Forgetting Popper (Los Rancheros #3) Read online

  Forgetting Popper

  By Brandace Morrow

  Los Rancheros Series

  Book 3

  Forgetting Popper © Copyright 2014 by Brandace Morrow

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, printed, transmitted, downloaded, distributed, stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, without the express permission of the author. Please do not participate or encourage piracy in any capacity of copyrighted material in violation of the author’s rights.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, or any events, occurrences, places, or business establishments is purely coincidental. The characters and story line are created from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Smashwords Edition

  Cover design by Najla Qamber Design

  http://najlaqamberdesigns.com

  Formatting by Inkstain Interior Book Design

  http://www.inkstainformatting.com

  Editing by Mad Sparks Editing

  https://www.facebook.com/MadSparkEditing

  Chapter 1

  “FUCK OFF, TORONTO!” I doubt the crowd can hear my growl into the microphone. They’re busy beating the shit out of each other. Mosh pits tend to get out of hand at these concerts, and we had been banned from more than a few venues. I lean down and pick up the bottle of water at my feet. My bleached blonde hair falls in tangled, sweaty ropes that I swear try to strangle me. It sticks to my arms and torso like a giant spider web. Disgusting.

  I raise the bottle that I want nothing more than to chug. My throat is on fire from screaming at these stupid fucks all night. But true to form, I aim it at the men trying to beat each other into the cement, hitting my target in the temple and spraying water over the crowd.

  They go crazy, yelling, pounding their feet. I raise my middle finger and walk off stage shirtless, my nipples covered with black tape. Someone hands me a towel, the other band members taking up the majority of the crews’ attention in their high from performing.

  I stop only when I get to my dressing room, and wish there was a shower in the small room. I do the best I can in the little attached bathroom with the towel to wash away the sweat from the night. My hair is a lost cause, so I flip my head over, twist the ass length mass into a rope then wrap it around my head. When I sit back up, there’s a sleazy fat guy with gold chains standing behind me. My eyes lock on his in the mirror as I put the hair tie in, then get to work taking the tape off.

  It hurts like a fucking bitch, the freshly uncovered skin quickly becoming red. I hold out my hand and Brian hands me a shirt. I only turn when it’s over my head, giving him the same insolent expression I’ve worn for seven years.

  “There are some reporters that want to do interviews on the bus to the next leg. You need to make yourself available to them, and answer whatever questions they ask,” he tells me.

  I roll my eyes and laugh. “It’s Saturday.”

  His face becomes red and blotchy, and I know what’s coming. “You will do this interview and ride on the fucking bus with the rest of the band, Popper, or so help me—”

  “Yeah, what?” I cut him off. “What are you gonna do?” I ask as I advance on him in my five-inch boots. He’s a short little fucker, only coming to my shoulder in these shoes, but he thinks he can order me around because he’s older. I watch his jaw clench, but I only know because I can hear his teeth grinding, not because there’s any muscles showing on his bloated face.

  “Don’t make me get rough with you, Popper. You have an obligation as the lead singer.”

  “Next time, Brian. I’ve been leaving every Saturday since the tour started. Today isn’t any different. My plane leaves in three hours, and I’ll be on it.”

  He sighs, like he’s so put out. My leaving isn’t news to him on this particular day of the week.

  “Fine,” he relents with surprising ease. “Just have a drink with one of them at the bar to tide them over. You can do that, right?”

  I study his face warily before nodding my head slightly.

  “Good.” He turns. “Let’s go.” He wraps his sausage fingers around my arm so tight that I know he’s striking at me the only way he can. He always squeezes my arms too hard. No one thinks a thing about it, on stage or off, when they see the bruises. They’ve just always been there, up and down my bicep. I let him pull me two steps before I wrench my arm away to grab my bag, the pain of getting out of his hand more hurtful than him actually holding my arm. But it’s the principle of the thing.

