Chapter 36
Taylor frowns as she adjusts her headphones and her voice roars inside the recording booth.
It’s been three days since they got back from Smithville, and she’s thrown herself so hard into work that she’s stressed out everyone except Abigail, who always seems unflappable in that regard.
Taylor channels the anger she felt toward her brother through her voice and her gestures when she sings.
She spends her afternoons writing—unless Abigail asks otherwise—and playing her acoustic guitar, and she hits the building’s gym twice a day, first thing when she wakes up and again after dinner.
"Again," Demian’s voice says through the headphones, "and Taylor, slow down or you’ll lose your voice before the week’s over."
Abigail looks up from her laptop and meets Taylor’s brown eyes locked on her. She shivers all of a sudden. They’ve been like this since they got back, in a staring contest that always ends in a draw.
Taylor goads her at all hours, pushing for the showdown she knows they’ve got pending. She wants Abigail to explode already, to tell her what she has to say and settle this tension between them once and for all, for better or worse.
"That’s how I sing," Taylor answers without looking at Demian.
Abigail’s sigh is so loud it lifts a page of her planner.
Not only is Taylor challenging her, she’s cranky too.
She’s been like that all morning, singing with a ferocity that’s shredding her voice with every rasp.
Abigail loves to listen—this is Taylor in her element—but she also knows Demian’s right.
If she keeps it up, she’ll end up with throat trouble for no good reason, and they can’t afford that now.
Taylor will sign her first contract this week and, from there, she’ll start performing.
It’ll be small appearances at first, but Abigail knows it won’t stop, and within a year she’ll probably have her own tour.
"Taylor..." Demian says, but Abigail knocks twice on the control room glass as she stands, signaling to the producer that she’ll handle it.
The man sighs, partly grateful. Dealing with these two women is torture for him. With Abigail he doesn’t even try because he knows it’s a losing battle, and with Taylor he has to walk on eggshells, because if he says something her agent won’t like, Abigail will leap on him like a lioness.
"Step out a second," Abigail says after opening the recording booth door where Taylor is.
"What’s up?" she asks after setting the headphones down and following Abigail to a quiet corner.
"What exactly are you doing?"
"What I always do, Abby: sing," she replies, tugging at her T-shirt a little before folding her arms in a gesture halfway between cocky and defensive.
"Don’t get smart with me," Abigail snaps. "You know exactly what I mean. I’m fine with you being angry and wanting to scream, but don’t do it in there."
"I thought you, of all people, were the one who always backed me in following my instincts when I sing."
"And I do, but that’s not instinct and you know it. It’s rage, and it’s okay to feel it..."
"Yeah..." Taylor cuts her off and sighs.
Abigail folds her arms too, rolling her head side to side to try to loosen the muscles in her neck.
"Have you heard anything about your brother?" she asks suddenly.
Taylor blinks. She doesn’t want to talk about her brother; she wants to talk about them.
She wants Abigail to tell her what she thinks, to puke up all that shit she’s been holding in since she saw her with Jess in her apartment.
Taylor needs to close this chapter to move forward somehow, but Abigail seems to avoid it as if she’s stuck trying to untangle her own mind.
The only thing that’s changed since they got back from Smithville is her hostility toward Taylor—that’s gone.
Abigail treats her like before, with her usual coolness, but she lets moments like this slip where she makes it clear she cares.
"Nothing. Since he got out of the hospital on Tuesday, I haven’t heard anything new. I don’t even know if I want to," Taylor answers.
"That doesn’t make you a worse sister," Abigail says. "You have every right to be angry—at him and at the world."
"And at you?" Taylor blurts, staring at her.
"Especially at me. But don’t let your anger screw up your voice. You’re smarter than that."
Taylor twists that smile that still makes Abigail’s stomach clench.
"Fine," Taylor says. "Anything else?"
She’s so provocative that all Abigail can think about is grabbing her by the collar of her T-shirt and dragging her to the room where the instruments are kept. The mere thought of everything she’d do to her makes her dizzy, but she just shakes her head.
"No. Keep practicing. And don’t talk to Demian like that again when he’s right."
