Prologue
The lights are too bright. They burn through my skull and pulse with every hit of the kick drum. The crowd’s screaming my name, but all I hear is static...like someone tuned life to the wrong goddamn station.
Nolan said one more hit would “take the edge off.” But it’s consuming me from the inside out, and I feel like my feet are melting into the stage. I drag the mic stand close and lean in. My throat’s raw, and my hands won’t stop fucking shaking.
The first note rips out of me anyway. They think it’s passion, but it’s just pain making noise.
I can taste copper.
I feel the world tilt, and it’s like slow motion. People in the pit reach up, their phones flashing. Mouths are open and screaming, and I think,yeah, get the picture, you vultures. Get your proof that I was real.
Then everything cuts. The sound is gone. Lights out. It’s so sudden, like a drumline fell out of sync between beats. My head hits the floor, and cold concrete scratches my cheek. Somewhere behind the curtain, Nolan’s yelling orders, snapping fingers for medics. Heat explodes under my ribs. My chest seizes, my vision warps, the edges darkening.
I can’t breathe. Can’t move.My body jerks once, twice. I hear myself choke. Maybe I’m laughing—maybe I’m dying.
“Bring him back!” he urges, panicked.
Too much.
I know it’s too much. And it fucking hurts.
I try to tell him, but my mouth won’t function. My jaw’s locked. My heartbeat turns into a siren in my ears, and it’s fading fast. I smell my own sweat, burnt plastic, that sweet rot of the stuffthat killed me. And all I can think is—
Finally.
That was the first fucking time I physically died. Even if my soul’s been gone for years. And when I awoke, I was met with the brutal reality of what my life had become.
Chapter one
JUDE GRAVES
The world comes back in little flashes. The first thing I hear when I wake is the AC on the tour bus. Then the slow and absolutely brutal throb behind my eyes. I blink up at the bunk above me, disoriented. There’s a strip of LED lights running along the top of the bus. It’s way too fucking bright. A clear plastic IV bag hangs from a hook someone jammed into the paneling. The tube snakes into my arm.
Beautiful.They didn’t even make it to a hospital this time.
My mouth tastes like metal and my chest burns. When I move, my vision skews sideways, and nausea claws up mythroat. Someone shoved a trash can beside me. Good thinking to whoever assumed I’d puke my guts out after dying on stage.
I groan and push myself up, every muscle weak. I notice my three bandmates are here with me. Micah’s sitting on the bench across the narrow aisle, elbows on his knees, blue eyes red-rimmed. His shoulder-length blonde hair is disheveled.
Finnick and Kami stand near the door, hovering together. It looks like he’s been running his hands through his messy dirty blonde hair. Kami’s long red hair is tied into a messy ponytail, mascara smudged from crying. The fear and anger in her blue eyes make my heart sink.
“Jesus,” Finnick mutters, his brown eyes narrowing. “Wethought you were—”
Kami grabs his arm for support. “What thefuck, Jude,” she cuts him off, her voice fractured and scared. They’re good people. Too good for this shit-show. She angrily slips off the bus before I can answer. Finnick sighs and follows her. Before I can admit I don’t remember collapsing or the last thirty minutes of the show at all.
I peel the IV tape off my arm, ripping it out. Blood beads instantly, and I stare at it before swiping it away and standing. The world tilts hard left, and I brace a hand against the wall, knees almost buckling.
Micah rises fast, grabbing my shoulder. “Sit down.”
“I’m fine.”
“You weredead, Jude.” The words hit harder than the overdose itself. Micah’s voice cracks before he shoves it back down. I don’t answer. I can’t when my skull feels like it’s full of broken fucking glass. I stagger toward the tiny bathroom at the back of the bus. It’s basically a closet with a sink the size of a cereal bowl. The mirror above it greets me like an enemy I just can’t fucking kill.
I stare at the stranger wearing my face. His tousled black hair hasn’t seen shampoo in a week, and his eyes are ringed with bruises that were once called “hazel.” Well, back when she said they looked like whiskey in sunlight. Now they’re just...dead.
My lip is split from where I hit the stage last night. Tattoos and track marks crawl up both my arms. Half of them I don’t even remember getting. There are only a few back from a time when the music still felt like an exciting dream. When she was still mine.
Emma Easton.
