Page 141 of Dear Rockstar (Dear Rockstar 1)

There’s nothin’ more that I can say

With your wall of thorns you have barred my way

But I will always come for you

My task is set before me, girl

My mission clear and true

There’ll be black knights and dragons, girl

But I will always come for you…”

I floated in his arms, trying not to think about anything but the man who loved me. Usually it worked, and his voice would lull me back to sleep in his strong embrace, but sometimes I couldn’t turn off my mind and the wheel would turn and turn. I would replay it all in my head and then the tape would continue into every possible future, splitting this way and that, spliced again and again.

John and Dale and Aimee and even the prosecutor, who I’d met with twice, reassured me my stepfather wouldn’t ever have the opportunity to hurt me again. I gave them my Dear Rockstar journals, all of them detailed accounts of what had happened since I was fourteen years old, enough evidence, the prosecutor seemed to think, to put my stepfather away at least for life. New Jersey had the death penalty, and with attempted murder on the list of crimes he was being charged with, it was possible they would sentence him to death.

Not that anything would bring my mother back.

They hadn’t told me for three weeks, until I was out of the hospital and settled. John and Dale had moved all my stuff, my clothes and art supplies, into Dale’s room. I’d asked about my mother—she hadn’t come to see me, and when I’d asked, John mentioned something about a women’s shelter, but when I got home, Dale sat me down on his bed and had finally told me the truth.

I wanted to go see the apartment, even though it was still a crime scene and we weren’t supposed to. I still had a key and I told him I would go myself if he didn’t come with me, so Dale had walked me down the stairs. There was yellow crime tape over the door. Inside, everything was still the same. It smelled like stale cigarettes and beer and the heavy, coppery odor of blood.

The bathroom door still hung off its hinges. My door was open, but theirs was closed. I didn’t open it—she had used my stepfather’s nine millimeter Glock, the one he had held to my head the first time he raped me when I was just fifteen. I don’t know when she discovered it, but she knew, long before I told her. And she pretended not to know, pretended it wasn’t happening, even after that.

o;Get the fuck out of my house!”

I couldn’t see what was happening, not at first. My vision was still too blurry. Dale was bent over as if in pain, gasping, my stepfather standing over him, fists clenched. I found my voice and screamed. No words, just a scream, as loud and long as I could. The sound got Dale moving and he charged forward like a bull, hitting the stepbeast in the midsection with his head, knocking him backward toward the doorway, where I first noticed my mother standing, frozen in place. Dale simultaneously grabbed the backs of the bigger man’s legs and the stepbeast fell like a tree. Then Dale was on him, pounding him with his fists. I couldn’t see anything but Dale’s back, arms flying, hearing the sound of them both panting like animals as they fought, my stepfather getting his legs up and pushing Dale off.

There was blood on my stepfather’s face, and a look of rage darker than I’d ever seen before. He knocked my mother out of the way and I heard a loud thud and then her scream. Dale was after him again, both of them tussling down the hallway. My mother appeared around the corner, looking into my bedroom from the doorway of their room, her cheek bloody.

“Call 911,” I croaked, flying down the hallway after them, passing her. “Mom! Call 911!”

The stepbeast hit Dale with a hard right cross, hard enough I heard the hit, a sick, meaty, crunchy sound, and it knocked him backward. Dale’s hands wheeled out to catch himself, but the bathroom door behind him was open and he tumbled through it.

“Dale!” I cried, reaching out for him, but my stepfather was there, quickly grabbing the door and locking it from the outside. Those doors weren’t supposed to lock that way, but he’d switched the doorknob around years ago, so he could lock her in whenever he felt it was necessary.

My door and the bathroom worked the same way. You could lock someone in, but you couldn’t lock anyone out.

Dale pounded on the bathroom door, rattling the knob, calling for me, but I couldn’t hear anything but the sound of my stepfather’s footsteps as he raged down the hallway, eyes red and bleary with anger.

“You fucking little whore.” His words spat over me like a rain of bullets. I winced. “In my house. IN MY HOUSE!”

I didn’t say anything. What was there to say? I closed my eyes and waited for it to come. There was no one to save me. I could scream all I wanted, but no one ever came.

“DON’T YOU TOUCH HER!”

THUD

THUD

THUD

Dale was trying to break down the bathroom door.

“Dale, no!” I cried, shrinking against the wall as my stepfather grabbed me by the hair. “Stop! Just stop!”

“Pete…” My mother’s voice, choked, from the floor of their room where she was cradling her busted cheek with her hand. “Don’t…please…”

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