Page 188 of Play Dirty (Brooklyn Dawn 1)

Poison in my blood

Taste it all

But I kn

ow when you call again

There’s no escape

No escape for me

How could I be so wrong?

My heart was like that cracked sidewalk right now. Fissures everywhere and only time would show me if it would be shored up or broken open wider with weeds and careless handling.

My voice echoed out into the night. When I opened my eyes, I saw all the phone torches below. My lights in the darkness.

I held on as the platform slid back to the stage.

Jamie spun out the solo she’d created on the fly, and with her amazing talent, she wrapped it into the next song on the setlist.

I brought the arm of the camera closer to me and let the world see the emotions on my face then panned it out to the crowd and their light.

Then I sang the holy fuck out of our new single for this album, “Black Magic”.

And I put him away.

I was a goddamn professional.

I’d given him enough time on this stage already.

Thirty-Six

She was magnificent.

A beacon on a stage that didn’t seem big enough to hold her voice, echoing out into the night like a cry for justice. Her voice was her retribution and even if I knew I hadn’t earned her wrath, I felt it just the same.

I’d written some of the lyrics Angel had sang in that livestream. I’d put together some of the phrases she’d turned and twisted and made into something else. I had also been the one to copy down from memory the words to the song Lindsey and I had written in the barn. Even my recording hadn’t seemed like enough. I hadn’t wanted to lose them.

It wasn’t as if Lindsey and I had discussed the song afterward. It had been very much in the moment. Maybe she would end up wanting it to land at the bottom of her circular file.

But I’d needed the words for me. They were just one more memory from our time together. A track listing on the album we’d never agreed to make together but had just the same.

And because I’d been drawn to her that morning, I’d left behind the pad that contained all of those complicated emotions. Some about her, some about me, all of them capable of being crafted into weapons.

I hadn’t called Angel to ask her how she’d gotten the song. The first song. I hadn’t even known she had possession of “Never Again” too. I’d intended to call her after I talked to my manager, but then Jamie had called about Lindsey and I’d gone to her without a thought.

The song had been almost meaningless to me beyond how she’d gotten it.

But I hadn’t taken the steps. I hadn’t done my due diligence. Now there was another song, another unauthorized release, even more damnable than the first. I had gotten word about the livestream on the plane over—I had a friend with a private jet, and this had been the first time I’d taken him up on the offer to use it—and I’d watched in horror as she sang the words Lindsey and I had written.

I’d tried calling Lindsey right away, even before Don. Her phone had gone right to voicemail. She’d probably been in soundcheck by then.

So, I’d told myself she hadn’t heard about it. Why would she? She was readying for a show.

A show I’d had no business almost missing in the first place.

I’d sat at home for half an hour after George had taken her to the airport, missing her and wishing I’d just followed my gut and gone with her. Contacting my friend about borrowing his plane—and his pilot—had been a total impulse.

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