Rock Angel (Rock Angel Series Book 1) (16 page)

When they shifted to “Voluntary Exile,” she took a deep breath. Her voice was true and only the slightest uncharacteristic flatness revealed her precarious state. They had the crowd and they kept it as they transitioned to “Iko Iko
.
”

As Dan pounded out the opening drum solo, Shan’s abdomen contracted. Her throat closed and her stomach heaved; she shot an imploring look at Quinn, who brought his mouth to the microphone immediately, assuming the opening vocals as the audience shrieked their approval.

They took their bows to hearty applause, beginning to dismantle their equipment as the curtain dropped. Shan stumbled off the stage, nearly colliding with one of the Garcia roadies, a tall, gangly guy with short orange dreads and a pierced lip.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he said, catching her by the arm to steady her. “What’s your deal?”

Shan stared at him. Behind her, she could hear her bandmates hauling their equipment off the stage. “Do you know if anyone here is holding H?” she whispered.

The roadie grinned. “Sweetheart,” he said, “this is your lucky day.”

Fifteen minutes later the members of Quinntessence were watching the curtain rise on the Garcia band. Quinn looked around as Jerry opened with “Mission in the Rain.”

“Where’s Shan? I can’t believe she’s missing this,” he said to Dan, whose attention was riveted to the stage. Quinn watched for a few more minutes, then headed for the greenroom in search of her.

He opened the door and stopped dead. She was in there, all right, facedown and motionless, halfway between the floor and the sofa. A pierced, dreaded white guy was attempting to lift her.

“Hey!” Quinn advanced on them, his fists doubling up. “Get your hands off her, you fuck!”

The guy let go of Shan and held up his hands. “Hey, it’s cool! It’s cool, man!” She slid the rest of the way to the floor, landing in a heap.

Cool?
Quinn moved forward, scooping Shan into his arms and moving her to the sofa. Her head lolled like it was attached to her shoulders by rubber bands and he saw that her eyes were rolled back into her head. “What the hell did you do to her?”

“Nothing! She wanted it…
paid
for it! She just ain’t used to China White, that’s all.” The guy dug in his pocket and produced a baggie of blinding white powder, then scratched his head ruefully. “I think it mighta been her first time shooting it, too.”

Smack?
Quinn wanted to kill her, and at the same time he was terrified that she might have already accomplished that on her own. She was a mess, not unconscious but close to it, mumbling incoherently. She couldn’t even hold her head up.

Should he take her to an ER? He hesitated, recalling her reaction when he’d pressured her to call the cops on that sleazy creep on the roof.

There was a phone on the coffee table. He grabbed it and dug in his wallet for a number. “Steve? It’s Quinn Marshall. I’ve got a fucked up girl on my hands and I think it might be an emergency…I’d rather not, if I don’t have to. Can you meet me in about twenty minutes?”

He hung up, went to the door, and hailed one of the roadies. Yanking a ten out of his pocket, he handed it to the kid. “I need a cab at the back entrance. Fast.”

The cab let them off in front of Quinn’s building. He carried Shan upstairs and found Steve Markowitz waiting at his door, a black bag in his hand. Quinn struggled to balance Shan’s weight while he extricated his keys. Steve took the keys and unlocked the door.

Once inside, Quinn dumped Shan unceremoniously on the couch. “She’s really wasted,” he said, trying to quell his rising panic. She was a fucking mess. “Smack, I think.”

Steve knelt, checked her pulse and breathing, then reached into his bag for a penlight. He lifted one of her eyelids, shone the light into it, and did the same with the other.

“Latest addition?” he asked conversationally, pulling a stethoscope from his bag.

“Just a friend. A
good
friend,” Quinn added after a pause. “Do I need to get her to a hospital?”

“She doesn’t need one,” Steve said, after listening to her heart. “A detox would be more appropriate. Do you know what she took?”

“China White. Heavy shit, right?”

“Right.” Steve began repacking his bag, a disgruntled look on his face. “She’ll be okay.”

“It’s not an OD? The guy who shot her up said she’d never done it before.”

Steve pushed up Shan’s shirtsleeves and examined the insides of her arms. “He’s right,” he said, after a moment. “I don’t see any tracks. Just the one,” he pointed to a pinprick in the crook of her elbow. “This is fresh. Probably from tonight.”

