My voice fades as the deafening cheers of my devoted fans fill the air. I shut my eyes to shield them from the blinding lights and tilt my head back, clutching onto my bedazzled microphone as I hold it above me. My long hair falls behind me as I arch my back and lift one leg, bringing my ankle to rest on my knee in a signature move that drives the audience wild.
One Mississippi… Two Mississippi… Three Mississippi... I count the seconds until I can release the pose, needing to give my fans time to take the iconic picture of how I end every show. It’s as famous as the stupid pucker perfect expression I’m always asked to give in photographs.
The tiny rhinestones bite into my palm as I stand straight and give the millionth fake smile of the night. I grit my teeth and practically black out as I give the introduction for Carmen—the fifteen-year-old, newly debuted singer who my uncle is trying to replace me with—before she takes the stage.
Seriously, I’m not even sure what words cross my lips. All that’s going through my mind is following orders and announcing her. After that, I give a quick wave to the screaming Storm Chasers who came here expecting to see me as the headliner.
My teeth squeak as I grit them in a forced smile and stride off the stage with purposeful steps. It’s a feat that I’ll be proud of in the future, but right now I’m pissed as hell.
Carmen waits in the wings, holding a microphone that’s oddly similar to mine, but hers is covered in black rhinestones compared to my nauseating mix of bubblegum pink and purple. She jumps up and down, clapping her hands before flicking her long brown hair over her shoulder.
If the stones on my microphone were any sharper, I’d cut my hand with how tightly I squeeze it as I notice the streaks of orange dyed through her strands as a rebellious show of edginess paired with her black cat eye liner. It makes me want to fucking scream. Already, her style is something I’ve fought to get for years and have been told no.
I hate myself for being jealous of her when deep down I know her youthful spirit will soon be murdered, much like mine was. It doesn’t stop me in the moment, though. I hate her with a burning passion for the dump truck of steaming shit that was piled on top of me tonight, and she doesn’t help her case when she runs up to Tristan, shoulder checking me on her way, and pushes her body against his front.
“Oh my god! You’re the sexiest guitarist I’ve ever seen. You’re so amazing with your fingers, the way you move them across thestrings.” She bites her bottom lip and twirls her hair around a finger. I bet my uncle loves the flirtatious sex appeal dripping from her. Probably why he’s fast-tracking her career. “I’d let you use them on me any day of the week.”
I don’t spare a glance to see how Tristan reacts. I hope I know him well enough that he’s utterly disgusted by her age, but I also thought he’d never use the lyrics from songs we wrote together against me. So who the fuck knows?
Roadies rush past me to turn the stage over for Carmen’s set as I shove my mic into the hands of the same man who gave it to me earlier and continue on to my dressing room. Nash shoves his foot into the space between the door and jamb as I slam it shut behind me, making it bounce open, allowing him to come inside. Blake and Keaton follow behind him, the latter gripping his drumsticks in a tight fist.
My band members wear matching scowls of anger and determination in their eyes. Everyone except for Tristan, he’s absent, but that doesn’t really come as a surprise. Not with how his best friends have iced him out since they found him on top of me.
Fuck. I really need to set the record straight about that.I might enjoy watching them ignore him after everything he’s done to me, but it’s not right to let them think he tried to rape me. That’s not what happened at all.
Right now, I don’t have the capacity to focus on my traitorous ex-best friend, not with the way my career seems to be crumbling right before my eyes. What the fuck is actually happening?
I run my hands through my sweaty hair—dancing on stage isn’t always so glamorous with those hot lights trained on you the entire time—and tug on the roots in frustration. They’re practically blackmailing me now…
No practically about it. That’s exactly what they’re doing. Holding lord only knows what over my head. I can’t even begin to imagine what it is they think they could hand over to the press that would ruin me. Is it some kind of evidence, pictures most likely, that they took when I was drugged out of my mind? Or is it something they fabricated like so many times before? It could even be some kind of proof tying me to a crime I didn’t even commit, something that will damn me even if I walk away from this life.
Hell, it could even be a bullshit lie. One could only hope, but hopes have gotten me nowhere.
There’s no way I can risk calling their bluff, though. Not when they have me in such a shit position. I’m being held hostage, and I fear my promised freedom will never come. My uncle keeps dangling a carrot in front of me, yet no matter how many steps I take toward it, it moves farther away.
They keep adding more tour dates, tacking on requirements I have to meet. One album turns into two. Not to mention the ways they try to make my life as miserable as possible. Forcing me to stay at a rehab facility after attempting to kill myself and keeping me locked there for three months, missing Christmas and New Year. Then making me take my ex-best friend’s band as my only option. I can’t say that hasn’t turned out to be a good thing, but when they forced me to let them live in my house, it was a low fucking blow.
None of that compares to demanding that I open for that naïve little bitch and introduce her to an audience who bought tickets to seeme. My name is what filled the seats. It’s my fans that got bamboozled into a show where Little-Miss-Thinks-She’s-All-That closes. Those monsters manipulating my fans is what pisses me off more than anything else.
My hair tumbles from my grip, and I clench my fists at my sides as anger scorches through me hot as a burning fire. Butthen a tsunami of despair washes over me, drowning any trace of hope in relentless waves.
Thereisno end.
That asshole will never stop adding more and more conditions; hoop after hoop that I have to jump through. My hands start to shake, and I fist them even tighter, my nails digging into my palms in an effort to hide it.
“Hey,” a smooth voice says as hands land on either side of my face. The unforgiving press of his drumsticks tells me exactly who it is as I blink back my panic and focus my vision once more. I stare into his deep chocolate eyes, finding reassurance. “You’re angry and afraid.”
He doesn’t ask; he reads me so well in the span of a second that he knows it with certainty.
“Wouldn’t you be?”
One of his hands leaves my cheek, trailing down my arm until he has my wrist in his grip. He rotates my clenched fist to reveal how tightly my nails are digging into the meat of my palm. A nervous butterfly flutters in my stomach as I glance from where he holds me to where he’s staring at my face, studying for anything else it’ll give away.
His other hand drops away, and his fingers work to uncurl mine. I cock my head to the side and lift an eyebrow, a clear question for what he’s doing, but my silent, broody giant stays true to his nature, only uttering two words. “Break it.”
The hard press of wood bites into my palm, and I stare at it in disbelief. Keaton treasures his sticks. He carries them everywhere and won’t let anyone else touch them but me. And now he wants me to break one?
“What?” The question tumbles off the tip of my tongue as I shake my head and push the stick into his chest while he tries to close my hand around it. We’re locked in a battle of wills.
