Chapter Eleven #2
Shay detached the mic from the stand, tossed it in the air and caught it, holding it in front of Aiden’s mouth.
His breath hit Aiden’s chin, and his blue eyes gave way to beastly black.
He playfully snapped his teeth at Aiden’s throat, and Aiden couldn’t fight the laughter tumbling over his lips, the euphoria exploding in his chest, the unadulterated joy sparking in his fingertips as he pinched the guitar pick.
He’d waited years for this night, this show, these sounds—lyrics shouted from a boisterous crowd, finding home with his bandmates again, carving their legacy into history.
Shay went to his knees in front of the gate separating the pit from the stage, belting out the last words of Glory.
He curled his fingers at the crowd, beckoning them, and when he held his head back to scream, his fingernails sharpened into claws, there and gone, like a shadow darting along his body.
As the last note lingered, Georgia, Dylan, Shay, and Aiden loped into the wing. Stage-crew held water bottles, beers, and sweat rags, commending them for their performance. Aiden chugged one beer, tossed the can, then grabbed another.
Shay snatched the beer from him and tapped his chin. “Nice job,” he said, panting, and drained the can.
Georgia shot Aiden a questioning look. She gestured loosely to her chin and listed her head.
Aiden, truly, didn’t fucking know. He shrugged. “Thanks, yeah. We killed it tonight, guys.”
“Sure fuckin’ did,” Dylan said, and swatted Aiden on the back.
The crowd applauded, whistled, and cheered. Knight’s Blood resumed their positions on stage for the encore. Waved, bowed, and laughed once the overhead lights turned on, signaling the end of the show, and bounced off each other as they walked to the dressing room to change before their signing.
Aiden peeled away his sweaty ripped black tank and replaced it with another equally ripped gray tank.
He reapplied deodorant and took out his white contact lenses, revealing the round, brown line hugging his blown pupils.
Thumbed smudged liner off of his eyelid, and thought, Shay killed a woman last night.
He stared at his reflection and waited for a pit to open in his stomach. Shay almost killed me last night.
Georgia followed Dylan through the door, tossing a quick, “Jake will kill us if we’re late,” over her shoulder.
Aiden nodded. As the trailer door clicked shut, he was transported to the parking garage, watching that heavy, bathroom door slam and shake after Shay had tossed him out.
“Let’s go,” Shay said, and nudged him with his elbow.
He touched two fingers to the beige medical tape stuck to his neck.
What did it make him to want what Shay had?
Death, sacrifice, murder, change . What did Aiden become for wishing he’d drowned and resurfaced?
He remembered Shay’s warm, wet mouth on his throat, pulling blood from him, and craved knowing, experiencing, understanding what that felt like. Taking someone apart. Consuming life.
“Aiden,” Shay said, louder.
“ What? Jesus, okay. I’ll be right there.”
Shay shifted his gaze to the medical tape. “You’re jumpy tonight.”
“Can you blame me?”
“Yeah, actually.”
Aiden sucked his bottom lip between his teeth. “Right, yeah, I almost forgot. This is my fault,” he said, and cracked his neck. He shouldered past Shay, walking toward the door. “I obviously bit myself.”
Shay grabbed his wrist, palm secure over Aiden’s pulse. “Why didn’t you stop me, Aiden?”
Fire ran through his veins, stoked by adrenaline and whatever combo-speed he’d snorted before their set.
He’d slept, maybe, four hours. Still tasted tequila from the Marquee.
Smelled blood and piss from inside that claustrophobic bathroom.
He was too tired to lie, too keyed up to deflect.
So, he turned and shoved Shay back with both hands.
“I’m easy for you,” he snapped, viciously.
“But you always knew that, didn’t you? Fuck, Shay, I didn’t stop you, because I couldn’t.
All I could do was hold onto you and hope you didn’t give me exactly what I deserved. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
Shay stared, wide-eyed. Bewilderment crossed his face. His lips slackened and he flexed his jaw, granting Aiden a slow once over. “I wish you would’ve found me sooner,” he admitted. “Before I. . . Shit, she probably had a family, Aiden. People who loved her. She?— ”
“Is dead,” Aiden said, heat licking each word. “Wolves don’t cry over deer, Shay. If I would’ve found you sooner, I’d be dead. So, stop with your self-flagellation and accept that this is it . This is what you do to survive—it’s your fucked-up fate whether you like or not.”
