Page 105 of Haunt Me

Begging her to stay.

Wait, Skye said she stayed, but I have had to wait backstage for a while for security to clear me.She might have already left.

The minute I get the all-clear, I jump off, taking the steps three at a time. Eden is standing there on the ground, her face lit up by the sharp stage lights. She looks calm but tired. A little freaked out—who wouldn’t be after what I just did?

She looks so beautiful and sad I can’t look her in the eyes.

“You stayed.” The words are a croak coming from my ruined throat.

She nods. I nearly snap in two.

“Thank you,” I manage to say.

“You made a stadium full of people ask me to stay,” she replies. I dare to sneak another look at her face: she is going paler in front of my eyes.

“Impressed, huh?” I try to make it sound arrogant, but it comes out as if is I’m begging. Which, to be fair, I am. Or I will be in a second.

“Always,” she replies, and my body reacts on its own, my knees buckling without my permission. I reach out a hand and white-knuckle a random piece of railing that’s thankfully behind me.

“Listen, I’ve been thinking,” I lift a hand to touch her elbow, then think better of it. I lose my words and stutter. Sweat drips from my hair into my eyes. She looks up at me with something like pity in her eyes.

“You’ve beensinging,” she corrects me. Her voice catches before the word ‘singing’ and she inhales sharply.Oh, so my songs still have the ability to steal her breath. Good to know.

“I’ve been thinking,” I insist. “My mind wasn’t really in the singing part, I can do that on autopilot. I… I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?”

“For what I am about to ask you.” But I can’t ask it. I just stand there, looking at her.

“All right, ask me,” Eden says eventually.

“How did you stand it?” I ask. “How did you survive?” The air leaves my lungs all at once as soon as I’ve gotten the words out, leaving me light-headed. But Eden is not reeling.

“You,” she replies without hesitation. “That’s how. You.”

“Are you looking to make me fall to my knees in front of you twice in a single night?”

“No. You asked me a question, I answered it. Are there more?”

She is talking in the same way she always used to, level-headed, logical. But nothing makes sense right now: how can she speak so calmly?

“About a million of them,” I say. She looks away. She doesn’t want to talk about these things now—here. I don’t either, but it’s not a choice, it’s a need. I have to know.

I look up. The night is dark and noisy with the aftershocks of my concert. I am running out of time. In a second, my security will come to shepherd me into a limo before a tidal wave of screaming fans discover me behind the stage.

“I don’t know how to process what you just said,” I tell her, “so I’ll go on to the next question.”

“You’ve thought this through? These questions of yours?” she lifts an eyebrow.

“Excruciatingly,” I reply.

“When? You have been singing.”

“Singing is like breathing,” I shrug, “I can think at the same time.” I can feel her looking at me curiously, and I avoid her eyes. “I would like to kill the man who hurt you, Eden. That’s what I have been thinking. Over and over again. That’sallI have been thinking, since I found out the truth, about twelve hours ago.”

We both go quiet for a second. I think I forget to breathe. My chest heaves, trying to get in enough air.

“But now I realize,” I continue in a voice so low I can barely hear it myself, “that I am the man who hurt you.” She doesn’t say anything. “Aren’t I?

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