to
the play. How can she be dead? That’s not possible.

“It’s not fucking
possible!” I rage. “It’s not fucking possible! She’s alive!”

“June you have to stop
before you hurt yourself even more.”

I feel a pair of hands
holding my head in place again as he tries to keep me still. “She’s not dead,”
I protest, but I can feel I’m beginning to fade and I’m losing the intensity of
my convictions. “She’s alive,” I try one more time. “Not dead…”

And the night engulfs
me. As consciousness flees me, I can hear a faint siren coming my way. The
Calvary at last.

A loud wailing noise
brings me back again. Bright lights are in my eyes, and I seem to be on my back
and strapped down to something. I try to move my head and look to my side to see
who is with me, but my head won’t move an inch.

“Don’t try it Miss.
Your head is strapped to that backboard for a reason, now be still already.”

It’s a different voice
that’s talking to me. Suddenly it dawns on me. I’m in an ambulance and we’re on
the way to the hospital.

“Where’s my sister? Is
she next to me? You’re taking her too right?”

And when nobody answers
right away.

“Where is she? Let me
see my sister!?” I try to sit up, but whatever they’re using to keep me down,
it’s working. I can’t move my arms, my legs, my head, or even my waist. Pretty
soon I have to stop completely. The more I struggle the more the pain hammers
me back into submission. I close my eyes and breathe slowly and evenly; in
through my nose and out through the mouth. In through my nose and out…

“We’re losing her!”

I can’t breathe!
Something’s in my throat and I can’t breathe. I open my mouth as wide as I can,
my nostrils flair, and I gasp for breath. What is happening to me? I try to sit
up again but my arms are too tightly bound, as are my legs. I twist around
thrashing, gasping, praying for air.

Suddenly there’s a
burst of light and a klaxon begins ringing in my ears. My eyes fly open and
suddenly I can breathe again. I look around my bedroom, locate my alarm clock
and pound the off button with my fist. It takes me a minute to figure it out,
and then I get it.

The date is October 16
^th
,
the anniversary of my little sister’s death. It’s been…ten years since she was
taken from me and every year on this day I have some kind of nightmare about
the accident and her subsequent death. At least this time I wasn’t killing her.
I glance at the clock. It’s almost three in the afternoon. Time to wake up and
join the land of the living.