  I let him touch me. I let him get away with it. And I can escape any time I want. The game to stay impassive and not flinch has been one I’ve played all my life.

  Brian, of course, doesn’t wait for me, much less hold the door. By the time I get into the hall, where chaos is reigning as the stage gets broken down, Brian is lost in people and boxes that are taller than him. When I make my way through the maze of hallways, finally entering the green room, I see him doing what he does best: schmooze.

  There’s a makeshift bar in the corner so I take a stool amidst the pot smoke and coffee tables with lines of white already laid out. The guys in the band are on couches around the hazy room with mostly naked women draped about them.

  My eyes meet the man behind the counter, some venue employee that has to be there to fill our rider requirements. His eyes light up as they take me in. I stare until his eyes come back to my face. He swallows quickly when he realizes I’m not flattered by the mental striptease he’s been imagining in his head.

  “Whiskey, right? I’m good at guessing drinks.” He smiles then winks. My face doesn’t so much as twitch. I am stone.

  Here’s the thing about this world I live in. Everyone immediately knows you. Everyone knows what you want, what you think, what you feel. Or they think they do. They have expectations. I fucking hate whiskey. All I want to drink is water . . . well, maybe a strawberry daiquiri or something frozen to soothe my throat. But no, the lead singer of Chimera wouldn’t do that in this house of horrors. So I do what’s expected of me.

  “On the rocks.” My voice is already raspy on a good day from doing this so long. After a concert, there’s barely anything left. The man smirks and quickly fills my order.

  I look around just as a man slides into the stool beside me.

  “Popper, it’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Randal. I hope I can ask you a few questions tonight on the bus. Brian told me to come over and introduce myself.” He says all of this with a smile, his sweater screaming preppy, something that gives me hives.

  I take his eager, thrust out hand before he hits my chest with it, my whole body bobbing in time with our hands. Down boy. “Brian was mistaken. You’re supposed to ask me questions now since I won’t be on the bus tonight.”

  I reach for my drink, but still catch his crestfallen face. I swallow and it goes down like shards of glass, but it doesn’t show on my face. I bring my teeth down hard on an ice cube, the only reaction I allow myself.

  “What a bummer!” Holy shit, he said bummer. Do adults use that word anymore? “I wanted to get the full experience.”

  I look around the room again, seeing several of the guys having sex on various surfaces and raise my eyebrow at Randal. “This is pretty much it.”

  “What’s it like traveling with four guys around the world?” he asks as he takes out a little tape recorder.

  “It’s fucking nasty. Someone takes a shit on the bus every other day, which they know they aren’t supposed to do. It clogs everything up and makes it smell like a sewer.” I almost gag thinking about i
t. Fucking disgusting. “They get into fights all the time. What do you want me to say?” I ask with a shrug. I hate interviews.

  Randal’s nose is wrinkled, making him look like a little boy. Seriously, where is the respect from these people? They probably sent an intern. “What magazine did you say you were from?”

  His eyes light up. “Oh, it’s not a magazine. I have a blog that covers all of the acts that come through the venue.” He shrugs bashfully. “I usually don’t get backstage, but Tammy’s been very helpful.”

  Of course our publicist has been helpful. She signs us up for every fucking thing under the sun. God, I’m tired.

  “I’m sorry. My time’s up.” I put my feet on the floor to stand, but a hand wraps around mine still holding my whiskey glass. I look at the hand, then over my shoulder, where it connects to Maury, the drummer. “Move your fingers before I break them.”

  “Now, Pops, come on. You can’t leave a drink on the table. It’s against the rules,” he says with a smile, and not a good one. I know for a fact all of his teeth are fake. Meth ruined the originals. His face has a permanent yellow cast to it, and his shoulder length black hair is as stringy as mine, but it hangs around his face. I pick up the drink and shoot it down, meeting his eyes again.

