“Forgotten memories. Pain cuts shallow then deeper ‘til I bleed.” I cradled the microphone, pitching my voice low in the signature way that had gotten me one too many bras tossed on stage. “Blue eyed, angelsavior. A sinner kiss against heaven’s favor.” I hit sinner in falsetto but failed to smoothly drop back down. As a result, finishing the lyric sounded like the death throes of a drowning cat. I stopped trying, humming wordlessly along to the jarring notes popping off around me. It just wasn’t right.
I’d written the new song in a drug-fueled fever, words scrawled across torn pages we’d found scattered across the house once we were sober enough to register the mess that we’d all made. Our best songs often came from partying ‘til we puked, and I knew this could be a number one hit. It might beat out “January Judas” which had topped the charts for a straight year. Or maybe it would be a cult favorite like “Ghost of Us”. That didn’t take off at first, but now fans screamed for it every concert. If it took getting violently sick on booze to write a song, it was worth it. Last night hadn’t gotten so bad, thank goodness. Just too much alcohol and self-pity… a lot less destroying our furniture and trying to drown in the pool because we were too high to remember how to swim.
Pushing the microphone into the stand clip, I walked off the low stage we’d added to the basement last year. I headed over to a well-worn velvet loveseat. Flopping down on it, I tossed my legs up. My untied leather boots slapped loudly against the glass topped, oval coffee table.
“Fuck this shit,” I muttered, leaning my head back and staring at the ceiling.
The large room was soundproof, with an adjacent recording booth for when our jam sessions needed to be recorded for rough cut fan releases. No fan would want the shit we were shoveling lately though. Hearing it was tantamount to instrumental assault. I shook my head a little and focused back on my bandmates.
Dixon had taken my cue, his guitar falling silent as he too gave up before dropping it on its folding stand. He pushed his hand through his bleached hair, making it stick up in random directions. He stomped off the stage and towards the well-stocked minibar, but not to drink. We’d all decided to remove the small bottles from this area, replacing them instead with electrolyte water and Alpha tonics. Our band therapist Doctor Thorne, an Alpha who had a particularly calming scent and afatherly aura, had suggested the change. We were supposed to remove liquor completely but hadn’t quite healed enough for that shit. Upstairs proved that—what with the empty beer bottles from last night still dotting the living room.
“Really fucking hate this shit,” Dixon growled, staring into the fridge and not finding liquor.
He’d already broken one nickel string today, just from playing aggressively as his tension mounted. We’d had to replace his electric guitar three times over the last six months. He’d snapped it in half once, slammed it into the stage another, and just fucking through it in the trash the last time. We could have saved that one, but we didn’t realize where it was until the trash had already been picked up by the city. Dixon was… worse off than the rest of us. His ruts were so deep lately that he couldn’t crawl out of them. He was talking about joining an amateur UFC group just so he could beat the shit out of people and get some emotional relief.
Mac, ever the rational hold out with perfectly coifed golden hair, still strummed his bass, following the melody he’d scribbled down to match my lyrics. He paused here and there, notating something on the music sheet, and then he’d continue. He was like that—pushing through even when it felt worthless. I knew though, beneath that stoic resolve, was a mine field ready to explode. He glanced up and we locked eyes. He gave a little shrug, as if to say,‘someone’s got to keep trying or we’ll really be toast’. I wanted to scream at him to just give the self-righteous, do-gooder act a rest. I knew though, down to my damn marrow, that if Mac really lost hope, then we’d never crawl out of this quicksand we were currently trying to survive.
Tray lost tempo again and chose, instead of giving up like I had, to transition to an epic solo. He flicked his sticks with expert precision, proving that with the right environment and song, he’d still dominate the stage with his stupid talent. He was the youngest member, often getting under our skin with his nonstop optimism and jokester ways. I felt like maybe, at this point, we were holding him back. He’d always been a little too good for Oblivion Haze. We were all talented musicians,but he was something of a prodigy. Other labels had tried repeatedly to scalp him over the years, offering contracts that a lesser guy would have pounced on. He stayed though, saying we were more than a band, we were a pack. We were a family. We’d built our empire together. You didn’t leave that kind of thing for a few extra dollars.
His last offer had been a cool million initial bonus with a guaranteed five million in the first year, regardless of his new band’s success. That wasn’t just a few extra dollars. I couldn’t say I was a loyal enough dude to turn it down. He was right though, when it came right down to the core of things. We were a pack. These guys were my brothers, not biologically, but by the blood, sweat and tears we’d put into crafting every song.
Dixon trudged over to one of the matching MCM style chairs next to the loveseat. He flopped down, his giant frame straining the angled wooden legs. He had two Alpha tonics, one in each hand. He didn’t offer me one. He dropped one into his lap, snapped off the top of the other instead of properly unscrewing it and knocked it back in one gulp. Dixon was fucking strong, but with his Alpha nature growing more unstable, he displayed Hulk strength sometimes. The others and I had given up trying to forcibly calm him down when he lost it.
Tray—a few inches shorter than the rest of us, but also the only muscle match to Dixon—had ended up with three broken ribs last time. A fan at a PR event had pointed out how Dixon had messed up her name for the personalization. That was all it took. He’d flipped the autograph table over before taking a step towards the teen Alpha with an expression that could only be interpreted as intent to fuck the poor kid up. Mac and I had grabbed Dixon’s arms. Tray had jumped on his back. Me and Mac got knocked away quickly, but that damn youngster of ours had held on like an expert bull rider. Finally, Dixon had shuffled backwards and slammed Tray into a support column.
