“Light cue 327 go. Spots on Judas go.”
The song is building to a climax, and I can’t make Paige or Dr. L out: There’s too much cross talk.
Suddenly Dr. L’s hand is on my shoulder. “Go find him. Hurry.” She gestures for me to pass over my binder so she can call the show.
I only hesitate for a second—my binder’s got more than just stage manager notes in it—but this is a Theatre Emergency. I sneak out the booth and through the back doors as quietly as I can.
And then I’m sprinting down the halls, past the FACS classrooms and through the temporary black drapes we hang to keep the audience away from the cross-hall behind the theatre. It’s rapidly emptying, though: Everyone’s headed toward the stage doors for the crucifixion and finale.
I duck into the bathroom next, to check if he’s having a code brown. “Liam? You in here?”
No one answers, but I check all the stalls just in case he’s too embarrassed to say anything. I wouldn’t blame him: A code brown during a show is the ultimate nightmare. My first year, Cody, this senior who played Eliza’s dad inMy Fair Lady, had a code brown during dress rehearsal, and everyone called him “Cody Brown” the rest of the year.
But the bathroom is deserted.
I run for the stage doors next. As I reach for the handle, the door opens and hits me in the face. I stagger back and cup my nose.
“Sorry!” Tori says.
I shake my head. “Have you seen Liam?”
“Somethingsomething putting his crown on.”
Scene shop, then? “Thanks.”
There’s a trickle from my nose, but I ignore it as I slip backstage. The stage is dark, except for the blue glow of a scene change, and bare save the block that Paige will lock the cross into once Liam’s dragged it onstage. It’s the marbles all overagain. But thankfully Miss Benayoun is vamping like a champion.
The scene shop is dim, the lights only at 25 percent, bright enough to find your way and check your makeup but not bright enough to risk spilling out.
“Liam?” I ask, quietly as I can. But if he answers back I don’t hear it. I make my way farther in, around the costume racks arranged haphazardly in the open space. I trip on someone’s makeup bag, another person’s shoes. I wipe at my nose with the back of my hand; it comes away dark.
Dr. Lochley always talks about bleeding for our art, but I don’t think this is what she had in mind.
In the back of the scene shop is a nook with the ladder to the catwalk. There’s no actual door stopping students from climbing up, just a chain drawn across the rungs.
I poke my head in the nook. There’s no lights in there, but a pair of naked shoulders catch the glow from outside.
“Liam,” I say. “You’re on.”
He startles and turns around, drops the crown of thorns he was holding. His eyes are big, and his face is sweaty.
His lips move, but I don’t catch it.
“What?”
He’s got tear tracks on his face, which I’d never seen from him during this scene, but emotions are always at their highest on show night. He’s going to bring the house down.
“What are you doing in here?” The nook is tiny, and his frame fills the space, his bare chest dewy from sweat and alarminglynot covered in fake blood. “Shit, we’ve got to get you ready. You’re supposed to be getting crucified!”
I drag him out of the nook, grab the jar of stage blood, andscoop the crown off the floor, smacking it against my jeans to get the worst of the dust off. “Here. Put this on.”
His fingers close around it mechanically, but he’s staring at me. More tears pool in his eyes, but then he blinks them away. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s fine. What were you doing in there? Aren’t you claustrophobic?”
“There’s no door. It’s not so bad.”
I shove the crown at him again. While he puts it on, I uncap the stage blood and start trailing it across his neck, his brow. There’s no time. I sniff to keep the real blood from dripping down my nose, but he steps away.