  When I started this at fifteen, I had no idea it was like a pack of wolves. I just wanted to sing, make music. Maury was the oldest, well out of high school and the ringleader. He got us the gigs in the beginning, lying about my age to get us in to play. He had always been too touchy feely with me. I learned how to fight, and I learned from the best: five older guys on a small bus nonstop. I learned the art of a stare, never backing down, always intimidating.

  He blinks first, licking his lips and rubbing his nose. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

  I allow myself to look around the room, not even caring what time it is. It is time to go. “Yeah, thanks for the reminder.” I reach down for my bag, swinging the strap over my shoulder.

  “Thanks, Randy. It was great.”

  I walk away and hear, “It’s Randal . . . oh, okay. Bye, then.”

  I get halfway down the hall before it jumps out at me. My bare shoulder rubs against the rough cinderblock walls and I put my hand out to push myself off of it. What the fuck?

  “Here, Pops. Let me get that for you,” a sickeningly sweet voice says before slipping the duffel bag off of my shoulder. It isn’t until an arm is around my shoulder that I move my head to see who it is.

  Maury smirks down at me, like a cobra about to strike. “Let’s get you gone, Popper.”

  I start hyperventilating, the fluorescent lights above me seeming to streak into one continuous line of over bright light. “What did you do to me?” I whisper in the most vulnerable voice I’ve ever uttered in my life.

  “Nothing yet, sweets. You’ll stay awake for me though, won’t you?”

  I’m sweating now, so badly. I feel like my whole body is on fire, and not in a good way. It’s not until we burst out of the doors into the cold February air that I think to fight.

  I bend my knees to duck under his arm, but either he’s too fast or I’m super slow because he has no trouble pushing me headfirst into the passenger seat of a car. I feel like I drank too much and know he did something to my drink. Why did I have to meet every challenge?

  “Take me to the airport,” I try to say, but it’s a slur, even to my ears. Maury chuckles, making me shiver. It only makes him laugh harder. He rubs his hands together.

  “Oh, this is going to be fucking brilliant.” He takes off at a speed way too fast for so many people around us packing up. He doesn’t hit anything, thank Christ. I realize I don’t have a seatbelt on, and try to work the handle on the door to get out. Even if I die, it would be better than what he’s got planned.

  His hand grabs me, wrenching the wheel alarmingly to the side before straightening again. He brings my hand to his pants and I can feel that he’s hard. I can’t help it. I burst out laughing.

  I laugh until there are tears streaking my black eye makeup down my face. He’s getting more mad by the second, finally throwing my arm away. My hand hits the window with a clink of rings on glass.

  “What’s so fucking funny?!” he yells, barely watching the road. We’re in downtown after a concert, the traffic isn’t what it normally is at midnight, and I’m briefly worried about that, but it slips away.

  “Your dick is so small.” I laugh again. “You have to drug me, kidnap me to get me to have sex with you, and I probably wouldn’t even feel if it if I was sober.”

  My head hits the window, then dashboard as he makes a quick turn and stops abruptly. I moan deep in my throat, but it’s cut off almost instantly by Maury’s hand. My breath makes a weird gurgling noise as I struggle to pry his big hand from around my alarmingly fragile feeling neck.

  “I’ve had it with your fucking teasing bullshit. I’m so sick of you bouncing around on stage in nothing but tape, then sticking your nose up at us. Fuck you, bitch!”

  His spit hits my face, the drugs making them feel like raindrops splattering my skin. I try to scream, but my already worn voice won’t cooperate. My foggy brain whispers that I’m against a fucking door and I should probably find the handle before I get my ass dead. I know I’m going to be so pissed if I remember this tomorrow.

  I fall out of the car. Maury has to let me go and I gasp for breath greedily. I see him coming for me again and kick at him with my stiletto boots as hard as I can. Over and over. When the car backs up with the door open, I don’t have anywhere to go since there’s a wall right next to my head. For once, I’m thankful I don’t have boobs; my stick thin figure grazes the bottom of the door. I have to turn my head so that my nose doesn’t get scraped off.

