Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
“Juliette.” I swallowed roughly. “What have you done?”
She tugged me inside the door. “What I should have done years ago, Susan. Come on.” When she realized I wasn’t moving, she let out a giggle, and pulled me harder. “Come on! I swear, you’re going to want to watch this.”
People surrounded us on all sides. Juliette’s enormous atrium was packed, but she hustled us through the crowd with the skill of a bedazzled linebacker.
My mind split in a million different directions. I could barely keep track of what was going on. Danger. Danger and disaster everywhere. My earpiece buzzed with urgent voices, and I picked out the one I loved the most.
“Purg lingers in the shadows of the west wall,” Donovan said. “Nate and I are moving in to take him down. Cress, do you have eyes on the swarm?”
“Eryk has arrived; he’s got it. Agarthon is here, Amayda and I are heading in to ambush him.”
Donovan’s voice rumbled through my ears. “Our enemies will take their final breaths tonight.”
My eyes shot up to the figure on the stage. But at what cost? Audrina was in danger.
Then, I saw her. Really saw her. My mouth fell open.
Audrina stood alone on a raised platform at the end of the ballroom, holding her guitar in her long, elegant arms, playing effortlessly, perfectly, as if it were an extension of her body.
Good grief, she looked like an angel.
Audrina wore a simple shimmery-silver slip dress that flowed down her body, showing off her graceful neck and willowy frame. The color suited her perfectly, her creamy skin glowing.
Cecil wasn’t joking; he had cut off all her hair.
The streaky orange-and-brown bush was gone.
A short cap of dark hair hugged her head, feathering around her cheekbones, highlighting her wide, enormous eyes.
A faint blush warmed her cheeks, and instead of hiding her cupid’s bow by over-lining her top lip, he’d added a hint of rosy tint to enhance the curve. She looked unbelievable. Otherworldly.
The crowd had grown quiet. Everyone turned to watch her, to listen to her as she sang one of my favorite songs—a charming little folk song that would have been lighter if not for her haunting, raspy voice.
Her song came to a close, and the crowd burst into applause. Her cheeks stained a little pinker for a second. “Thank you,” she said into the microphone.
“Brava!” Juliette clapped weirdly, arching her fingers so her pointy nails didn’t clash together.
I found my voice. My breath came out as a gasp. “You hired Audrina?”
“Yup. I gotta admit, when I found her online, I was blown away. Isn’t she amazing?
” Juliette let out a sigh. She leaned closer to me.
“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, Susan, but you’ve been duped.
You’ve been had. You’ve been a right fool.
But before I tell you everything, you’re going to want to see this.
” Something caught her attention. “Oh, here we go. Showtime.”
I frantically scanned the crowd. Oh, no.
Jessica.
Audrina’s mother was here, striding through the crowd, flanked by two very tall young men. Her sons. Jessica’s eyes were wide, her nostrils flared. She barreled towards the stage.
She wouldn’t. There was no way she was going to yank Audrina off the stage, not here….
“Juliette—”
She shushed me. “Just watch.”
Up on stage, Audrina moved back to the microphone. “My next song is dedicated to the woman who has been abusing me for the last seventeen years of my life.” Her eyelashes fluttered, and she focused on a figure standing in the crowd. “My mother, Jessica Morningside.”
People turned to look at each other; a few gasped. Morningside? Did she say Jessica Morningside?
Jessica let out a loud squawk and lurched forward, striding towards the stage.
But just before she got there, two enormous men in tuxedos and earpieces stepped in front of her. One glared at Jessica and shook his head once.
Jessica froze. Her enormous sons halted next to her.
Audrina strummed her guitar and began to sing.
I wasn’t what you wanted
I don’t dress the way you like
So you picked and poked and prodded
Stabbed my heart upon a pike
Cut pieces off, starved me, shouted ‘til you were blue
But I couldn’t be you. No matter how much you hurt me, you couldn’t make me you.
Through the crowd, I saw Jessica hiss and shove her biggest son towards the stage. Another large security guard moved from the side, grabbed him in an arm lock, and marched him towards a side door.
Audrina smiled and kept singing.
Juliette giggled. “This song isn’t as obscure as the rest of her setlist, but man, it’s a good one.”
My lips felt numb; I couldn’t believe what I was watching. “What the hell is going on? I thought Jessica was your friend.”
“She was.” Juliette’s breath was hot on my cheek. “Was, being the operative word. And now she’s forced to stand there and listen to her daughter sing about how much of a monster she actually is.”
