Page 2 of Midnight Stage

By the time I was sixteen, we were inseparable. He captured me in a way that would ruin me forever, but he was always careful not to completely cross that line. He kept the distance I needed to be respectful of my age, and while sometimes I hated it, I’m grateful for that now. We knew there would come a time when those limitations didn’t seem so bad, and I held on to that hope tighter than I’ve ever held on to anything in my life.

Everybody knew it. We were soul mates. The perfect couple that nobody else could even attempt to compare to. I was so lucky to have him, to have experienced him in his rawest form. To know him and to be the woman . . . or the girl he loved.

Not knowing him anymore hurts.

Hearing the songs I know are about me . . . hurts.

But knowing that the epic, all-consuming love we once had will never exist again in this lifetime . . . Well, that fucking kills me.

Maybe I was wrong to assume that Axel is the only lucky one in the family. Maybe we’re all allotted a certain amount of luck in a lifetime, and while Axel is out there using his in the best way possible, I used up all of mine on a man who would disappear in the blink of an eye.

That first tour should have been the best moment of our lives, but the second they packed their bags and walked out the door, the woman I could have been disappeared with them.

Everything changed, and almost in an instant, Ezra Knight became a stranger. He was no longer mine. He was theirs.

The boys were gone, and I was left alone . . . with him. Every day was a fight to survive, and I’ll never forgive them for leaving me behind. It wasn’t their fault. They couldn’t have known what was going to happen, nor did I ever whisper a word about it. I know it’s irrational to blame them for leaving me behind to endure that, but I still do.

If they never left . . . Fuck.

After their first tour, they made LA their home and got straight to work on their second album. Axel came home to check on me every now and then, but Devil Spawn never did. It’s been six years since I’ve seen him in the flesh. But when it comes to Ezra Knight, there is no avoiding him. He’s everywhere I go. Every time I turn on the radio. In my Spotify recommendations. News articles. Magazine covers. There’s no escaping the magnitude of Ezra Knight.

He was like a ghost that had whisked through my life and then left me in shambles. Maybe I was a stupid kid for assuming he’d come home to me after experiencing the crazy whirlwind of a tour. All the fans. The drugs. The parties. I’m sure all the guys were screwing their way across the globe, and yet I held out hope that he might have still been mine.

God, I was a fool for giving him my heart. He didn’t even have the decency to give it back. He just collected it like another one of his many guitars—something to be played with but never cherished.

“Your car or mine?” Madds asks, pulling me out of my internal spiral. She knows what mentioning the tour does to me.

“Uhhh, you drove last time. Let’s take mine.”

“Oh, thank fuck,” she says with a heavy sigh. “Mine’s on empty, and I really don’t have the cash this week for gas.”

I can’t help but laugh. “But you have cash for retail therapy?”

“Candles are a necessity. They’re a way of life,” she throws back at me, having the audacity to appear offended. “Gas isn’t.”

“You’re an idiot. You know that, right?”

“That may be true, but I’m an idiot with amazing candles.”

Ten minutes later, we’re flying down the road with the windows down and the music blasting from the speakers. My long, auburn hair whips around my face as we scream the lyrics, and a sense of peace settles in my chest. Thoughts of stupid rockstars and failed exams fall from my mind. Instead, I focus on our retail therapy.

I’m not exactly swimming in money. Don’t get me wrong, Axel has given me a credit card and insists that I use it for whatever I want or need, but I don’t. Using the money he worked hard to earn doesn’t sit right with me. I don’t like the thought of taking advantage of his success, so instead, I work for everything I’ve got. Mostly.

Okay, fine. When Axel insisted he pay for my college tuition and rent, I couldn’t resist. And not just because it sounded like every girl’s dream, but because the thought of getting out of my hometown was simply too good to refuse. Staying there wasn’t an option, and if he’d offered to pay for me to live in a cardboard box on the street, I would have accepted that too, assuming the cardboard box was anywhere but my hometown. The day I go back there will be a cold day in hell.

We creep closer to the mall, and as the music fades and a new song begins, the familiar chords played by my brother have my back stiffening. My heart begins to race as an immediate sweat begins taking over my body.

Oh no.

I have all of three seconds before his sweet words blare through my speakers—lyrics he wrote while sitting at the foot of my bed after dreaming about the life we could have had together. I was only fifteen, but the memory is etched into the fabric of my soul and will live there until my dying days.

“Shit. Shit. Shit,” Madds rushes out in a panic, wildly slamming her hand against the skip button on my dash, only to slip and smash her fists against the button for the hazard lights. “Oh fuck.”

The song skips to the next, and as another Demon’s Curse song fills the air, the panic becomes a fucking mockery. “Shit. I’m sorry,” Madds says, her brain short-circuiting as her hand dances between the skip button and the hazard lights, not sure which situation to fix first.

I go to help, reaching for the hazards, but our hands bump together, prolonging the whole situation, and as my panic turns into blind terror, I prepare myself for what I know is coming in three . . . two . . .

A call cuts through my Bluetooth, and I have no choice but to pull over and give myself just a moment to ease my racing heart. “Holy fuck,” I breathe, trying to get myself back on track, only to notice the call is from Axel.

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