Abigail heads back to her seat and Taylor huffs. She loves it when Abigail defends her, and it really pisses her off to get turned on when Abigail chews her out—because she’s mad at her, and Abigail shouldn’t have that effect on her anymore. But her desire for her agent is still completely intact.
"Let’s pick up with the second song," Demian says.
Taylor nods and, when she opens her mouth to sing, the man smiles, pleased. Her voice comes out loaded with its usual intensity—it’s pure emotion crystallized into sound, rage turned into art—but there’s not a trace of the overexertion that had been rasping her voice all morning.
Abigail watches her from her corner. These days, she’s paying much more attention to Taylor than to her laptop.
She can’t take her eyes off her; she doesn’t know if she’s trying to make sure Taylor’s okay or if she’s just under some kind of spell she no longer knows how to break.
She can’t stop thinking about her, about the conversation she had with Erin and the one with Tiffany at the hospital.
In short, both women told her the same thing: if she can’t give Taylor what she wants, she should step aside.
The problem is that Abigail wants to give it to her, but she doesn’t know how to start that conversation, because rage explodes in her mouth every time she thinks about the woman with the hickey, about how her lips and hands were on Taylor because of her, enjoying a body that should belong only to her.
"Ten-minute break," Demian announces.
Taylor steps out of the booth and wipes the sweat from her forehead with a towel. Normally she grabs some water and hits the bathroom during those breaks, but now she heads straight for Abigail.
"I’ve got something for you," the singer says, pulling a folded sheet from her pocket and holding it out to her agent.
Abigail looks up and reaches out to take it. Their fingers brush for a moment and both of them hold their breath at the same time.
"What is it?" Abigail asks.
"A love note, like in school..." she answers, sarcastic.
Abigail arches an eyebrow and Taylor feels the weight of her piercing gaze.
"Another song," she clarifies, rolling her eyes.
It doesn’t surprise Abigail. Taylor hasn’t stopped writing since she got to New York. She’s tossed most of them, and the two she considered good enough she emailed to Abigail, but this one is different. Taylor feels it in another way, and she wants to make sure she reads it today.
"It’s new. I’ve written it these past afternoons at home," she explains, looking at Abigail with an intensity that dries the executive’s mouth. "I’d like to know what you think before we leave."
"All right. I’ll read it during the rest of the session," she says, setting the paper on her laptop keys.
"Great," Taylor replies.
"You need to come by the office this afternoon. We’ll meet at four. Liam, you, and me," Abigail says. "You have to choose one of the three offers we have. I’ve already negotiated every improvement I could get you on each, and we can’t keep stalling or they’ll start pulling out."
"Okay," Taylor says, with that half smile that completely undoes Abigail.
The singer goes back into the recording booth and Abigail picks up the sheet Taylor gave her and unfolds it. Just reading the title, she senses she’s going to tense up the same way she did when she read Tongue of Fire. Ashes and Iron. Abigail draws a deep breath and starts reading.
You built walls out of my dreams
You turned my fire into your fear
Every word you said was a shackle
Every smile, a sentence
But ashes still harbor embers
And iron is forged in rage
I won’t be the shadow of your ego
I won’t die for your hold on me
I am ashes and iron
Pain turning into steel
What doesn’t kill me
Turns me into a scorching flame
You said without you I was nobody
That my voice was just noise
But silence taught me
That your love was a lie, your support a forgotten promise
Now I fly without your broken wings
I sing without your false harmony
Every wound you gave me
Turned into melody
I am ashes and iron
Pain turning into steel
What doesn’t kill me
Turns me into a scorching flame
Your manipulation was my school
Your betrayal, my graduation
I learned that true fire
Doesn’t need your approval
Abigail’s breathing turns ragged as she reads those lines with Taylor rehearsing in the background.
Every verse is like an electric shock running through her from head to toe.
She isn’t able to tell if the song is about Ethan, about her, or both.
She thinks it’s mostly about him, about his betrayal, but in the middle of that storm of rage, there are a few arrows that could perfectly well point to the hostile, cruel way she treated Taylor just a week ago.
You turned my fire into your fear