Fractured Beat (Meltdown Book 1) Read online

  Fractured Beat

  By RB Hilliard

  Copyright © RB Hilliard, 2016

  Kindle Edition

  Edited by RC Brose and Petra Gleason

  Cover designed by Tania Marinaro

  Formatted by BB eBooks

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

  Warning: This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Names, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any similarities to real persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  This book is for Christian, my plotting partner for life. I Love you beyond words.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  1. Alive and Kicking

  2. From Avalanche to Ambush

  3. Welcome Back, Or Is It?

  4. I’m Really Not That Important

  5. A Change Is Gonna Come

  6. Nothing Is As It Seems

  7. Introducing The Narc

  8. Sneak Attack

  9. Don’t You Dare Quit Your Day Job

  10. Lies, Lies And More Lies

  11. Dead Or Alive?

  12. Digging Deep

  13. No Sugar Tonight

  14. Enter The Girlfriend

  15. One Step Forward

  16. I’ve Got Your Number

  17. Who Says Counseling Can’t Be Fun?

  18. About As Real As It Gets

  19. Revelations

  20. Swerving In My Lane

  21. Happenstance Happens

  22. Coming Home

  23. Dead End

  24. Run Melba Run

  25. Can’t Drink You Away

  26. Ready, Set…

  27. Game On

  28. Exit…Stage Left

  29. High Noon

  30. I-35 South

  31. And So It Goes

  Acknowledgements

  Links to other Books by RB Hilliard

  Connect With RB Hilliard

  Chapter One

  Alive and Kicking

  Grant

  Adrenaline pulsed through my veins as I slowly made my way across the crowded dressing room toward the door. Words of luck and praise floated after me and I raised my hand in silent acknowledgement before stepping out into the packed hallway. The large gathering of hall dwellers greeted us with outstretched hands and, for the millionth time, I wondered why Blane insisted on such a production. If it was up to me no one would be allowed backstage before the show.

  “Move it people!” Hank shouted. Like magic the crowd dispersed and I wondered if this was what Moses felt like when he parted The Red Sea. Was he high on fame and fortune or was he scared shitless? I bet he was pissing his fucking pants.

  All eyes zeroed in on us as we began our march down the hall. The boys handed out high-fives and handshakes as we passed by. Not me. I was locked, loaded and focused. Catcalls and cheers were drowned out by the staccato beat of my boots as they hit the concrete floor beneath me.

  Clomp.

  Clomp.

  Clomp.

  One by one Nash, Luke and Chaz disappeared up the steps and I counted silently in my head. One, two, three, four…and there it was. With a smile on my face I closed my eyes and listened to the crowd going berserk. Tiny beads of sweat trickled down my back and pooled between my shoulder blades. My vision blurred and I grabbed the banister to steady myself. Nash was right. I shouldn’t have had that third drink.

  “Melt-down! Melt-down! Melt-down!” thousands of voices rang out in perfect accord as they paid homage to me and my brothers.

  Taking a deep breath I held the air in my lungs and absorbed the electrically charged atmosphere until the burn became too much. Then I slowly let it out. I may not deserve to be here but one thing was for sure, I was going to ride this crazy-as-hell wave for as long as it lasted. Before I got too deep in my head I was off. In three strides I hurdled the stairs in front of me, rushed the stage and raised both hands high in the air. The crowd exploded. Bathed in the light of a million flashes I turned to my best friend and lead guitarist, Nash, and smiled. He returned the smile with his usual cocky grin and nodded his head. He was ready to go. I glanced back at my drummer, Chaz, and waited for his nod.

  Earlier today at practice Chaz threw the mother of all fits. As a band, we each have our place. No one questions it, except for Chaz. The position of lead singer-songwriter and front man allows me the most pull, which isn’t necessarily a good thing as I’m the one always stuck dealing with management’s bullshit. My best friend Nash is my second in command. Nash also writes songs but his real strength lies in his guitar playing. I’m good with the strings but Nash is truly gifted. He’s also funny as shit and incredibly easy going. I refer to him as Meltdown’s voice of reason. Luke is brilliant on the keys and arguably funnier than Nash. Too bad he’s a total hot head. If there’s a fight to be had, Luke is in the middle of it. Chaz is the newest addition to the band. Because he’s new and we’d like to keep him, we’ve cut him a lot of slack. I’m beginning to regret that decision. I don’t play drums for a reason. I can’t. The same goes for the rest of the band. We all have our sweet spots and the only one who doesn’t seem to comprehend this is Chaz. Two weeks ago he came to us and asked to play a song he’d written. We’d already been down this road twice before with him, the last of which resulted in us almost losing another drummer. None of us were excited to go there again. Finally, after three days of dealing with Chaz’s passive aggressive bullshit we agreed to play the song in practice. Like his two previous songs, it was okay. Not great, not good, but okay. In a three to one vote, the band agreed it wasn’t good enough to play in concert. Chaz, of course, disagreed with our assessment. In fact he was downright shitty about it. We tried to reason with him but he kept accusing us of holding him back from his true potential. Nash, Luke and I knew the score. If the audience didn’t like the song, our ratings would drop. If our ratings dropped Chaz would mope for the next decade. Mopey Chaz on a tour bus was not something we looked forward to. So, when he threw his tantrum at practice today, I said “Fuck it,” and slotted it in as the first song of the night.

