He nods and sucks on his bottom lip. “Consider it done, sis.” Keaton taps the top of my car in finality. “Now, get your ass out of here.”
I smile and drop my chin when he moves away from the car. Navigating into my music, I press play on “Dead Romance” by Her Last Sight before opening my Instagram profile and clicking on my messages. I tap into Cameryn’s five-hundred and read her last.
Cameryn
I know you’re off riding…something. But can you let me know that you’re alive.
Only…only just alive.My fingers fly over the screen.
Me
I just like to keep you on the edge. I’m fine. Stop stressing, Mom.
Tears well in my eyes.I fucking wish that was the truth.
My hand guides the car into reverse, and I back out of my parking space a little too fast before cranking it into drive and pushing my foot down on the accelerator.
When I turn onto the road, I peer at my rearview mirror and find Keats still standing at the curb. His large hand extends intothe air, and he makes a half heart,the same way me and Mom used to.I never thought he noticed, but I guess he did.
Tears stream down my face, clouding my vision. I slide my window down and throw my arm into the air, completing the heart as brutal sobs break what remains locked away in my brittle chest.
Parking, I yank up the hand brake and leave my car idling as I lean over the center console and shove my hand around my glove box in search of a marker.
My body aches incessantly, screaming at me as the handbrake presses right into my bruised ribs. I suck on my front teeth, swallowing the pain as I continue my search. Snatching up the four-ink ballpoint pen and making sure to push down the red ink barrel, I bite it between my teeth as I rip a piece of jagged paper out of my notepad.
I place it over the front and start to write.
I choose not to tell him where I’m going, or to sign off the note, just to be safe. I don’t know who I can trust around here anymore. I fold the piece of paper into four squares and quickly rip out a much smaller one. As I scribble my second message down a little too aggressively, the tip of the pen cuts through the surface. My foggy eyes cast over as a deep set of goosebumps riddles my arms when I stare down at my written words.
I hope my message eats at Harlen the same way the vision of his broad back moving away from me does every time I close my eyes.
Shoving my door open, I walk to the front of the bar before pushing both pieces of paper under the big timber doors and striding back.
I take the back road out of Shadow Heads, passing the old, abandoned warehouse that Cameryn and Tyler used to hang out at when they lived here. I’m surprised to see it smoldering in a pile of ashes.
I wonder what happened there.
Flicking my gaze back to the road, I crank my foot down on the accelerator and head straight for the city lights.
The triangle will not find me there.
The storm hit when Chase’s screams tore through the padded walls, though all I could hear was the phantom ofhers,the guttural cry that was supposed to be her last.
After we rolled back into LA, Chase insisted the best way to keep me from losing my mind was to snort a few lines and begin working on the song he was scribbling into his notepad back on the pier. He had called a code red with Tyler and Asher, telling them he had some new shit for them to play with. They were all too willing. Music is our lifeline, the blood in our veins, the very essence that keeps us alive. I knew I needed the distraction while I waited for updates from Rusty, and Chase did too. This was perfect. Numb the weight of what I’d just done with a cloud of blow while pushing the adrenaline, the guilt, the pain, the need to rip some motherfuckers’ heads off, right into the music.
The studio is hidden, nestled deep in the basement of Chase’s mammoth mansion in The Hills. There is a large piece of marble flooring in the corner of the living room, controlled only by a single push of a button. It opens to a steep, black barred spiral staircase that snakes around a thin steel pole. It takes three sharp curves before your feet land at the bottom—albeit shaky and disoriented, because when you’re high like I am most of thetime, it makes mundane tasks like walking down a set of stairs a little more difficult.
If you didn’t know about the hidden passage, you’d never be able to spot it. That space was a getaway from the real world, or more so, ahideaway,without cell service and Wi-Fi. It was the way we liked it; no distractions, just us and the music.
In the darkness was where Chase came alive and, to be honest, I think we all did, which was precisely why all walls, including the ceiling, were dipped in a black textured paint, and the entire room remained dim at all times. Only the shallow glow of red LED strip lights lined each and every corner. Chase had them programmed to flicker with the shock waves of his vocals.
He had made sure the environment was fuel for his creativity, and his only job was to light the fucking match.
I roll myself forward and rest my elbows on my knees as I listen to Chase’s last take move through the speakers. My now shoulder-length curls cascade over my hollowed eyes, my heart rattling in my chest. Ty and Ash don’t know about Cherry, and what the fuck we just rode away from,the decision I was forced to make,and I have every intention of keeping it that way. I’m not ready to tell them, not until I can see her again.
A door crashes to my right and my head snaps upward, finding Chase striding through the spacious room. His brown eyes are bloodshot, knuckles bleeding from having it out with the wall. The deep crimson sight reminds me that we really need to hang a fucking boxing bag down here. However, it also reminds me ofher—her ravaged and broken body.
I bite into the side of my cheek, both temples throbbing as a headache gnaws at the back of my eyes. I turned my back on her when she needed me the most.I’m a piece of shit.