  I lay shivering in the snow, my bare shoulders burning with the cold, but it’s a fading pain. I’m almost asleep when my butt vibrates. I think about who would be calling, and know it’s not anyone I would possibly want to talk to. Those people don’t have my phone number. But then I think, maybe I can get someone to pick me up. Duh. My head’s not working right.

  By the time I get my phone out, I’m not sure if I’m drooling or it’s snowing. I hold up the phone, the light streaking inside my eyes. I open one eye and swipe the screen. It automatically opens to the last text message I received.

  Unknown Caller: You have a meeting in my office at 10 A.M. Monday morning. This is your last warning. –Brennick

  I try to chuckle, but it sounds suspiciously like a sob. For months, I’ve been avoiding going into the record label, afraid that they would tell me my voice wasn’t good enough anymore, that they wanted me to have surgery, or worse, replace me. I type out my reply slowly.

  I quit.

  Chapter 2

  Having woken up in a hospital, you would think I wouldn’t be in such a rush to get into another one. But my heart races and my hands shake as I jump out of my car, slamming the door down on the expensive Mercedes. I have the shakes and cold sweats bad, side effects they said.

  People in the elevator avoid eye contact, subtly shifting away from me. I swallow back the bile that threatens to come up. Never, and I mean never has anyone looked at me like that in this place. I was always normal. One of them. I wasn’t anything but a girl. My breathing gets faster as I start to panic.

  I burst out of the elevators and push off the wall in front of me painted with friendly looking animals in a jungle, smiles on their faces. Alyse is at her desk, where she always is on Sundays. I dig in my purse for my ID.

  “Hi. I know I’m late. I have it here . . . um . . .” I move my hair out of the way as I push things around in the black hole.

  “Sadie?” Alyse asks. The alarm in her voice brings my head up.

  “Yeah?”

  She stands up. “Holy shit! Did you get mugged in the garage?”

  “I . . . what? No!” I know I have bruises. God knows I feel them.

  “Honey, you can’t go in there like that. The kids—”

  “I ha
ve to. I haven’t missed a day. I have to.” Thinking about how disappointed they would be if I didn’t show up, how worried they have to be has had me racing since I woke in Toronto. I see Alyse picking up a phone. “What are you doing?”

  She turns her back and speaks too low for me to hear, but seconds later, I see a man in a black cape and mask coming through the automatic doors. I walk toward him instantly. “Batty.”

  “Jesus Christ. Are you okay?” he growls as I slam into him. I press my face into his hard chest.

  “Batty,” I whisper. He squeezes me to him and I shudder.

  “Let’s go.” He turns to Alyse. “Tell the kids we had a mission.”

  We move back to the elevators. “What are you doing? We have to see the kids. I haven’t missed a day.”

  “You’re missing one today. They’ll be fine.”

  In the elevator, I collapse against the wall. “I tried so hard to get here. I’m sorry I was late.”

  “Shut up. Don’t apologize.” I fall silent, my eyes on his black boots. My heart is broken that I haven’t been able to do even this right. It had been so good for so long. I should have known. I blink my eyes, because I don’t cry, but they’re stinging like they’re going to betray me too.

  When we get into his Lotus, the Batmobile if there ever was one, I close my eyes at the rumble when it comes to life. That sound. For four months that sound has meant excitement, adventure, release. Now the usual anticipation is missing. I want it back.

  “Tell me who did this, Sadie.” I look over at Batty. He’s taken off his mask, revealing his high cheekbones, dark brown disheveled hair, and little red marks start to appear on his forehead right next to a vein that pops out only sometimes.

  “It doesn’t matter. I made it, but it was all for nothing.”

  “You’ll go next week. They wanted to see Robin. Do you know what you look like?” I watch his strong hands change gears.

  “A drug addict?”