Page 186 of Play Dirty (Brooklyn Dawn 1)

The darkness from above finally clicked in.

The deafening screams of the crowd.

I tucked my monitor back into my ear and stretched my fingers of my right hand and tapped my battery pack so Teagan knew to start in thirty seconds. It would take both of us being in tandem to create the wall of sound we all wanted.

The opening chords of “November Rain” thundered into the night as my piano rose out of the floor to the stage. Once I got up to the stage level, Zane was in his usual spot on the left side with his bow and guitar.

Cameras craned above me and around me as Teagan’s piano moved across the space on rollers to meet me in the center. We extended the piano solo, looping it once so everyone could get into their places. Once Teagan and I were head to head, the floor slowly revolved with both of us on it like a huge-ass lazy Susan.

Teagan was smiling like the fucking sun.

We were in sync and I opened my mouth as the lyrics tumbled out. I closed my eyes against the emotions rising up inside me. The song said so much about the antagonistic relationship Nash and I had. I poured out all my love and my hurt.

I reached for lower registers and higher ones than I ever looked for. I usually tried to save my voice for the entire show, but this song took everything. And the next one would take all that was left. I couldn’t care about that right now.

I just needed the healing elixir of music and the show.

The cameras panned to Jamie, finally giving me a chance to breathe as the guitar solo spun out and built like the demonic force it was. I got out of my own head long enough to look up and watch her kill her part of the song. The fans were as slack-jawed as the rest of us. Jamie was a sight to behold.

Oz ran around the ramp behind the drum set and stood behind Cooper his arms up, demanding more screams. Cooper slapped the drums racing to keep up with her. I motioned to Teagan and she took over the piano parts as I sung my way across the stage to the stairs of my small platform. My tech hooked me in as I stood with my tricked out microphone stand. It was encrusted with so much flash and gemstones it actually hurt my hands to grip it for too long.

But the epic pianos came up and Jamie and Zane attacked the solo as the arm of my platform went over the crowd. I screamed the whole way over in a fair facsimile of Axl. My band backed me up, and we all blew the roof off the place.

Teagan was a beast on her piano, playing like she never played before.

And there I was in the middle of the arena, my platform side by side with Jamie.

She stood directly across from me and we were both breathing like we’d run a marathon. She was smiling like a lunatic, and her hair was sticking to her neck with sweat gleaming on her skin.

Then the lights went out everywhere but our two miniature stages. The mechanical arms were extended over the crowd at their maximum capacity. A 360 degree view of every fucking thing below us.

I could feel the camera.

I had to ignore that part or I’d slam the door on the emotions. They were drowning me.

Quiet night

Driving to my destiny

Know what you’ll do

What we’ll do

When we break apart

And come together again

Open me up

All of me

I sang without accompaniment at first. The voices below me went from screams to a murmur to silence. The hurt swirled under the words. My skin was on fire from laying myself bare. Just as I tripped over the last line, I looked up and found Jamie.

Proud Jamie with her chin up and murder in her eyes.

She’d happily kill for me. That kind of loyalty couldn’t be found just anywhere.

But I had it here with the family I’d created. Without question, they’d backed me. My voice steadied and I nodded to Jamie. We’d written it with an acoustic, but Jamie had a deft hand with an electric just as much as a stripped down guitar.

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