Of Heartbreak and Harmony (Hometown Heartless)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

Torren

“Where is she?”

Savannah glances up at me from her spot on the couch. She’s got her legs thrown over Levi’s lap with her lyric notebook on the coffee table, and her beat-up acoustic is resting on the cushion beside her. If it weren’t for the fact that she’s still in her on-stage outfit from the show, this would feel like any other night on the road.

“Where is who?”

I have to clench my fists to keep from shaking her. To make her answer me. To make her stop wasting time.

“Callie.” I scan the room quickly. “She was just here. Where is she?”

Mabel is sitting on the floor next to Sav, staring at the ceiling with her headphones on, but when she sees me, her brow furrows and she slips them off. Mabes hasn’t changed out of her outfit either. Jonah is probably still slumped over where I left him, bleeding all over his vintage Nirvana shirt from the jab I landed to his nose.

“She’s not in the room?”

Sav’s voice is laced with panic as she bolts up from the couch and crosses the floor of the hotel suite. My stomach twists with anxiety as I take out my phone and dial her number. I listen to it ring and ring before it goes to voice mail.

Sav swings the door wide to the connecting room and disappears inside. I know she won’t find Callie in there. I already checked. Instead, I check the bathroom and the other two bedrooms while dialing Callie’s number again.

“Fuck,” Sav says, and I turn to find her staring into a small, sleek designer handbag. “My keys are gone. I think she took my keys.” She drags her eyes to mine and chills race up my spine at the way her face goes ashen. “Why would she leave now? She was out there when?—”

I push past Sav without an answer. I don’t stick around to hear her say anything else. I know what happened out there. I don’t want to recount it.

I storm back into my room and grab my own keys, grateful that I have my car here. Normally, I wouldn’t, but nothing about this situation is normal.

Just before I reach the door, Red steps in front of me and puts his big hand on my shoulder. It doesn’t matter that I’m almost thirty—Red makes me feel like a teenager trying to sneak out after curfew. He might be Sav’s personal security, but he’s become something like a surrogate father to me. To all of us, actually. Papa Red and the band of runaways. I’d laugh at the thought if I wasn’t on the verge of succumbing to my panic.

“Let me go, Red.”

He shakes his head. “Can’t do that, kid.”

“I have to get to Callie. She’s alone. She’s upset. I need to get to her.”

His stern expression doesn’t change, but I think I see a flicker of concern in his eyes.

“You don’t know where she went.”

He speaks slowly and with authority, studying my face as he does. He’s going to shut me down again. He’ll probably bind me to the chair with my own bootlaces in the name of safety. I’ve always appreciated that behavior when it was out of concern for Sav, but now, when I’m the focus, I hate it.

I narrow my eyes and open my mouth to argue, but Sav steps up behind me and cuts me off.

“She’s in my Porsche,” Sav says, her hand reaching past in my periphery, holding something toward Red. “The tracker says she’s heading toward Santa Monica.”

He takes Sav’s phone and peels his eyes off me. My shoulders slump a little. I didn’t even realize I’d squared off against him. I drop my attention to the phone screen. The security tracker Red put on all of Savannah’s vehicles shows a little red dot heading west on the freeway.

“She’s going home.” My heart sinks, but I steel my resolve. “I’m going, Red. You’ll have to beat me bloody to keep me here.”

“Go with him if you’re worried,” Sav says, but Red shakes his head.

“I’m not leaving you.”

“For Christ’s sake, Red,” Sav says, putting her hands on her hips. “This place is crawling with security. It’s been swept twice already. I’m fine. We’re fine. Go with Torren or you’re fired.”

A flicker of humor flashes in Red’s eyes. He knows she’s full of shit. She threatens to fire him at least once a week, and we all know she never would.

Finally, he nods, and I follow as he strides out the door.

In a matter of minutes that feel like hours, we’re in the underground garage and he’s tossing me a new set of keys. No explanation—Red’s never been one to waste words—and I don’t ask. Instead, I follow his lead and swing my leg over a black sport bike, taking a moment to shove the helmet on my head. Red starts his bike, so I start mine, and then I follow him out of the garage and toward the freeway.

Behind Red, I weave in and out of cars, moving onto the shoulder when traffic starts to thicken. It’s late at night, way past rush hour, so it shouldn’t be this congested right now. The coil of anxiety tightens in my stomach, and despite my rational mind screaming at me to stay calm, I can’t. I have to get to her. I just have to make sure she’s okay.

I speed up, blowing past Red and racing as fast as I can down the shoulder of the freeway. So fast that the cars on the road seem gridlocked and at a standstill. Faster than is safe, but all I can think about is getting to Callie. My heart speeds along with the bike. My need to get to her clouding my logic and taking over my instincts.

I can feel it, though.

In my stomach, in my chest, I know something is wrong.

The scene is revealed all at once, but my mind registers it in slow motion, one devastating detail at a time.

The cars are indeed at a standstill. No one on either side of the freeway is moving.

Flashing lights materialize into vehicles, and I slow the bike just enough so I can drop it to the pavement and take off at a run toward them.

A fire truck blares on its horn in the distance. A cop car parks on the shoulder thirty yards away. It’s like scanning a junk yard. It’s like a still from an apocalyptic movie, and I know. I know Callie is here somewhere.

The smell of burning rubber and gasoline stings my nose. My eyes start to water. More horns blare. Sirens wail. People cry out for help.

Among the wreckage, I hear shouts of first responders arriving, and I want to scream at them. Hurry. Find her. Run faster. How am I here first? Why aren’t they helping? Why aren’t they hurrying? A helicopter arrives overhead as my feet crunch over broken glass.

My eyes scan over the wreckage decorating every lane of the freeway. Skid marks and ashes. Car parts and broken glass. Papers blowing about, soaked with water and stuck to the pavement. A shoe. A child’s car seat. I take note of four vehicles, all with varying degrees of damage, before I find the one I’m looking for.

And when I finally see it, all the air is sucked from my lungs.