CHAPTER 18

Lily

After everything that happened, I physically and emotionally shut down.

Jake and Alex and everyone still conscious after all that were arrested.Everyone else, including Mark, left the scene in body bags.By some miracle, none of the Firewings were killed, though most of them were wounded and were thankfully healed by their Drake morphing powers.Not all of Mark's gang survived.Those who lived, I was told later, were put in special isolation cells and sedated, and given drugs to dilute the experimental steroids in their systems.The people at Harbor Pharmaceuticals who had helped to develop the illegal anabolic were identified and arrested.Mark's steroid trafficking operation was brought to a halt.

The police took me from Mark's house to the Emergency Room of Haventon University Hospital, where I was examined and treated, then admitted for a couple of days for observation.I hardly talked or moved; they fed me intravenously.The hospital called my parents and Elyse.When they walked in and I saw them, I melted into tears all over again.I hadn't seen my mother and father in two years.Mom threw her arms around me, and we cried together.Elyse looked on, holding on to my father and crying herself.And for the first time in my life, I saw tears in my father's eyes.When my parents returned to see me the next day, I apologized for letting Mark shut them out of my life, or me out of theirs.My mother told me to hush; there was nothing to apologize for.Countless other women had been treated the same way by men who claimed to love them.The only difference was that I was their child.And we cried a little more.

No charges were pressed against Jake or Alex, or any of Alex's friends.When I was discharged from the hospital, I heard something about a Drake detective named Garrity putting in a good word for all of them, and something else about him and Alex having some kind of history together.I barely understood it.I only knew that I wanted to go home.To my home, my parents' house, the place that I thought I'd never see again.

Mom and Dad finally took me home, and I slept again in the bed where I'd slept as a little girl, and Elyse came to visit.I didn't want to go out; I just wanted to stay there, where I felt totally safe and totally loved.

And speaking of feeling totally loved, Jake and Alex came and brought me the things that I had packed up in that duffle bag the night they found me in the park.I was happy to see them, as happy as I'd been to see Mom and Dad.While they sat with me in my childhood bedroom, Elyse sat with my parents in the dining room and explained to them about how they'd taken care of me — and how they loved me.My parents were surprised, perplexed, and a little disturbed to know that in place of one Drake lover, I now had two.They had heard of such things, but this was nothing they ever expected of their little girl.Elyse assured them that they could trust Jake and Alex, that she believed they would lay down their own lives for me.And while they were still a little unsure about the relationship that I'd had with them, at least they weren't afraid.And I believed that they would in time grow to trust the guys as well.

Alex and his friends named Jake an honorary Firewing.Jake was touched and proud at that, the upper-class boy who learned to be tough and found himself accepted by good men that his parents would once have called "ruffians."And Jake's parents, in the meanwhile, learned of what Alex did for me and how brave he was in coming to my rescue, and they actually invited Alex to the house with Jake for dinner.Alex was as moved by this gesture as Jake was to be accepted by the Firewings.Jake believed that in time, his parents would grow to treat Alex the way Jake did — as family.

My own life took a surprising turn as well.The story of Mark and his steroid trafficking operation, his terrible plan to attack and wipe out the Firewings, and his abducting, beating, and terrorizing me made the local and national press.I suddenly started seeing and hearing things about myself online and on television.Reporters and camera crews came to the house, and my father fended them off when I didn't want to talk to them.I felt exposed to the world in a way that I never wanted to be, and Daddy put himself between all of them and me.I knew that I couldn't hide from the world forever, and that pictures of me were out there in the press.But I still wanted a safe haven from everything, at least for a while.

Along with the pictures of me were videos of me playing at different venues, because of course the angle of a musician going through the kind of ordeal that I'd faced made a good story.And that actually proved to be the upside of the whole thing, because I now started to get attention of a different sort.I started getting calls and E-mails about my availability to play, not at the little clubs and the hotels and weddings where I was accustomed to playing, but at some of the best places in town.I was getting calls from the University, from theatres and concert halls — and invitations to sit in with some of the most popular jazz bands in the area.As my wounds and bruises from Mark healed, my spirit began to heal as well.And I slowly found myself wanting to face the world and be out in it again.

