Page 11 of Mic Drop

“You’re not making any sense.”

“She leaned on him. He let her. They deserve each other.”

“At the risk of garnering even more anger from you, might I remind you that you sent her away?”

“Yeah. But she wasn’t supposed to fall right into his arms. Maybe the media has it right and she is a black widow, seeking to break up UC. She killed Darren, played with me, and has moved on to the new keyboardist. Makes perfect sense.”

Luke cracks his knuckles. “Are you going to tell me what part of that bullshit you actually believe?”

“What? Darren’s dead. I cast her out because she was moaning about missing her mother. She went right to Tristan. All true.”

Luke’s coffee eyes meet mine. He holds up his index finger. “You know Darren overdosed when Jenna wasn’t even in the same state.”

“Fine. But she was the last person to talk with him.”

He shrugs. “As for two and three”—he holds up two morefingers—“only you and she know what happened. Don’t think I believe for one second the crap you spewed out there.”

“Yeah.” I cross my arms across my chest. “Prove it.”

“I can’t. Not yet. Although I did have a long talk with Tris.”

My voice drops an octave. “Whatever the traitor said, I’m sure it was all lies.”

“I don’t know, B. He sounded pretty sincere to me. About how Jenna was crying so hard he had to hold her upright. How he helped her get a taxi. She was destroyed.” He pauses. “By you.”

My head shakes. “She did this to us. She kept crying about how much she missed her mother. I simply granted her wish.” After my conversation with my own mother, the thought sticks in my throat.

“It’s probably better she’s going home. She has a shit-ton of things to deal with, thanks to the graffiti at her clinics.”

“See? I did her a favor.”

“Likewise. UC has more than a dump truck filled with bullshit thanks to Lissa. She’s now been booked on CNN.”

“Fuck!” I spin on my heel, pulling back to beat the shit out of the wall. The cement wall.

Luke grabs my cocked arm. “Stop. We need you intact, not with a sling as well as your pulled muscle.”

“I need to break something,” I pant.

“Fine. Let’s go to the roadies’ bus. Rumor has it they have a punching bag.”

He drags my body toward the exit, where a bunch of our buses are parked. The next thing I know, I have boxing gloves on and I’m punching a bag so fast it almost comes off its hook. Twenty minutes in, and I collapse onto a questionable looking sofa.

“Drink this.”

Luke passes me a bottle of water, which I down like the broken man I am. The bag did nothing to get her out of my system.

“Feel better?”

“Not in the slightest.”

Chapter 4

Jenna

With excitement bouncing from every pore, I say, “I pulled in a favor to see this doctor at off-hours, Ma. He’s a specialist with an amazing track record.”

Ma’s gray eyes look tired. “I’m only going because you’re here. I’ve been to all the doctors, who all say the same thing. After this, no more. I won’t live my life going from one appointment to another.”

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