Chapter 2
Chapter two
JUDE GRAVES
The downtown traffic is restless like every other city. But something about New York in particular is even wilder. The second the bus pulls up to the hotel, the outside world explodes into noise. Fans pack the sidewalk, barricades barely holding them back.
Cameras flash so hard the light feels like needles punching through my skull. When the door hisses open, a tidal wave of screams crashes in.
“Jude! Mr. Graves, look this way!”
“We love you!”
“Are you okay?”
That last one hits like a sharp slap in the face.
No. No, I’m not fucking okay. I’m a walking corpse propped up by drugs, secrets, and the two people who own every piece of my soul. I’ve done things for them I can’t scrub out of my hands, no matter how hard I try. Things that keep me awake even when I’m dead on my feet.
Adriana reaches back, grabs my chin between her fingers, and angles my face toward the crowd. Her nails dig in just enough to piss me off. “Smile,” she murmurs. “Pretend you’re not dying.”
I bare my teeth at the flashing lights. It’s not a smile; it’s a snarl with good lighting.
Nolan follows close behind, waving to the cameras like a fucking asshole. The crowd swells. Micah is on my right, rigid and pale, eyes darting around. Finnick and Kami are behind us, smiling to the best of their ability.
Security shoves a path through the chaos, pushing us toward the revolving doors of the hotel. The glass spins around me, warping everything into a dizzy kaleidoscope.
How the fuck is life even real?
Inside, the lobby is quiet, as expensive places always are, with its marble floors, gold accents, and air smelling faintly of citrus and money. My pulse won’t slow down.
Adriana links her arm through mine like we’re a couple stepping into a gala. “You look awful,” she says softly.
“I feel worse.”
She smiles sweetly. “Fix it.”
I roll my eyes. The hotel suite is massive, portraying floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over one of the most epic skylines I’ve ever seen.
I barely look at it, though. Micah and I have always roomed together since Finnick and Kami are a couple who enjoy their personal time.
I’ve walked in way too many times on them in the tour bus.
Micah is already in the bathroom, door cracked open.
The counter is lined with small baggies and a rolled-up bill.
I enter and shut the door behind me. I glance up to see that the mirror shows two ghosts.
His pupils are blown, and his sweaty hair is stuck to his forehead.
Mine look like oil-slick water—dark, flat, swallowing the light.
He taps a line out, splits it, and pushes one toward me.
He’s been my best friend for years, trapped in the same pit as me.
“Take it slow,” he mutters, though we both know we won’t.
I snort it. Fire hits the back of my throat. Warmth spreads through my chest, up my spine, settling behind my eyes like hands pressing down gently from the inside.
My breathing loosens.
The anxiety in my ribs melts into a smooth and thick heaviness that always helps ground me. The world steadies again as I lean against the sink.
Micah wipes his nose with his sleeve. “You good?” he asks.
“Not even close.” I need the needle, but I can’t right now. So I’ll settle for oxy.
He nods. “Same.”
It won’t be enough for long.
The rehearsal space is filled with dust and too-bright fluorescent lights that automatically agitate me.
It’s a large ballroom attached to some grand hotel.
Sound techs scramble around us, Nolan talks to some guy in a suit, and Adriana is pacing, coordinating interviews she’ll later cancel depending on how I look.
Finnick plugs in his bass without looking at me.
Kami checks her mic with a shaky exhale, and I strum my guitar with the ease of someone who’s been doing this since he was a child.
When that first chord hits, something awful and beautiful tears open inside me.
My chest splits, and the music pours out.
My bandmates stare like they’re watching a man on fire, but they don’t stop me. They never do. Because the truth is, I sound better as a man standing on the fucking edge, looking straight down.
Nolan’s delighted smirk shines back at me—he loves this version of me, the broken one, the profitable one.
Beside him, Micah drums like he’s trying to exorcise demons out of his spine, while Finnick keeps glancing over, worry carved into every line of his face.
Kami wipes her eyes once, pretending it’s sweat.
She’s always been the one who sees straight through my bullshit, who’s sat with me on hotel floors at three a.m. while I fell apart.
I hate how much she still cares.
Adriana stands off to the side, lips parted, watching me with that sparkle in her eye I loathe. “Sound check is complete,” she says. “Everything’s good. Now, let’s go through one song. How about Dark Streets?”