  After a second of messing with his drum kit, Chaz looked up and gave me the go ahead. I raised my brow at Luke and, with a nod of his head, he began to play. I caught Nash’s eye and he winked.

  Here goes nothing.

  Verse one went smoothly. Being that it was a new song I was slower to find my groove than usual. At least the audience seemed moderately receptive to the new song. By receptive I mean they weren’t booing us off the stage, yet. I was in tune but was sweating like crazy, which wasn’t normal. At first I thought it was nerves. By the end of verse one I knew it was something else. My chest felt tight and the lights on the stage were blindingly bright and hot as balls. Halfway through verse two my vision blurred again. This time it was accompanied by a serious case of dry mouth. When we got to the chorus and I couldn’t rememb
er a word of it, I started to panic. My heart beat triple time in my chest, which now felt like a vice around my ribcage. Realizing something was wrong Nash took over the vocals for me. In the back of my mind I knew I was supposed to be singing but when I opened my mouth the words wouldn’t come out. I could feel them jammed in the bottom of my throat and cutting off my air. A razor sharp pain rocketed through my stomach and I began to gag. What the hell? Slamming my fist on my chest I attempted to slow down my racing heart. If anything, it only made it beat faster. When the pain began traveling from my stomach to my chest I knew I was in deep shit. Tiny red dots danced across my eyes as the pain suddenly lurched into my throat and triggered my gag reflex for a second time. Not stopping there, it continued up to my left eye, where it proceeded to dance a rhythmic jig under my eyelid. Pressing my fingers against my eye I scrambled to recall the words to the next verse. Something brushed against my shoulder and I turned to see what it was but everything was one giant blur.

  “Hey man, you okay?” Nash asked under his breath.

  I turned to tell him, “No,” and was engulfed by a wave of nausea. I was going to vomit. My sense of self-preservation kicked in and I took off for the side of the stage. The stairs loomed before me and all I could think was do not vomit on the stage, Grant. Don’t you dare fucking do it. The next thing I knew I was flying through the air. I felt my right ankle give and then unbelievable pain ripped through my head. I opened my mouth to scream and vomit spewed out all over the floor. My world began spinning and then darkness took me down.

  At some point I thought I heard a beeping noise and strained to open my eyes but couldn’t. Finally I gave up and drifted back into darkness.

  The next time I surfaced, I heard someone singing, “Hello darkness my old friend. I’ve come to fuck you once again.”

  “Shut up, Chaz. This has nothing to do with you or your damn song,” Nash hissed. Nash sounded angry. Nash rarely ever got angry.

  “His eyelids are fluttering. Does that mean he’s regaining consciousness?” Luke asked. I could hear the worry in his voice and wanted to tell him I was okay but couldn’t. Why won’t my eyes open?

  “Do I look like a doctor? Hang on, I’ll go get him,” Blane snapped.

  The second I heard Blane’s voice, it all came rushing back. The concert tonight. What the hell happened?

  “Mr. Hardy,” a voice called out. Something cold brushed against my arm and my eyes sprang open. “There we go,” the voice said. After a few blinks a large man in a doctor’s coat popped into view. “Welcome back. You gave us all quite a scare this evening. I’m Dr. Mann and you are in my private facility right outside of Houston. Don’t worry, you’re safe here.” He held my wrist in his hand and it took me a second to realize he was checking my pulse. He nodded to the nurse and then focused back on me. “Do you recall what happened on stage tonight?” I thought about it for a second and shook my head, no. Pain shot through my skull and I groaned. “Steady,” the doctor said, as he lifted my eyelids and ran his hand over my throat. “Hmmmm, do you think you can speak?” I opened my mouth to tell him, yes, but my voice faltered. My eyes widened in panic and he gave me a gentle pat on the arm. “Why don’t we get you a sip of water,” he suggested. A cup with a straw appeared in his hand and he held it up to my lips. “Nice and easy now,” he coaxed. The ice cold water felt like heaven to my irritated throat. I fought to remember why my throat hurt so badly but couldn’t. Dr. Mann pulled the cup away and said, “Now, let’s try again.”

  “What happened?” I asked. The sound of my ravaged voice made me cringe.

  “You fucked up my song,” Chaz bluntly stated from across the room.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Chaz,” Luke huffed, “Shut the hell up about the damn song.” My eyes darted over to Nash. When he quickly looked away I knew something was wrong.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Blane asked.

  I slowly turned my head in his direction and cringed at the pain. “Tell you what?” I rasped.

  “Seriously?” Chaz huffed.

  “Chaz,” Nash warned. Chaz was directly in my line of sight, which was good because I didn’t think I could move my head again without vomiting.

  Chaz threw up his hands and shouted, “What? He’s pretending he doesn’t know! None of you wanted to sing my song tonight. You admitted it!” His eyes jerked to mine. “I thought we were friends. Friends don’t intentionally sabotage each other.” As usual it was all about Chaz.