“You think it’s true? That she never did smack before?”

“I didn’t say that,” Steve said. “Just because she never shot up doesn’t mean she isn’t a junkie. Most of them don’t shoot up anymore. They snort it, or smoke it.”

“I’ve never seen her high,” Quinn said, but his eyes were narrowing.

“Maybe you’ve never seen her straight. Junkies are on all the time, you know.” Steve shrugged and Quinn nodded. “You’ll be able to tell tomorrow, when this wears off. If she wakes up twitchy with watery eyes and a runny nose like she has the flu—well, then you’ll know.”

“Hey, wait!” Quinn said as Steve closed his bag and stood up. “What do I do with her?”

“Just ride it out. She’ll probably stay this way through the night.” Steve closed his bag, stood up, and headed for the door. “There’s an inpatient detox at the clinic. You can bring her if she wants to try,” he added, not sounding hopeful. “Call me if you get nervous.”

“Okay. Thanks,” Quinn said, his eyes still on Shan. Steve departed, shaking his head.

A junkie
?
She couldn’t be. Could she?
Suddenly he recalled the way she’d start sweating, how her eyes would get glassy after a long practice or when a gig ran late. The way she’d head for the bathroom, saying she needed to splash some water on her face, then look perfectly normal when she returned. And that scumbag from the roof, a lowlife drug dealer if he’d ever seen one. “Son of a fucking bitch,” he whispered.

It was true. He knew it, and couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it. He glared at her, still prone on his couch, which was also his bed. She was nodded out, he saw, floating in a semiconscious state, so he decided to leave her where she was rather than struggle with moving her to unfold the convertible sofa. He took off her shoes, spread a blanket over her, then retrieved a comforter and pillow for himself.

It was only about eleven-thirty, but he was exhausted. He snapped off the light and, with one last scowl at Shan, stretched out on the floor.

When Shan opened her eyes, the light from the window invaded her corneas like a million tiny needles. With a moan, she squeezed them shut.
Dope hangover,
she noted. She’d never slammed before, but works were all the roadie had with him. Obviously she’d done too much.

She lay motionless for several minutes, then cautiously pushed herself up on her elbows. She was lying on a couch in a sparely furnished studio apartment. She saw a bathroom to her left and another door straight in front of her that opened into a kitchenette. The last thing she remembered was her blood draining from the syringe while the red-haired roadie shot her up. Where was she now, and how had she gotten here?

Then she spotted Quinn’s leather jacket hanging over the back of a chair.
Oh, shit.

A moment later, Quinn himself appeared in the kitchen doorway with a cup of coffee in his hand. “How’re you feeling?”

Like she’d been run over by a train. “Better,” she lied. “Must be a twenty-four-hour bug.”

He vanished into the kitchen, reappearing a minute later with a second cup. She accepted it with shaky fingers and took a bracing sip. “Is this your place?” she asked.

He nodded, watching her with the oddest expression.

“Can I use your bathroom?”

“Sure.” He inclined his head in the direction of the bathroom, and she winced as she stood up. Even the soles of her feet hurt. As she shut the bathroom door behind her she saw that he was still watching her, his habitual half smile markedly absent from his face.

Quinn wondered if she was in there fixing, but realized she hadn’t as soon as she emerged. She was whiter, shakier, sweating like an ice cube in the sun, and he could see the hunger in her eyes, now that he was looking for it. It wasn’t the hunger of a first-time user.

“I’m sorry to be so much trouble.” Shan put on her shoes, then edged toward the front door. “Thanks for helping me. Again,” she added, attempting a smile as her hand found the knob.

“Don’t leave,” Quinn said. “I want to talk to you.”

Shan hesitated, then returned to the couch. Her fingers found the bottom of her shirt and began twisting it into knots.

He was gazing fixedly at her. “So you’re feeling better?”

“Yes, I told you,” she said irritably. “I really need to get home though. What do you want?” She continued to tug at the hem of the shirt repetitively as her knee jittered up and down.

She was coming undone right in front of him. “What do you suppose made you so sick?”

“I told you it must be some bug,” she snapped, starting to rise. “I need to get home, so…”

In a flash, he was on his feet and towering over her. He put his hand on her chest and shoved her back down on the couch.
“Don’t you fucking lie to me!
” he roared.

