The tall boy grinned and it was so full of malice, it made my pulse race. “Ye think anyone is going tae care that a homeless bitch got her guitar stolen?” He gestured to the cemetery around us. “There’s nobody here tae care. Now give us the guitar and we’ll leave ye in peace.”

“Look,” I turned to the shorter boy who was fidgeting restlessly, wearing an extremely nervous expression, “this guitar has a lot of sentimental value to me. Please.”

“For fuck’s sake,” the taller of the two growled and strode toward me. I braced myself for attack but he merely attempted to brush past me for the guitar.

Instinct made me reach out and grab his arm.

I’d look back on that moment later and wonder how I could’ve been so foolish.

The boy, taller, broader, and better fed than I was, halted momentarily. He then shook off my hold only to pull back his arm and let it fly. His fist connected with my cheek in an explosion of fire that caused lights to spark across my eyes, blinding me.

The ground slammed into my back and I blinked, disoriented, as my cheek throbbed with an aching heat. As the cemetery stopped wavering, I realized he’d knocked me off my feet. I was lying in the grass as he crouched over my guitar case. He unlatched it, opening it I assumed to make sure the Taylor was in it.

Adrenaline ignited my fury and suddenly I was not only on my feet but I was charging him. I slammed into him, knocking him away from the guitar. I grabbed chunks of his hair, pulling with all my might and feeling satisfaction roar through me as he yelled out in pain. As he managed to shake off my hand, I drew my fingernails across his face, drawing blood.

“Fuck!” he cried out, his face contorted with rage, and he grabbed my hand and twisted it hard.

Sickening pain made my head swim as I dropped to my knees. The world wavered around me, nausea and dizziness making me sway. Tears dampened my face as my breaths stuttered out at the agony blazing up from my wrist.

“Johnny, what ye done?” the other boy cried.

“Grab the fucking guitar and shut up,” Johnny said before I found myself pushed onto my back.

“Johnny, let’s go.”

“No before I teach this bitch a lesson.” His hard hands squeezed both my wrists, pinning them to the ground beside my head. I whimpered as nausea rose from my stomach.

I was so discombobulated, it took me a minute to realize Johnny had let go of my injured wrist to unzip his jeans.

What?

No.

No!

“No,” I tried to scream but it was like my vocal cords had snapped, the words coming out scratchy and pathetic. “No!”

“Johnny, no,” his friend begged. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Get off me!” I tried to push against the hands holding me down.

His cold fingers fumbled under my raincoat for the zipper on my jeans and panic set me off. I began to kick up my legs, trying to unpin them from his. He punched me.

Again.

And again.

Until I was dazed enough that he managed to shuck down my jeans.

“Johnny, no!”

“Stop fucking saying my name. Go hide behind a fucking tree if ye cannae stand there like a man,” he spat, his saliva speckling my throbbing, wet face.

Cognizance was returning and with it my determination.

He’d loosened his hold on my injured wrist while he’d been shouting at his friend so I used that moment of distraction to force every ounce of strength I had into twisting out of his hold and clawing his face. Ignoring the pain that screamed down my arm, I scratched at his eyeballs, his nose, his lips, and he fell off me, trying to protect himself. I rolled, digging my fists into the hard soil beneath the grass and using it as an anchor to pull myself out from under him, my legs scrambling like I was in deep water and trying to propel myself to the surface.

His cursing, foul insults rent the air as my fear-soaked body somehow did what I needed it to do. I had just gotten up on one foot when I felt his hand curl around the other, yanking me back down, face first, the impact on my chin causing a horrible burning in my nose, spots in my vision momentarily blinding me. But I didn’t stop.

I whipped around, preparing to batter him with my feet, when through blurred, darkening vision, I saw the other boy bring a rock down across Johnny’s temple.

My attacker slumped to the ground, out cold.

The boy stood, my guitar case in his hand, and stared at his friend in shock. His pale face suddenly turned to me. “Run,” he said, and then he did just that.

With my guitar.

With my money.

My gaze dropped back to the boy who had tried to rape me, blood trickling from the hair at his temple, and the whole surreal mess swirled in my stomach. I promptly threw up on the grass, hoping the blood I saw in it was from the cut I could feel throbbing on my lower lip. Shaking uncontrollably, I got to my feet, feeling hard and cold as I pulled up my jeans with my uninjured right hand and zipped them.

After struggling to get my backpack on my back, I protectively curled my sprained wrist into my chest and I ran, leaving behind my tent and, later I’d realize, my new coat.

My left eye started swelling shut, and what was left of my vision was hazy. I stumbled a few times and even fell at the sight of the cemetery gates. And by some miracle I got myself over those gates.

Having walked the streets many times, I was on autopilot. It was like my brain had made up its mind what to do before I could really process it. Keeping my head ducked down, I marched until I found the payphone I’d passed daily but had never used.

The change in my pocket was all that I had.

I had nothing.

No money.

And no guitar to make any more.

I had only one option.

After a few rings his masculine voice answering my call felt strangely reassuring. I couldn’t explain why.

“O’Dea?”

“Who is this?”

“Busker Girl,” I said, taking Mandy’s nickname for me. Then I swallowed my pride. In fact, the pain in my wrist swallowed my pride for me. “I need help.”

* * *

THE HEARTLESS BASTARD AGREED TO come get me if I promised to audition for him.

I had little choice in the matter.

He was just one more person I could add to my list of people I resented.

I was standing facing the phone booth when I heard the car pull up behind me. I tensed, not wanting to turn around in case it wasn’t him. Then I heard the car door slam and his voice asking, “Busker Girl?”

Turning to him, I finally understood how much of a mess I must have been in because O’Dea’s face slackened under the yellow glow of the streetlamp. Then it hardened and darkened with rage as he strode over to me. “What the fuck happened?”

“Can we get in the car?” I said, not wanting anyone else to see me.

He gently took hold of my right arm and guided me over to a black Range Rover. He pulled the door open and then helped me remove my backpack. I got in while he put my backpack in the trunk. Exhaustion hit me as I slumped against the car seat, the smell of leather and his cologne weirdly comforting. O’Dea jumped into the driver’s side.

“You left a few things out on the phone. What happened?” he demanded.

So I told him everything about that day and the boys.

“His friend hit him pretty hard,” I murmured, wondering if he’d hit him too hard.

There was utter silence from my right. I glanced at him out of my eye that wasn’t swollen shut. His fists were curled around the steering wheel, his knuckles white.

“I’m okay,” I said, realizing this was the first time I’d seen any real emotion from him.

“You’re pretty far from okay,” he snapped, starting the engine. “First we go to the hospital and we’ll let them contact the police.”

A new fear sprang up inside of me. “No. We can’t go to the hospital. We can’t contact the police.”

“Don’t talk shite,” he huffed, his SUV racing down the street. “Your wrist is sprained, possibly broken. If you don’t get that seen to, you’ll never play the guitar again.”

The thought made my chest ache worse than the blazing pain in my wrist or the throbbing in my face.

“He took my Taylor. It was . . . special. My mum had it specially made for me. I should have fought harder.” I sighed, shaking my head, decided. “No hospital. No police.”