Jessica tried to turn to escape, her white face trembling with fury. All at once, another guard was there, penning her with the other guard. She couldn’t move.
Audrina kept singing. The lyrics were devastating.
A full laundry-list of Jessica’s crimes.
The neglect, the constant abuse. How she booked Audrina in to get her boobs done, but the surgeon refused to operate because Audrina wouldn’t stop crying.
How she left her locked out on the balcony for a whole day and night when she was thirteen.
It went on and on. Jessica was forced to stand in the crowd and listen.
Everyone was watching. Everyone was listening to Audrina sing every single word.
Juliette leaned closer. “You see, Susan, I’ve had a bit of an epiphany lately. You might understand, because you consider yourself a powerful woman, too. Not as powerful as me, of course, but still.” She shrugged. “You do alright.”
My earpiece was crackling with noise, rough smacks and thuds, the sound of fighting. It was so hard to concentrate; too much was happening. Donovan’s voice pierced the fog. “Purg is down. His essence has dispersed, but I have his cloak.”
Cress’s voice sounded breathless. “Agarthon, too. We just need to hide the body.”
“I need help with the swarm!”
Donovan grunted. “We are on our way.”
Juliette’s lip tickled my ear. “I’ll admit, this epiphany came as a bit of a slap to the face. I’ve come up with a great slogan to sum it all up. I’m thinking of trademarking it, actually. Here it is—With lots of power comes lots of responsibility.”
I swallowed, trying to push my panic down. “That's… that’s a good one.”
“So, about my epiphany. I’ve had a tough week.
I’m having lunch with Jessica, and she’s yapping on about something.
I don’t know, I’m not really listening, but then I remembered you asking about her daughter.
I’m staring at Jessica, and I realized something.
I’ve never actually met her daughter before.
And this woman is supposed to be my friend.
She shows off her sons like they’re trophies, and she talks so much shit about her daughter, but I’ve never actually seen her.
I’ve got kids. I like them a lot. I know I’m a hands-off kind of mom, but I’m still proud of those little shits.
I wouldn’t talk about them the way Jessica does.
So, I look at her and I realize something.
I’ve let her trick me into thinking she’s not a bad person.
But maybe she is.” She nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe she is.”
I took a shallow breath. “Uh huh.”
“So, I do a little digging, y’know, I bribe some people, get some things hacked into, and I find out that Jessica’s daughter Audrina isn’t some goofy, mentally ill nutjob.” Juliette jerked her head towards the stage. “She’s that.”
We both watched Audrina in silence for a second. She was stunningly beautiful, her glorious, heartbreaking voice soaring over the transfixed crowd.
Juliette let out a sigh. “Who would want to hide talent that magnificent?”
Audrina reached the climax of her song. A woman on my other side let out a sniff and dabbed her eyes with a tissue.
Juliette went on. “So, I reached out to Audrina, and we got talking. She tells me everything—all the shit her mother has ever done to her. It’s bad.
And, because now I’m all about finding out the truth for the first time ever, I decide I should find out exactly who is telling it.
” She shrugged carelessly for a second. “I have a few phones hacked, hire a couple guys to do some more digging, and find out that Jessica actually did drug her daughter with a crazy combo of mushrooms and meth and tried to have her institutionalized. Audrina was telling the truth. And man,” Juliette shook her head.
“I’m having my second epiphany in one week.
All of a sudden, I realized I could help this girl.
I could engineer everything, her debut, her triumph over her abuser, her entire career.
Over there”—she jerked her head—“are two recording studio execs, and they’re fucking drooling over her right now. ”
I looked. Two sharp-eyed men were talking to each other out of the corner of their mouths, eyes still glued on the stage.
“Don’t worry. I can make sure her agent looks after her.” Juliette nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve changed Audrina’s life tonight. This… this weird feeling I’m having. In my chest. And in my belly. I like it.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Anyway, that’s my epiphany. I’ve got all this power, and I’m not using it for good.” She turned to face me so she could hold my eye. “And I want you to understand it, because you could do it too. You could do the same as me. We should be using our power for good, Susan.”
I licked my lips. “You’re…right, Juliette. We should.” What the fuck is going on?
Just then, a large man slid by with a grace that belied his size. He bent quickly and whispered in Juliette’s ear. She nodded, took a deep breath, and sighed it out, turning to me. “There’s something else you need to know. Come on.”