The minute Tray slumped to the ground clutching his side and grunting, Dixon’s inner monster had retreated though. I think he’d have rather hurt me or Mac. Tray was the one that could often soothe his beast. Tray was the guy Dix sometimes shared deeply intimate moments with. Hurting him was like hurting not just a brother, but a lover. He’d beenbeating himself up ever since, given his history. I’d heard him sobbing more than one night, beating the wall and screaming. He’d vowed after his friend overdosed that he’d never hurt anyone again. That was why mounting Alpha aggression in the unmated was such a horrible illness—even if you’d normally never hurt a fly, like our gentle giant Dixon, you couldn’t fight the onslaught of rage and need.
Dixon tossed the empty tonic into a waste bin. He didn’t miss, thank God. All we needed was that sort of thing to send him off the rails. Seconds later, he’d chugged the second tonic too and binned it.
Mac finally stopped playing, carefully placing his bass in its stand and then swiping his hands down his frayed jeans. He checked his vintage watch, eyebrows arching as he noted the time and how we’d only managed an hour of practice... if you could call it that. Yet, he seemed satisfied, as if he’d managed to push through the muck and mire to accomplish something. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the melody still sounded like a bag of dicks.
Tray relentlessly slammed the drums, lost in the euphoria of free style. He could still embrace the music… just not our music. His dark hair had fallen over his face, hiding his eyes. He was smiling, deep dimples on display, and silver nipple rings glinted above his muscled stomach. He’d started the session in a hoodie, no shirt, but that was tied around his waist now. His chestnut skin glistened with sweat.
Mac sauntered over to us in that reedy, graceful way of his and took over the second chair. He sat a little sideways, slinging one long leg over the arm before tilting his head back lazily. The back was too low to properly lounge like that, but Mac contorted just enough to make it work. He pushed his pale sunny hair out of his face and then knit his hands together, resting them against his stomach. His bright hazel eyes flicked to my face, before focusing on the wall behind me, his expression glazing over.
“We’ll find the rhythm soon. The lyrics are solid. The melody still needs tweaking. We’ve been in worst spots before and made it work.” Mac spoke gently, low calming voice threading through the space and somehow not drowned out by Tray’s staccato beats of Kevlar drumskin.He’d set aside his specialty, fiberskin drums for now. My gaze flicked to them, and I wondered if going with that old school, animal hide sound would work for the new song.
“I don’t know, Mac. It just feels all types of fucking wrong.” Dixon’s voice was gruff. He was always on the edge. I missed his old personality, before the past two years began ramping up the rut and the rage.
“We’ll do it,” Mac insisted. “We always do.”
“We aren’t the guys anymore that always fucking do it,” I stopped just short of growling out the words. I wasn’t angry at him, or Tray, or even Dixon despite how much trouble he’d been lately. I was mad at myself. If I hadn’t spent eons pining for that girl, that phantom in the crowd, that one kiss I couldn’t shake, then we’d probably have found a decent match well before now. Yet, anytime a possibility had cropped up—there’d even been a few that almost fit the bill, almost smelled like the future—I couldn’t bring myself to abandon the ghost in my head. One Omega had really had the hots for Tray, and she was perky and cute, but he’d brought her home after one date and she’d smelled nothing like my dream girl. No delicate floral, no heady cedarwood. No… aura of being well loved and fearless. She didn’t smell likehome.
I mean, she also had no chance with Dixon, who thought she’d smelled like straight trash. Or Mac, who, after scent testing her, was completely unimpressed. Tray had even admitted later, despite the sex being top tier, that the Omega didn’t feed his inner Alpha. He couldn’t have marked her, even if he’d wanted to. That was an issue a lot of packs faced—finding the fit that fed the entire unit. Of course, some packs didn’t go the one and done route. Some brought in a few Omegas, ones that scent-matched with different members of the group, and they made that work. Large, old-money packs typically did that more often as a way to build their empires. Alphas and Omegas with fewer resources tended to link up as individuals and build families. We’d all decided though, a long time ago, that one Omega was enough. Two, three, or four… fuck, our lifestyle wasn’t made for that. We were on the road too often. We couldn’t manage multiples.
Finally, Tray’s drums fell silent, and he jack rabbited over to us,sinking down into the seat next to me, his broad shoulders taking up too much room. I shifted, leaning towards the arm rest on my side. The dude was hella sweaty.
“Whoo! Can’t wait for the Grammys next year,” he quipped, performing a muffled blast beat with his sticks against his knees. “We’ll sweep the awards.”
"Fuck off," I replied without heat, giving him a half-hearted shove. I deliberately beat Dixon, who’d visibly bristled at the joke, to the punch. He’d have broken something else of Tray’s, maybe this time on purpose, just to shut him up.
“I’m serious, the song’s going to be dope.” Tray rolled the sticks over in his hands, before shoving them upright between the loveseat’s cushion and arm. “Shit, I stink.” He hopped up energetically and bounced over to a bank of lockers near the minifridge. Untying the hoodie and dropping it to the floor, he opened a locker and rifled through clothing. He kept a stash down here.
Mac sighed, that patented sound that meant he was about to be the voice of reason. “The problem isn't the music. We all know this. It’s us.”
Dixon grunted and stood up, stalking back to the fridge again. “No shit, Sherlock. Can we not rehash the same fucking topic again.”
“I’m not trying to state the obvious again,” Mac continued, shifting to sit properly in his chair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “We need something to change now. We can’t keep waiting on some mystical hope this fucking institute has promised, no matter what Catalina says. The Alpha tonics, the meditation—” he glanced at Dixon’s back, who was now leaning down to take another bottle from the mini-fridge, “—the therapy. None of it’s working, and it’s never going to work any better than taking the barest edge off, because we're missing something fundamental.”
