Page 5 of On The Edge
It’s her.
Melody Sullivan.
The object of my—honestly,our—insane and intense high school crush. Our best friend. The girl we left behind. The girl we all loved. The girl who all our songs are written about.
Written for, if I’m honest.
“Fuck, back up! What the fuck is wrong with you all?! Give her some air!” I plead, trying to keep her from falling more. The metal digs into the hot skin under my arms, and Melody is dead weight as I hold her up through the bars, the only thing keeping her from sliding down and disappearing underfoot.
“Help! One of you, help me!” I yell over the crowd, trying to get someone to help me lift her. A big, muscled fucker the size of the Hulk comes over and lifts her into his arms like she’s a duffel bag.
The crowd roars louder and the hands on me start to fucking hurt. Nails dig into my bare arms, drawing blood as fingers pull at my hair. People grab the collar of my black tee and pull–choking me out–as if they’re trying to rip my clothes from my body. Screams in my ears threaten to deafen me as they scream their love for me. Grips on my arms as they try to pull me into the crowd, pull me closer to them like I’m not really a person, but an object.
This is why I don’t crowd surf. Two other security guys push the crowd back enough that I can yank myself free enough to check on her.
It’s loud as hell still, so I yell over to the guy holding Melody to take her to the dressing room, keep a guard on the door, and if he kept her in there until I got back there would be a hefty tip in it for him.
The big burly security guard lumbers off with the bane of my existence in his arms, and I have to keep myself from letting toomuch of Reis Mathers show. Right now I’m Reis, the badass lead singer ofOn The Edgeand I have a show to put on.
Climbing back onto the stage, I refit my in-ear monitor so I can hear the music play. All the guys are looking at me like I’ve fucking lost it; I just know our manager, Louis, is seething off to the side. Markus walks up to me, still strumming and pulls out one of his earpieces, so I do the same.
“Everything okay?” he yells.
“It was Melody,” I shout back, turning my head to avoid any lip readers.
“No fucking shit! Is she okay?” Markus goes from lightly worried to ready to storm off the stage to get to her.
“She’s out, but I had a security guard take her to the dressing room!”
“Yeah, yeah! Come on, let’s finish this and then go have a little reunion. Maybe we can get some answers. I know I’ve been dreaming of this for a while. Like someone else I know.” He smirks like a fucking asshole as he walks back towards his spot, and I shake my head. He’s made sure to keep the same riff for the song I interrupted and all the guys followed him. I know that by the next chorus, Markus will make sure Adam and Kai know who is backstage waiting for us.
“So sorry about interrupting the song! That was shitty of me!” I yell into the microphone, “But seriously, fools, if you see someone around you go down, don’t be an asshole. We help each other out, don’t we?”
The audience roars again and I take the hem of my shirt, flip it up and wipe my face. The moment I do, I realize I’ve flashed them all a shot of my six-pack.
“You’re welcome!” I shrug, catching Kai rolling his eyes dramatically. “Let’s get back to it!”
TWO
It’s them…It can’t be though… But up close, he looks just like Reis.All of these thoughts run through my head as I sing along to one of the only songs I know byOn The Edge. I’ll be honest, I was given these tickets by a coworker. She couldn’t make the concert at the last minute and asked if I wanted them.
Imagine my surprise when I get here and see I’m in the first row.
Even more so, imagine how I felt when they walked out with their dark, neon-lit masks, performed their first four songs with them on before throwing them to the side… I could have fuckingdied.The lead singer looks exactly like Reis. The bassist looks like Kai and the guitarist looks like Markus… Then on drums is the doppelganger of my sweet Adam.
I’ll be honest, I don’t know much aboutOn The Edge.I know their top hits, but in every interview and every picture, aside from some blurry concert ones, they all have masks on. The popular stuff is amazing. It’s my job to stay up on pop culture and trends, but rock-metal music isn’t my niche, hence why I didn’t know who the people are under the mask.
Before today.
My brain hasn’t stopped trying to catalogue all their similarities to my guys since the moment they threw the masks off.
It has to be them. It’s… there’s too much of a coincidence for…
My mind stops thinking as I watch the drummer—Adam—throw both sticks in the air and catch them perfectly on beat before hitting the bass drum in quick succession.
No…
That move? That was something Adam had been working on perfecting for years. It became his signature move right before they… fucking left me in the middle of the night.