Shan recoiled. No wonder. He’d never raised his voice to her before, let alone put his hands on her. Never once, in all their arguments.

“So tell me,” he inquired, “how long have you been chasing the dragon?”

She cringed as if he’d struck her.

“Answer me!”

She threw her hands out in supplication. “What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to tell me the
truth
,” he shot back. “What did I tell you, right at the beginning? No booze, no drugs when we’re gigging. So what the hell was that last night, onstage, in front of three thousand fucking people? Do you know the trouble you could have gotten us into? Not just yourself, but me, and Dan, and Ty?
Do you have any fucking idea
?”

“Stop yelling!” She clapped her hands over her ears. “I couldn’t help it!”

She was quivering like a vibrating string. He scowled, resisting a sudden stab of compassion. “You had an obligation to tell us you had a drug problem, if it was going to affect the band. You are
sixteen
years old. And
I’m
not winding up in jail because
you’re a fucking junkie!
”

She pulled her hands away from her ears. “
Yes, I’m a junkie!”
she cried. “You can consider every one of our gigs a lie, because I’ve been using every time!”

“Using
smack
?” She nodded, eyes wild. “And you’ve been doing it
every fucking day
?”

“More like three or four times a day, so go ahead. Fire me.” Her voice broke.

He relinquished his aggressive stance, flopping beside her to regard her silently. “You could have told me,” he said finally. “Maybe not in the beginning, but now. We’re friends, right?”

“It’s not your problem. It’s mine. I’ll deal with it.”

“Don’t tell me you can take care of yourself, because you’re obviously not doing a very good job.” She glared at him. “I’m not going to kick you out of the band, but there’s a condition. You have to get treatment. I don’t even want to hear it,” he said, as she began to protest. “People die doing what you’re doing, Shan. Don’t expect me to stand by and watch. Now, tell me how this happened,” he continued. “I mean, I thought I knew you pretty well, and
this
doesn’t seem like you.”

She stared at him silently for a moment. Her face was pale, her eyes and nose beginning to glisten with moisture. “You don’t know me at all,” she said. “I’m not who you think I am.”

He leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. “Well, tell me who you are, then.”

She pulled her knees in against her chest and huddled in a ball, staring down at the floor. “You know I lived on the streets for a while,” she began, “and that was when I met Jorge.”

“You mean that guy from the roof? The one who tried to—”

“Yes. I told you that he let me crash at his place sometimes, and we’d party. He’s a dealer.”

“So, when he was letting you crash, he was helping you acquire a nifty little habit, too, is that it?” Quinn’s face darkened. “I wish I’d killed the motherfucker.”

“It’s not his fault, Q. I can’t blame him because —”

“Bullshit. He was in it for something. What was it?”

She hesitated, then spoke very slowly. “One day he told me he couldn’t keep feeding me dope. It was too expensive, he said, but he thought we could work out a deal.”

Her voice trailed off as his face changed. “Are you telling me you fucked him for drugs?”

She turned away. “I…I didn’t know what else to do. You don’t understand what it’s like, Q. When the dope is gone, it goes bad so fast. You feel like you’re going to die, like you’ll crawl right out of your skin, so when someone says they’ll give you what you need if you just…”

Her voice broke and then Quinn was circling her with his arms. “I do understand, and I’m so sorry, angel.” His voice was gentle. “So, so sorry.”

She ducked her face against his shoulder. “I don’t want you to be disappointed in me,” she whispered. “What you think matters to me, Q. So much.”

“I think it’s a miracle you managed to survive at all, after everything you’ve been through, but you can’t keep this up. You have to stop.”

“I don’t know if I can. Stop, I mean. I’ve tried.”

“I’ll help you,” he said and drew her closer, suddenly assailed with that warm internal glow.

And he did. He dragged her, kicking and screaming, to the clinic near St. Vincent’s that very day. She protested continuously, becoming louder and more insistent as they approached the place. Her eyes were wide with stark terror, or maybe it was just that her pupils were dilated to huge black circles.

When he reached for the door she yanked away, but he caught her wrist and jerked her back to his side. “
Listen
,” he barked. She flinched, but a trace of lucidity crept through the panic in her eyes. “You said you trusted me, didn’t you?” She nodded mutely. “Then do it. Trust me. I’ll take care of you. I promise.”