I glance back at my band, and they all nod. “Alright,” I rasp. “Let’s do it.” Then the song starts, and the lyrics rip their way out of me:
"These dark streets feed on the secrets I keep,
And every lie you fed me still haunts my sleep.
I’m burning through my veins just to feel alive,
Tell me...how much of me has to die to survive?"
And when the final note fades, I’m staring straight ahead. Empty.
Night finally settles over the city, leaving the neon lights shrouded in darkness. Micah and I slip up the service stairs and push open the heavy metal door to the rooftop. Cool August air smacks me in the face.
I sink onto the low concrete ledge, hands shaking as I dig into my pocket for a small bag of coke.
After I snort a bump, I hand it to Micah without speaking.
As the coke races through my system, my gaze sweeps over the city.
People are living their entire goddamn lives down there with no idea that two broken musicians are sitting on a roof trying to scrape themselves together long enough to perform for rich assholes.
I drag my hand over my face. My pulse beats too fast.
Micah nudges me with his shoulder. “You good?”
“I don’t know if I can deal with these people tonight,” I admit, voice barely audible over the wind.
Micah swallows hard. “We don’t get to quit,” he says quietly. “At least until the tour is over.”
When we re-enter the venue, the vibe has shifted.
Security ushers us through service hallways, past decorated walls and floral arrangements worth more than Micah’s entire drum kit.
The coke has my nerves on a tight leash, but exhaustion keeps yanking on the other end.
The muffled hum of wealthy chatter bleeds through the doors.
One of Nolan’s men hands me a bottle of water. “Hydrate,” he says.
I take it. Don’t drink it.
The dressing room is small and cold with white marble counters and harsh ring lights. I squint, trying to ignore how fucking horrible my reflection looks.
Micah hums the melody of one of our popular songs while Kami braids her red hair quietly. Finnick stretches his hands, cracking his knuckles. No one says it out loud, but they’re waiting to see if I’m going to fall apart again. I feel bad about that.
I close my eyes, swallow the chemical burn in my sinuses, and breathe through it. Then someone grabs my arm.
Adriana.
Her perfume rushes up my nostrils, and I almost gag.
She pulls me into the corner, far from the others, pinning me between the wall and her body.
One hand slides up my chest, nails grazing my jaw.
“Do not embarrass me tonight,” she whispers, lips brushing my cheek.
“You blow this performance, and you’ll wish you stayed dead.
Nolan wasn’t happy about yesterday’s fuck-up.
Our guests aren’t your stupid little adoring fans.
They’re real players in a real game. Do you understand me? ”
My stomach flips.
Her fingers harden around my chin. “You belong to me,” she murmurs, voice a velvet blade. “Got that?”
I don’t answer.
She kisses me hard, pushing me against the wall. I kiss her back, but it’s an automatic response. When she pulls away, her lipstick is smeared across my mouth like a bruise. How fucking poetic for us.
Nolan pokes his head in. “We’re on in five.”
She wipes the smudge with her thumb and smirks. “That’s my good boy.”
The moment I step onto the stage, heat swallows me whole.
New York’s skyline hangs like a mural behind a wall of glass.
Elegant people in black suits and silk dresses crowd around white tables, champagne flutes catching the light.
Millions of dollars are flowing in and out of this event tonight.
And that terrifies me more than a stadium ever has.
Micah counts us in.
The first note leaves me, and it’s frayed around the edges. My voice cracks on the second line, but in the good way. The way that sounds tragic and intentional. They’re all eating up this version of me that’s unraveling in real time.
I hate them for it.
Halfway through the second song, I catch Finnick’s eye. He gives me the look—the “brother eyes,” the silent plea to not push myself so hard.
Kami’s lip trembles between her singing.
Micah plays harder for me. Because he knows what’s colliding through my veins.
Nolan stands in the back with Adriana, hands clasped, nodding with sick satisfaction. When I hit the first lyric of Dark Streets, something inside me fractures.
"Dark streets whisper, 'come home, come home,'
But I don’t know which sins are mine to atone…"
My voice echoes through crystal and glass, bleeding straight into the New York night. By the time we reach the final note, I’m shaking so hard I nearly drop the mic. The crowd erupts in applause.
I want to scream.
The excited cheering and clapping follow me as security ushers us out the back exit. The night air is thick, humid, and sour with exhaust.