Legion Of Rockstars

+Jimmy+

I had no way of keeping track of how many days it’d been since Asher and I had been kidnapped. If I made an effort, I could, but I felt too tired, too hungry...too betrayed, to keep track of anything. All I found myself thinking about was Asher, who still screamed angrily at me when I called her anything but Ashley. I couldn’t call her Ashley; it wasn’t her name. She’d been my only friend in this place, and now—now she’d turned into one of them. She’d become a pop clone, cut from the same cloth as Miley Cyrus and those stupid Jonas Brothers.

I had been finding some way to convince myself she’d been bluffing ever since I saw her the first time, with her blonde hair and her pink skirt, kissing Joe Jonas and calling Miley Cyrus pretty. But the second time I saw her, I realized it wasn’t a hoax: it was real as real could be. Asher had hit me. I mean, actually hit me hard, like she meant it. No, she did mean it. She meant everything: every hit, every scratch, every kick, every harsh word. She was just another pop clone bent on world domination. She meant to hurt a rocker dude like me.

I couldn’t believe how quickly she’d betrayed her genre. Rock had been her destiny—with Steven Tyler as her father, how could it not be? She’d been born to rock. But she had betrayed it all within a heartbeat; she’d betrayed me within a heartbeat. How could she? It didn’t seem fathomable.

I glared up at the Miley posters all around my room. Then, something strange happened: Miley’s face was replaced, briefly, by Asher’s face, surrounded with a mane of carefully controlled platinum blonde hair. I growled and launched to my feet, stomping over to the offending poster and grabbing the top edge of it. I tore it down from the wall, bringing the wallpaper along with it. A strip of bare drywall was left behind, framed by more Miley posters. I pulled back a fist and slammed it hard into the wall, denting the drywall. And for the first time ever, I wanted to yell at Asher. I wanted to scream at her and let her know that I thought she was scum now, wearing her pink skirts and her blonde hair. I wanted to wring her by her betraying little neck and I wanted her to feel the dagger she’d stabbed into my back.

Speak of the devil. I whirled around as the door burst open, slamming hard against the wall and bouncing back as Asher hurried into the room. She looked relieved to see me standing and said nothing as she walked over and grabbed my wrist, trying to drag me towards the door.

What was she trying to do now? Was she dragging me off to humiliate me in front of her new friends, show them the man she’d betrayed in the worst of ways to save her own rear end? I scowled at her, simultaneously wrenching my wrist out of her carefully manicured fingers and shoving her back with my other hand. Asher stumbled, bracing a hand against the wall to keep her balance. She seemed otherwise unaffected, grabbing my wrist doggedly and trying to pull me again. I didn’t budge an inch, instead curling my hand around her other wrist and spinning her around to look me in the eyes. I pulled her closer, glaring down into her caramel brown eyes. This close up, I could see every speck of pale yellow mixed within.

“Listen up, and listen good: you’re a betraying bitch. I can’t believe I was ever your friend. I thought I could trust you, but obviously you are only loyal where it seems fit to you. Our friends will find us, and when they do, I hope they punish you for your betrayal. You turned your back on me, all our friends, and the entire rock community. You deserve only the highest punishment,” I growled. Asher’s urgent expression crumpled slightly, and for the first time in several days, I saw the old Asher, the true Asher, my Asher.

“We need to get out of here,” she said calmly, trying to reconstruct her expression to look less vulnerable and hurt by my words. “I’ll explain everything later. Please, this isn’t a trick. Please follow me.”

She sounded so desperate. I didn’t understand what was going on. But Asher said she’d explain later, and although she hadn’t done anything lately to make me trust her, I felt myself trusting her in that moment.

I nodded and released Asher. She glanced once at me—gratefully: I could see it flash in her eyes—and then led the way out of the open door.