Page 53 of Ticket to the Stars: Part One

“Stop worrying about it,” Ramona told me, her voice hard. “You’ll do fine. You’re just going to do the songs you’ve been working on the last month or so. Nothing new. Just a taste of Black Sacrament, reimagined.”

I wanted to throw up, and I had the feeling that this wouldn’t be the only time I’d feel like vomiting.

Ramona pulled up to the front of the Redborne, putting her car in park before getting out with me. She pulled something from the back—two bags. A long black bag, along with a smaller shopping bag. The one seemed to be a little heavy, and after taking the smaller bag from her, she laid the bigger one across my arms.

“Remember,” she said, hurrying around the front of her car, “try it on the moment you get up there!” She didn’t say another word as she ducked her head and got inside. She rejoined traffic and drove off, leaving me to wonder just what exactly was in the big bag.

It was heavy, much heavier than I thought it would be. What the hell was in there? What kind of weird outfit would I have to wear on stage?

Walking inside the lobby, the bellboy spotted me immediately and hurried around the desk to offer his aid, but I told him I had it under control—it was heavy, yes, but I could manage it just fine. I made it to the elevator.

Once I was on the elevator going up, the operator glanced at the big bag, but he didn’t ask. He probably saw lots of strange things coming in and out of the Redborne. When you dealt with rich or semi-famous people, I guess things like this were more common than you’d think.

I had to do a bit of juggling once I was on our floor, in order to get the key out and unlock the door to the suite. I walked inside, stumbling over the long bag a bit. Bishop must’ve been in the living room, because I heard him say, “Holy shit. Let me help you.” His footsteps were in a hurry to reach me, and before I knew it, he was taking the long, giant bag away from me. “What the hell is this?”

“My stage outfit, I guess,” I said, heading to the island in the kitchen and depositing the other bag there. I tore into it to find the body paint and the blank mask. Some black paint, but there was a lot more white. The mask, on the other hand, was all white.

I guess I was meant to be the angel of the demonic group.

Some of the paint, I noticed, was black light paint.Okay, now that might be cool.

“I guess I’ll just take this to your room?” Bishop sounded unsure, but he did just that. He carried the long bag into my room and he set it on my bed. He didn’t go to leave—he probably wanted to see it for himself.

He wasn’t the only one.

“Ramona wanted me to try it on first thing,” I muttered, shooting him a look. “I guess… I guess I should?” I sounded so unsure, mostly because I had no idea what was underneath that bag. It was heavy, and a bit big. There were more than just clothes in there. I went for the zipper.

Deacon’s voice came from the hall, “What’s going on?” He poked his head into my room, a scowl on his face. Ever since our little talk, he’d been pretty closed off, but now I knew why. He didn’t want to be here at all. My presence was just icing on the cake to him.

Bishop and Priest didn’t seem to notice his foul mood or the reason why, but I kept my promise to him and didn’t say a word about how he wanted to be done after Black Sacrament’s last contracted album.

Tossing a look over his shoulder, Bishop said, “Ramona got Angel her stage costume. She’s unzipping it now.”

To my surprise, Deacon came into my room and stood on my other side. I guess that meant he wanted to see. I assumed Priest wasn’t here; usually when he wasn’t here he was at the gym a few floors down, working out.

I held my breath as I unzipped the large bag, and when I saw it… I had to take a step back. “No way,” I muttered. “No freaking way am I wearing that in front of anybody.” Denial was strong, because that’s the only emotion that made sense.

What were we looking at? Oh, nothing much. Just a white dress with a black leather jacket. It wasn’t so much the dress or the jacket that got me, though; it’s what was sewn onto the back of the jacket that really made me speechless.

Wings. Bright, white angel wings. With actual feathers.

What in the fashion show was this shit? Because that had to be where Ramona got it from: a fashion show. A fashion show where people wore weird outfits walking down a runway, for like, ten seconds. No way in hell would anybody be caught dead wearing those outfits when they were out and about.

This was like that. The wings weren’t small. They damn near looked like they’d drag on the floor.

“No fucking way,” Deacon muttered. He glanced between the jacket with wings and me, and the look on his face told me he found it just as ridiculous as I did.

“This is…” Bishop trailed off, and it was clear he was speechless, totally caught off-guard by this particular situation.

I folded my arms over my chest. “I’m not wearing that. No way! You guys don’t wear things like this, so why do I?” I didn’t want to ever put that jacket on, because… well,lookat it. Look at the freakingwings. Just no.

“Um,” Bishop said as he picked up the jacket. “Maybe you should try it on? Maybe it’s not so bad when it’s on?” The hopefulness in his tone told me even he didn’t believe it.

I took the dress. That I could wear with no problem. But those wings? Ugh. Don’t get me wrong, they looked nice, but the mere fact that they were so big made them almost comical. Plus, wouldn’t that jacket make me sweat like a you-know-what on stage? Pretty sure it got hot up there.

Maybe if I showed the guys how stupid it looked, they’d agree with me, and we could go to Ramona and convince her that this was just stupid. Besides, when the guys chose their designs, I was pretty sure Ramona wasn’t in the picture, so shouldn’t I get to choose my own clothes, too? The wings were just ridiculous.

“Let me put all this stuff on,” I muttered, taking the stupid jacket with me. I headed to my bathroom and shut the door before undressing. I was so flustered at the damned wings that it didn’t even occur to me that the guys were just outside, and I was pretty much getting naked.

---