Page 19 of Never Say Die
“Surprised you kept the jacket.”
“You act like someone wiped my memory when I left. I mean, c’mon, Aiden. I didn’t lop Knight’s Blood off like adiseased arm. I didn’t forget about Georgia and Dylan. I didn’t forget about you.” His eyes were heavy on Aiden’s face. “You were my life,” he said, shaking his head, and lowered his voice. “And then you took my life. So, don’t fucking insult me, all right?”
Something hot and horrible stung in his throat. Behind his eyes. High in his nasal cavity. He wanted to bite back at him, to push a needle through his heart, but he froze instead, and chewed on his cheek until copper bloomed in his mouth.
Shay’s nostrils flared. Black fanned from his pupils outward, flooding his irises, retracting, flooding again. “You’re bleeding,” he said, stupidly.
The hair on Aiden’s nape stood. His thoughts were stuck betweenyou were my lifeandyou’re bleeding. He nudged his chin toward the vanity. “Put your stage contacts in.”
“Let’s go!” Jacob shouted, clapping his hands.
Aiden turned away before Shay smelled anything else. Fear, maybe. Regret or adoration or fury. He grabbed another beer on his way out, walking beside Georgia toward the stairs that led to the stage wing. She nibbled on the silver chain looped around her neck, dressed in tight, torn jeans and a black crop top. Her gaze landed on the beer before she met Aiden’s eyes.
“No going back after this,” she said.
“Only up from here, right?”
“That’s how bands die, too. Shoot through the ceiling, lose control, crash and burn.”
“Not us,” he said.
“Not us.” She took the beer and lifted it to her mouth, draining half the can. “Me and you? We let the past go. We let what happened with Shay go. Tonight, right here, right now. Can you do that?”
“No,” Aiden said. “But I can live with it.”
Georgia’s mouth tightened. Reluctantly, she nodded. “I want to believe you—I do. You know that.”
“Then believe me.” He snatched his beer back and drank the rest in a few long, cold swallows.
Jacob barked at them to group with Shay and Dylan near the painted wall across from the stairs. Colors swirled together and signatures from past performers were scrawled in sharpie, faintly illuminated by the dim backstage lighting. Around the corner, Hail the Haunted played loud, fast, and angry, stirring the crowd like a war cry. Aiden listened as Jacob posed them. At one point, Shay rested his elbow on Aiden’s shoulder and flipped off the camera. Aiden lifted his chin, an attempt at confidence, and crossed his arms over his chest. Georgia was caught mid-laugh, propped on Dylan’s back with her arms around his neck, holding her drumsticks. That was the shot they used. Casual, obnoxious, obvious. Shay grinned in the picture, fangs bared for the camera, and Aiden’s lips turned at the corners, hinting at a smile. They all shared the picture at the same time. Aiden watched it blink to life on his Instagram feed—a new, ruined version of an old, stubborn friendship.
For the first time, he noticed how much they’d grown. Changed. Become. Aiden had broken through his carapace. Discarded a useless, ill-fitting exoskeleton like a tarantula. Right then, he sawhimselfand transcended the tickle of dysphoria nipping at his ribs. Power grew within him, vicious and earned.There you are, he thought.Aiden fucking Moore.And there, beside him, Shay fucking Bennett, who had lived and died and lived again, and somehow, crawled back to him.
Before Aiden could make for the stage, a hand curled over his shoulder. He glanced from pale, black-tipped fingers to the front-man for Hail the Haunted. He looked the part—inky black hair, serial killer tattoo sleeve, barely-there eyeliner, and diamond-cut bone structure.
“Knight’s Blood, homegrown Los Angeles metal band, pushing the bar higher and higher,” he said, and extended his hand to Shay. “Just wanted to say thanks for giving us the chance to share the stage with you. It’s a huge opportunity. I’m Westley, by the way.”
Shay grasped his palm. “You’re welcome. Thanks for getting the crowd hyped,” he said, and nodded toward the rest of the band. “I’m Shay, this is Georgia, Dylan, and Aiden.”
“It’s an honor,” Westley said. “Can’t wait to watch you kill it out there.”
Aiden gave Westley a slow once-over. Before he could speak, the lights went out, and Westley joined a peculiar group dressed in chunky elevator boots and perfectly torn fishnet stockings clustered near the exit. One person, a girl, met his eyes through the dark, casually sipping from a sticker-covered flask. Her hands must’ve been terribly hot, wrapped in all that velvet, petite build tucked and pinned with lace and pleather.
“Don’t choke,” Shay said, and knocked his shoulder against Aiden as he walked toward the stairs.
Their signature high fantasy introduction played through the speakers, and a crew member lit their path with flashlights.
“I never do,” Aiden said. He adjusted the spiked collar around his neck. Tucked his black tank into his pants, took his guitar from the stagehand, and remembered to breathe.
Georgia glanced over her shoulder. “We hit every note. We play this show like it’s our last. We give those people everything they came here for. They think we’re some side-show, small-time replacement? We prove them wrong.” She nodded at Dylan, Shay, and finally, Aiden. “We take our shot—we don’t fuckin’ miss.”
Dylan walked out first. Then Georgia, waving her drumsticks in the air. Aiden followed. He held his guitar with slick palms and scanned the crowd, smaller and more intimate than theirlast show, but still standing room only. The air shifted at his back as Shay appeared, ghostly white contact lenses obscuring his blue eyes. Shay grabbed the microphone stand. His gaze shifted sideways, landing on Aiden, waiting for the opening notes. Aiden kept him there. He kept them all there. Suspended in the final moment before everything,everythingchanged. Finally, he hit the strings, letting the sound linger, and began to play.
Red lights bathed the stage.
Shay laughed into the microphone, a sexy, breathy sound, and said, “Did you miss us, San Diego?”
The crowd erupted.