“I didn’t ask for this,” Shay whispered. “I didn’t want this?—”
“But you have it. You have power, you have purpose, you have a second chance, and there’s a whole lot of people in this world who would do anything to be like you.”
“Yeah, who? You? ” Shay asked, and put his thumb to Aiden’s chin, pinching hard. Hot breath coasted his mouth. “Maybe you should’ve jumped off that goddamn cliff then.”
“Yeah, maybe. But I didn’t. I put a knife in you instead.
And even after that, even here, even last night, even when you had the chance, I didn’t have to stop you.
” He tore his face away. “You’re too afraid.
Too good to do what I did,” he said, aiming the last word like a bullet.
“You want vengeance? Stop bluffing and get it over with.”
“I should’ve stayed dead,” Shay said, voice choked. Awful and thick and young.
Yeah, me too , he thought, exhaling against the ache in his chest.
“I needed to stay dead,” Shay added, bitterly.
Aiden met his eyes. “Yeah, and I needed you more.”
Shay reached for him. Grabbed his wrist and squeezed.
Said his name, Aiden , like a snakebite.
But it didn’t matter, Aiden wrenched away and flew through the door.
Almost tripped on the steps and sped toward the table where the meet-and-greet line wrapped around the kettle-corn stand, stretching away from the Knight’s Blood merchandise booth.
I needed you more. His heart pounded in his throat. I needed you more.
Sleep came in intervals.
Aiden skipped the post-signing festivities and retired alone.
Brought the complimentary bottle of top-shelf vodka into the shower and drank while hot water scorched his wounded throat.
Shuffled under the freshly turned sheets and waded in and out of lucidity, watching Shay’s little journal, left unattended on the nightstand, blur and bend.
Alcohol warred with the drugs in his system, convincing his mind to quiet while his body hummed.
He hadn’t recognized the weight of someone else beside him.
Hadn’t noticed the still room or Shay’s lulled breathing.
Like a man trapped beneath ice, Aiden had palmed at the cold, slick surface, finding cracks and wedges—air conditioning, dull Vegas sounds, the heavy comforter pooled over his shoulders.
At one point, he thought he’d woken. Stagnant saltwater dripped onto his cheek.
Rancid breath dampened his jaw. Thomas appeared again, anchoring him to the bed, and lowered his mouth to the bitemark on Aiden’s neck.
Aiden focused on his loud thoughts: it’s a dream, it’s a dream, it’s a dream .
But Thomas felt entirely real. His sallow, soggy skin had grown loose, hanging in patches where clothes had ripped away, and his blunt teeth moved in slow motion.
Sinking into Aiden, masticating, tugging until taut flesh broke and spurted.
All the while, Aiden couldn’t move or scream.
He endured that feeling—helpless, horrific knowing—caged inside himself as Thomas devoured him.
“Aiden,” Thomas said, and it was Shay’s voice from the Ocean Grove trailhead.
Then again, “Aiden”, and it was Camila, shouting at him through the screen door at their childhood home.
“Aiden,” and it was Georgia, swatting him on the cheek, spraying Narcan into his nose.
“Aiden,” and it was Shay again, closer, realer.
“Aiden,” like hello . “Aiden,” like wake up .
Aiden gasped. He clawed away phantom teeth, squirmed, winced, and toppled to the floor.
The ceiling bowed. Run . He scrambled backward on all fours until his shoulders smacked the wall.
No matter how hard he breathed, a collar shaped like Thomas’s hand tightened around his windpipe.
The bed tilted into view, throbbing in tandem with his heartbeat.
Shay hadn’t stopped saying his name. “Aiden, hey. Hey, whoa, it’s fine, Aiden, it’s okay—you’re dreaming.
Aiden, hey. Look at me.” He knelt and grasped Aiden’s face.
“You’re okay. You’re all right, it’s just a dream.
Aiden. . .” Worry furrowed Shay’s brows.
He thumbed away wetness on Aiden’s cheeks.
“Breathe, okay?” He inhaled, long and deep, and Aiden mimicked him.
Once, twice. A third time. The dream deteriorated, and reality opened to their shadowy room at the Cosmopolitan and the distant rush of the Bellagio fountains dancing beneath the balcony.
“Sorry,” Aiden rasped.
“Don’t be,” Shay said. He cradled Aiden’s face until embarrassment finally sparked and Aiden shied away. Shay’s hands dropped between them. “I have nightmares, too.”
“Yeah. Haven’t had a panic attack like that in a while.”
