In a weird twist of fate, it’s also where the airport is.
Down in the lobby, I keep my gaze forward as I walk toward the automatic sliding doors and the chauffeured car already waiting at the curb. Standing next to it is sharply dressed woman in a tailored pantsuit and high heels with dark hair, brown skin, and a phone in her hand that she’s typing furiously on.
Oni Sridhar, former A&R rep at Savant Records. The same label my uncle used to work for before he quit to manage me once my name meant something. Now Oni has her hands full co-managing the biggest band in the world, but just as she promised me all those years ago when she saw the vise grip my uncle had on my life, she came when I called.
“Oni,” I greet once I walk through the doors. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Nonsense.” She waves me off and then looks me over but doesn’t remark on my bruises, dark circles, and tearstained cheeks. “Ready to go, my dear?”
“Yes, I—” My ears pick up the sound of rapid footsteps pounding the pavement, and when I follow it, I spot Khalil and Zeke running an easy pace side by side on the sidewalk leading up to the porte cochere.
Their faces are tense as they talk with one another, but they haven’t noticed me yet.
Go! Go! Leave before they do.
But my feet are rooted to the ground, and I can’t move. Oni is saying something to me that I can’t hear. I’m stuck staring at my most volatile mountain man and my most loyal.
I can’t move because my heart that bleeds for them won’t let me.
Khalil notices me first. His brows inch down, and he slows to a stop when he sees me standing there. Zeke, realizing Khalil isn’t running next to him anymore, stops too.
“What’s up?” I hear him ask. When Khalil doesn’t respond, Zeke frowns and follows the direction of his gaze until his own lands on me. “Princess? What are you doing out here?” And then he notices my bag, the car, and the chic exec, who doesn’t look like she belongs within a thousand miles of here, and his chest expands with a deep inhale that he releases with a shake of his head. “No.”
“It’s like that, Goldilocks?” Khalil shouts with a sneer.
I turn my head.
Out of the three, Khalil is the least likely to understand me abandoning them when they need me most. And I don’t blame him when I remember all he’s sacrificed.
At my nod that I’m okay, Oni rounds the car with a curious but wary look thrown at Khalil and Zeke and then climbs inside the car.
“I’m sorry,” I say once it’s just the three of us.
“What did we do?” Zeke says as a wild look enters his eyes, and he reaches up to grip his sweat-slicked hair with both hands. “What did we do? What did we do?”
For a moment I could easily mistake him for Seth, but the alter hasn’t been awake since the night of the fire. He won’t wake, and I think I’m the reason why. Seth’s heart just barely finished mending when I unwittingly broke it all over again by asking for Bane.
Maybe I’m not built to love.
It’s a flaw that I can’t blame my uncle for. No, this one has me written all over it.
“You didn’t do anything, Zeke. It’s what I have to do.”
“We can do it together. Please. Don’t go. Not now.”
“Nah. Don’t beg her,” Khalil says with hard eyes filling with tears trained on me. “If the bitch wants to go, let her go.”
Even though he’s already looking like he’s regretting those words, something shatters inside of me at hearing them.
“Goodbye.” Head down, I step toward the car and Zeke explodes.
“You promised!” I hear him shout as I climb inside. I’m immediately taken aback by the lavish interior. “You said you wanted to bleed!” Khalil grabs Zeke when he tries to run after me, and I force myself to close the door. I don’t look back, but I can see their reflections in the glass of the hospital windows. It’s taking all of Khalil’s might to hold Zeke back as he wrestles to get free. The car jolts forward, and I hear Zeke’s heart-wrenching scream once more as I leave. “YOU PROMISED!”
Those two words clang around inside my mind, heart, and soul the entire drive to the airport, and they don’t leave me as I climb the steps onto the private plane that ferries me back to reality.
AURELIA GEORGE…ALIVE? THE MISSING AND PRESUMED DEAD QUEEN OF POP GETS FLAGGED AT IMMIGRATION
33 mins ago