  “I swear I didn’t sabotage you, man. I don’t know what happened out there tonight. One minute I was fine and the next I wasn’t,” I attempted to explain. His incredulous expression made me bristle. “What?” I asked. When he refused to answer I slowly turned to Blane. “What am I missing here?” Other than Nash, who quietly cursed under his breath, no one said a word. Clearly they were upset but I had no clue as to why. I was the one in the hospital bed so why were they acting like the injured parties?

  “Why don’t we all calm down? Mr. Hardy has been through quite an ordeal this evening and doesn’t need to get overexcited,” the doctor said. He turned to me and smiled. “You have a very efficient team, Mr. Hardy. When you arrived we weren’t quite sure what was wrong with you. Judging from your pupil response I suspected an overdose but wasn’t sure until your toxicology report came back from the lab. Oxycodone is a very dangerous drug, especially when taken in such large quantities,” he chastised. It took a second to digest his words. Surely he wasn’t serious? I didn’t take any Oxy. “Your initial vomiting spell purged most of the drug from your system, however, I went ahead and pumped your stomach when you arrived, just to be sure. That’s why your throat is feeling irritated. It should be gone by tomorrow.”

  “I didn’t take Oxy,” I rasped.

  He continued as if I hadn’t spoken, “According to your bandmates you were in your dressing room…er…partying and such before tonight’s show, correct?” Not wanting to jostle my head again, I slowly turned to Nash and gave him a what-the-fuck look but he pretended not to see it. “Like I said before, Oxycodone is dangerous enough on its own. Mix it with alcohol and it becomes deadly. You are a very lucky man.”

  “I didn’t take any Oxy,” I repeated.

  “I suppose you didn’t drink tonight either?” Blane sarcastically drawled, and I wanted to nut punch him. He knew good and well I was drinking tonight because he was right there with me. For that matter so were Nash, Chaz and Luke. I was the victim here so why were they treating me like a villain?

  Clenching my jaw to keep from lashing out, I calmly stated the facts. “I didn’t say I didn’t have a few drinks. I said I didn’t take any Oxy.”

  “Yeah, right,” Chaz huffed, “somehow a massive dose of Oxycodone just magically appeared in your blood stream.” Leave it to Chaz to be a total douche bag.

  “Look man, I know you’re pissed because I screwed up your song,” I glanced at each of my bandmates, “and that my head hasn’t been in the game lately. I’m sorry, but that doesn’t change the fact that I didn’t take Oxy or anything else beyond a few drinks before the show tonight.”

  Nash uncoiled from the corner where he’d been standing and sprung towards the bed. “We found the stash in your room, you lying prick,” he hissed. Reflexively I reared back and grabbed my aching head.

  “Boys, Mr. Hardy has a mild concussion. If you cannot calm it down I will have to ask you to leave,” Dr. Mann warned. No wonder my head hurts like a motherfucker.

  Nausea crept from my stomach to my throat as the earlier events started to resurface. I was pretty sure I fell off the side of the stage. Nash’s words suddenly registered and I turned my attention back to him. “What do you mean my stash?” I asked.

  His eyebrows shot to the ceiling in disbelief. “Really?” he angrily hissed. Nash was my best friend, my confidant. Our junior year in college, when we barely had two pennies to rub together, we formed the band. Since then, we’d begged, borrowed, and busted our asses to get to the top. If anyone should believe me
it was Nash, especially after what we’d gone through with Dale.

  “What stash?” I repeated. He looked away in disgust and my heart clenched.

  “We found the bottle of Oxy, along with a quarter bag of marijuana and two vials of cocaine in your hotel room tonight,” Blane stated. My spine stiffened both in disbelief and shock. I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone, or maybe I was being Punk’d? “After what happened to Dale, I have to say I’m shocked.”

  He wasn’t the only one.

  Fifteen months ago we had to let our drummer and close friend, Dale Nelson, go after he refused to acknowledge or seek help for his drug problem. Three months later he overdosed. I was nothing like Dale and resented the comparison.

  “We have a shit pile of money invested in this tour right now,” Blane continued, “You of all people know this. As we speak I have Chloe and the team spinning this as a bad case of the flu.” It was hard to focus with my head pounding. Focus, Grant.

  “Look, I admit I probably smoke too much pot and have been drinking more than I should lately but Oxy and Coke? No fucking way.”

  “You’ve been either stoned or wasted every night this week,” Chaz tattled. I glared at him and he returned it with a smirk.

  What the fuck?

  “I smoked pot three times this week and two of the three were with you,” I snapped. “And for your information, not that it’s any of your damned business, those were the only three nights I touched alcohol all week.”

  “What about the coke?” Nash asked. A few months before we let Dale go there was a coke incident. Nash pulled my ass from that fire. Dale, Nash, Luke and I made a pact never to touch the hard shit again after that. Dale obviously didn’t hold up his end of the pact but I had.

  I stared him straight in the eyes and said, “I’m telling you the Cocaine and Oxy aren’t mine.” I could see a glimpse of uncertainty in his expression and hoped that maybe I was finally starting to get through to him.