“Shit happens.”
His eyes wouldn’t stop leaking. He set his forehead on his folded arms, resting atop his kneecaps, and blew out a heavy breath. “Go back to bed, I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine, like, at all.”
Vodka soured his stomach. He inhaled another deep breath to quell the sudden burst of nausea. “Look, I know it stays with you. Feeding. What you have to do. But you need to let it go, Shay. Seriously.”
Shay sighed through his nose. “Have you?”
“What?”
“Have you let it go? What you had to do?”
Aiden tightened his lips. “We’re not talking about me?—”
“Aiden.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Then don’t ask me to.”
“Is that what you have nightmares about? Thomas? That girl—Cassie, whatever?”
“Usually, I dream about killing you.”
Aiden lifted his face, tipping his head against the wall. “Yeah, I figured. Let me guess, you eat me.”
“I never know it’s you until the very end.
” Shay stood and crossed the room to the mini-fridge.
White light poured over his feet—one socked, one bare—and he grabbed a drink.
Fiji. Rich people water. “I’m not fully there.
I know what’s happening, I can feel it happening.
I think it’s Thomas or. . . or someone else.
Then it’s over and I’m looking down at you.
That’s when it becomes a nightmare.” He nudged Aiden’s knee with the water bottle. “Chug it, you’ll feel better.”
“Do I ever live?” he asked, tilting the bottle against his mouth. An icy stream flowed through his body, cooling his tight chest and upset stomach.
“In my nightmares? No.”
“What about your dreams?” Aiden asked.
Shay grabbed his journal and slid into bed, facing the blue hour through a crack between the black-out curtains. “We’re a lot different in my dreams, me and you.”
Aiden let the conversation fade. He listened to pen scratch paper, and Shay breathe, and traffic clog the street outside, and when he finally crawled back into bed, he dozed until he dreamed again.
This time, Shay was there, kissing him tenderly, sliding his palm between Aiden’s legs, and they were themselves again.
The people they’d been before. Young and brave and in love, maybe.
Aiden jolted awake for the second time. He squeezed his thighs together, holding onto heat the dream had left behind, and stared at the intricate black ink on Shay’s neck.
Vines attached to roses on his shoulder.
Pomegranate flowers. Rosemary sprigs. Peonies.
A wide-winged lunar moth. Aiden reached.
His fingers hovered over Shay’s shoulder, tracing the air above his tattoo.
He stayed awake until dawn and pretended to be asleep the moment Shay rolled over, facing him again.
Shay sighed, that soft, Shay noise, and tucked his hand under his pillow. A few minutes later, Aiden’s phone vibrated on the nightstand. He feigned sleepiness, which wasn’t difficult, and grabbed it.
San Diego area code. The phone rang until it didn’t. He swallowed, relieved, then the phone vibrated again. Same number, same area code.
“Hello?”
“Aiden Moore,” Kelly said. Relief and something else—relief, danger—stirred in her voice. “Listen to me carefully.”
His heart jumped. He slid out of bed, tiptoeing to the bathroom, and dropped onto the toilet seat. “What. . . ?”
“Your sister is a professional friend of mine, someone I admire, and I happen to believe her blood relatives—as undeserving as you might be—should be cautioned when caution is due. Death follows you everywhere. You’ve been lucky, but it will catch you.
It will .” She paused, breathing hard. “If you go to Colorado, your death will be put into motion. I’ve seen it. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, I hear you,” Aiden whispered.
“Consider yourself warned. ”
The call ended.
Aiden replayed every crisp word, every honeyed warning, then stood and steadied himself on the sink.
Cupped his hand under the faucet. Rinsed his mouth.
Stared at his reflection, all dark angles and jutting bone.
One of our biggest tour stops . One of our dream venues.
He tipped his chin, studying the punctures on his throat.
Everything he’d ever wanted swirled around him, beckoning him into the unknown.
Success, fortune, glory. Love, maybe. Seized by force.
And the well-known. Death, breakage, rock-fucking-bottom.
Love, again. The messy, real kind. We’ve come too far.
He drew a shaky breath through his nose, and went back to bed, carefully climbing under the sheets.
I’ve come too far.
Shay cracked his eyes open. “Who was it?”
Aiden turned, giving Shay his back, and squinted at his too-bright phone screen. “My sister,” he said, and saved Kelly’s number as: that bitch ass psychic . “She was just checkin’ in.”