Page 30 of With Stars in Her Eyes
If you mess up, they won’t know unless you tell them, Dove. It’s onyouif they see it on your face.
The bassist turned his back on the audience subtly, rolling his eyes at the smoke.Hewas the official reason they weren’t supposed to have anything that created smoke or fog turned that way during shows. He snuck in a few puffs on his inhaler without the cheering crowd seeing it.
Demetrius saw everything, and I knew him well enough to know he was pissed.
But he was as well trained as I was.
A high-pitched shriek of feedback came through my new earpieces. That reaction was harder to hide. The stage lights weren’t as bad as I’d expected though. Maybe I’d been too rigid about them.
The sparks flashed again.
I played on.
Auras rippled across my field of vision, making me see everything in one eye like I was looking through a prism. I had played through this before. I would play through it now. I just had to get through this show.
As Demetrius asked the crowd to cheer louder, I smiled. This smile was real. It was almost time.
“Kestrel.” Demetrius gestured that I should take a few more steps toward him. He asked them if they wanted to hear something no one else had heard before.
The crowd went feral.
A bright spotlight hit me.
It was my turn to speak.
I made it three words before something popped in my head. My bow slipped from my fingers, clattering onto the stage.
The crowd fell silent for a moment, unsure whether this was part of the performance. Unsure if they should laugh at my clumsiness. I tried to laugh as I stepped to pick it up again, but my right foot dragged, causing me to stagger. The fractals of an aura were familiar, but now everything tilted and glimmered.
Seconds slowed and became as garbled and confusing as my efforts at speaking. Demetrius appeared in front of me. His broad body blocked me from the crowd, but every word I tried to say came out slurred and stuttered.
He half-carried me offstage, not caring that my instrument—my precious sparkly electric cello—had fallen, sending another deafeningly loud note of feedback crackling through the sound system. I tried to tear my earpieces out, but my right hand wasn’t working.
“She’s hammered,” said the woman who had handed me the napkin. “So sloppy. Have security take her to the bus to sleep it off. Someone told me earlier she was an addict.”
“Courtney, are you okay?” Demetrius lowered me to the ground.
A label rep peered down his nose at me. “It’s the pressure. The label was worried something like this would happen.Sucha pity. She probably just needs some coffee.”
“She’snotdrunk.” Demetrius put his face right in front of mine. “Try to smile.”
“Smile, Dove.”
“Why can’t you just fucking smile the way you’re supposed to.” My father grabbed hold of my face.
I tried to smile. “It f-f-feel wr—”
I tried to speak again but it was even worse.
“Why is she talking like that? Does she normally talk like that?” another voice said with completely unveiled contempt. I couldn’t turn to see who had said it.
Demetrius’s dark eyes widened. “My god, I think… I think she’s having a stroke. Call an ambulance.”
The label exec sniffed. “She’s just being dramatic because I wouldn’t let her wear her angsty little sunglasses tonight. I heard she has tantrums about the smoke machines too. I swear she always acts like—”
“What did you say?” Demetrius nearly growled at the label exec.
Richard, Demetrius’s manager, stepped in between them, willingDemetrius’s attention back toward me. Somehow, he was also on two different phones at once. Or maybe I was just seeing double.
