Page 4 of Burn the Wild

Dread attacks my heart. “Vegas?”

“I booked you a residency at the Wynn. It starts in three days.”

His news nearly sends me into a fit of hysterical sobs. This tour’s almost over, and I thought—I had hoped—that I’d have some time off.

“I need a break, Gavin. Please.” I lick my dry lips and whisper, “I’ll die if I don’t have a break.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Reese. You take a break in this industry, it breaks you.”

Crossing my arms, I try for cool and cavalier. “And I agreed to this?”

He shrugs, adjusting his cuffs. “You don’t need to agree to it, remember? I make the rules.”

He does. Another thing that’s my fault.

As much as I thought Muirwood was a prison, this is worse. Gavin claims he’s tried to save me, but all he wants to do is cage me.

The spot presses down on me. It crushes my lungs, my shoulders, until I can’t breathe. Because I realize these are my choices. All the ways I have been stupid and powerless and fake to give the world control of my life.

I remember a quote I saw on some bullshit message board in my Pilates class.You can’t heal where you’re sick.

What the fuck am I doing? Going along with my day, singing my shitty songs, surviving the numb fog of drugs and sex and good old rock and roll. What would it be like to be awake, to be alert, to be true, but mostly, to be happy?

The thought is sharp, razors slicing my skin.

Water. I need the water.

And then Gavin’s giving Diana orders about the next news story to leak to the press, something about Kyler and I being engaged.

The earth beneath my feet moves.I’mmoving. Out of the hotel room. Down the stairs, two at a time, in heels. I’m a pro.

All the immediate unknowns are better than staying here to meet this fucking fate.

I hustle through the hotel’s lobby, ignoring the stares and the finger-points. It’s the bleached hair, the damn fur coat. I’m easily recognized.

A fan shouts, “Can I have a photo, Reese?” and the tidal wave inside of me rises.

I hear my name called in a husky, familiar drawl, but I ignore that too as I shove through the crowd, tears building in my eyes.

Somehow, I escape them. The paparazzi. My manager. The crowds.

And I walk.

Away from everything. Away from the stage, the music, the burn of the neon.

Away, away, away.

I’ve never walked out on Gavin before. Not on the shoot ofHell or High Wateror that time he smashed my dinner plate on the ground when I took a brownie for dessert. Disappointing Gavin is like kicking him in the balls, but I don’t care. Not anymore.

Before we took the stage, my mama would say that to be truly brave, you have to be afraid first. Well, I am very fucking afraid. Afraid of myself. Of my songs. Of a freedom I’ll never get. I don’t know how to find myself or be myself anymore. They took it all away from me. I’m just a husk.

Maybe it’s a little too late.

Maybe girls like me don’t get shiny clean slates.

In ten minutes, I’m on the banks of the Cumberland River.

Water. The only place where the dark spot disappears. Everything quiets. Brain, body, and soul.

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