There were rumors that a producer from one of the major jazz recording labels might want to see me play when I was well enough.Elyse even floated the idea of me starting a YouTube channel.And believe it or not, Jake's Uncle Robert was now fascinated with me.The stories about what happened had reached him aboard the cruise ship where he was staying, and he wasn't angry at all about the crashing of his apartment.Robert said he was appalled that anyone would treat such a pretty girl the way Mark treated me, which was sweet of him.He actually made me a standing invitation to come to his place and play his piano, and even record my sessions there for the channel, any time I wanted.And he said he looked forward to eventually meeting the talented girl who had been a guest in his home.

The subject of being Robert Hudson's "guest," via his nephew, made me want to be with them again — not yet the same way that I'd been with them before, but just to have them near me.My parents had allowed them to visit while I recovered and had begun to trust and accept them in spite of my unconventional relationship with them, and accept my feelings about them.That, in its own way, was the happiest thing of all.

So, in time, when I found that I was feeling like my old self again, or perhaps a somewhat better version of my old self, I had Jake and Alex take me back to Uncle Robert's place to practice.

They poured wine, dimmed the lights, and put candles on top of the piano and on the coffee table that they'd had to replace along with the piano bench.They sat on the sofa together, sipping wine by candlelight, and I thought they looked like such a couple of young gentlemen as they listened to the little private concert that I played for them.

At the end of my last number, they set down their wine glasses, jumped up, whistled, and gave me an enthusiastic standing ovation.I laughed at their applause, imagining the ovations I might yet be getting in the near future.

They poured a glass of wine and brought it over to me, sitting with me on either side of the bench.I took a sip of the dark red wine, and each of them gave me an affectionate kiss on the cheek.

"Well, Lily," said Jake proudly, "it looks like you might be getting everything you ever wanted.You wanted to be a professional jazz musician, play concerts, tour the country, maybe even the world.And it looks like you just might get your wish."

"How about that?" I said with a sigh.I looked from Jake to Alex.The love and caring on their handsome faces were as warm and soothing as what was in my glass.And I knew that I already had something right here that I wanted very much; something, in fact, that I never knew I wanted until I found it — or until it found me as a scared runaway girlfriend in the park.

"You know," said Alex, "I can even see you starting up your own band and touring with them.You could call it The Jazz Dragons."

That made me slap my thigh and laugh out loud, a kind of deep and hearty laugh that I hadn't laughed since…

As the laughter subsided, I realized I hadn't laughed that way since the last time I was alone with them.

"Picture it," said Alex."You on the road with The Jazz Dragons, playing from coast to coast…"

"…and overseas," said Jake."Even on cruise ships like where Uncle Robert is now.How would you like that?"

"Well," I said thoughtfully, "if I did that, I'd need a good road crew, wouldn't I?And good security for traveling.And it seems to me that there are two big, strong Drake guys who haven't quite figured out what they're going to do for their careers yet.Maybe a couple of guys like that might make good band managers.That is, if they were interested…"

Jake looked past me at Alex and said, "You know…a Communications degree might come in handy in a recording studio, now that I think of it.That is, if The Jazz Dragons started cutting albums."

Alex pondered this."And what the hell else might a Liberal Arts degree be good for?Gotta put it to some kind of use."

"I think there are a couple of guys who might be open to negotiations," Jake said with a suggestive nudge.

"Pretty heavy negotiations, maybe," Alex agreed.

"That sounds like the matter is open for discussion," I said."But this doesn't seem like the place for negotiations, does it?"

"True, true," said Jake."Where else might we hold negotiations?Where could we go to discuss our options?"He rolled his eyes up and tapped on his chin in an imitation of serious thought, then looked over at Alex with a sly smile that Alex reflected back at him.I had seen them wearing those smiles so many times and I knew so very well what they meant.

My two dragon guys got up from the piano bench.Each of them offered me a hand.I took their hands and they helped me up.And they escorted me back to Uncle Robert's master bedroom.

.

*****

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