by KT Strange
“You mean we wouldn’t be anywhere if you hadn’t pressured an intern into taking her band on tour with you, so you could get in her pants.” I turned on him, crossing my arms. God, I hated him. His face. The stupid way he slicked back his hair in one of those good-ol’-boy timey-wimey bullshit pretend-50’s Leave-It-To-Beaver haircuts. If I’d run into him back in the day, me and the pack would have hauled him into the alley behind a milkshake parlor and given him a few black eyes. He was the kind of guy who pinched girls on the ass then pretended like it was a joke. He acted like he owned every woman he looked at, like they should be grateful for his pawing hands and roaming eyes.
He had no idea what it was like to love a woman and have her love you back, for her to ask you to do things to her, instead of just taking what you wanted from her.
“Big words from the guy fucking his manager,” Jake said. “Or is it the whole band fucking her?” I snarled. “Sorry, didn’t you know? That’s rough. Your own brothers-in-arms making time with your girl.”
Something in me snapped. I took a step forward and fear flickered over Jake’s face for a split second.
No.
I couldn’t do this. I wanted to wreck his pretty face, but that would be giving him what he wanted in a roundabout way. He wanted me to lose it. The skin on the back of my neck crawled.
“We see you watching her,” I said softly instead. “Now you think that you can do whatever the fuck you want, because you’re Jake Fucking Tupper. Well, let me tell you, the world is not a safe place for guys like you anymore.” The corner of my mouth quirked up. “You keep dogging her steps, stalking her shadow? And it’s not just me who you’re going to have to answer to. You keep pushing the line, and I know that she ‘aint the first girl you’ve harassed, and it’ll all come out, all of it. You want that? I’ll see your name in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, and I’ll still have my girl, and my band. By the time we’re done with our first round at the Grammy’s, the world will have forgotten all about you and your shitty music.”
Jake’s face had gone slowly pale from my words, and even though I was making shit up and guessing, I’d hit closer to home than I’d realized.
There were other girls. Shit.
I was sure of it now. That thought made me even angrier. Darcy was strong, she had her powers, and she had us. What about those other girls that he’d probably laid his hands on? Who did they have in their corner? The thought made me sick to my stomach.
“You don’t know anything,” his voice broke, half-squeaking through the words. I laughed, but it was a joyless sound.
“You better hope you’re right,” I replied, and kicked the door to the green room open. “Stay the fuck away from Darcy. I don’t need to touch you to knock you flat on your back.”
“Alright you guys, you better be good,” Darcy said, leaning up to straighten the collar of my shirt. She’d made me wear a button down, but hell if I minded since I got to cop a feel or two while she’d been doing it up on me. There was something nice about being dressed by our girl, almost domestic. Made my stomach all warm.
“We’re always good,” Ace said, pulling on his jacket. We were parked outside the offices of the second largest radio station in the country, ready to go in and make nice. They were interviewing us live on air and had been playing our single for the last week on heavy rotation. My heart thudded in my throat at the thought. Heavy fucking rotation. My voice, our song, belting out on the airwaves almost every other hour. I felt like I was high, and it was even better because I was sharing that feeling with the pack and Darcy. I leaned down to kiss her before Ace tugged her away for his own kiss. She sighed.
“You’re going to make me mess up your clothes.” She kissed him again anyway, and Charlie pulled her in for a big hug after.
“We’re rock stars. We’re supposed to look all disheveled. It’s our thing,” he said until she squirmed, and he let her go. Eli stepped out of the van, a look of amusement on his face. My twin was really starting to loosen up. Cash helped Darcy down, holding her hand as she clambered down the steps to the pavement.
“Hey there, Phoenixcry.” Jake Tupper said from behind us as we started walking toward the studio. I turned, my arm coming up, my body wanting to shield Darcy from him even if it was broad daylight, on a street in the middle of a busy city, and he probably had no plans to make any sort of move. Jake’s eyes followed my move as I glared at him.
“What’s he doing here?” Cash asked, staring Jake down. He came up to stand beside me, blocking the man’s view from Darcy entirely.
“I’m sitting in on the interview,” Jake said. “The programmer here is an old friend of mine.”
“That’s nice. Maybe you two can exchange stories about what an asshole you still are,” Charile’s voice was neutral, and he wore an easy, inoffensive grin as he also stepped up. “Maybe you can give him some tips on stalking.”
“Guys,” Darcy poke me in the back. “Let’s go. I don’t pay attention to Jake and neither should you.”
Jake sneered and stormed past us. He was wearing a pretentious pair of leather cowboy boots. If he’d ever seen a horse in his life, I’d be surprised. Darcy watched him go with a shake of her head.
It was Eli who put an arm over her shoulders, his acoustic guitar case in his other hand.
“He’s a waste of space.”
“So ignore the waste,” she said, looking up at Eli. He sighed, and we started walking into the building. Checking in and getting our ID tags pinned to our shirts took a minute, and then Darcy got called off to talk to their charity coordinator about some signed merch we were donating.
“I’ll meet you up in the control room,” she said with a smile as she waved us off. I hesitated for a moment, but Eli quirked his hand at me to join the rest of the band as they walked to the elevator.
“She’s fine,” he said as the soft noise of the elevator surrounded us, bringing us up to the 5th floor. “She can take care of herself.”
“Mm,” I replied, not really wanting to agree but knowing he was right. We settled down in the control room, waiting for our interviewer to come in. The space was small, acoustic baffling on the walls making it very quiet, and the windows were triple glazed to keep the sound out. We exchanged looks with one another. This was our first radio thing and I jiggled my leg to fight off the nerves. Why was I nervous? I could manage a crowd. I could manage a battlefield. I could handle hunters. Minutes passed by, and I looked at the clock. Cash was restless in his seat, flicking through his phone and meeting my gaze every so often.
Jake breezed by the door, pausing to glance in at us before moving on. Then the alarm sounded.
Eli was up out of his seat before any of us, and to the door.
“It’s fine, it’s fine!!!” A man in a suit and tie was at the elevator. I hear the alarm go off again, and realized it was coming from the elevator. “Can someone call the fire department?”
Charlie crowded behind me.
“What the fuck is that?”
“Somebody’s stuck in the elevator.” A woman was on her cellphone, her other ear pressed to the door of the elevators.
“Not somebody,” Ace said, checking his phone. “Darcy.” I looked at him, thinking that I had misheard him.
“Darcy?”
“Yeah, she’s on the first floor, but the um,” Ace bit his lip and cleared his throat. “She thinks she…” He leaned in close, and the rest of us turned to him. He lowered his voice, “She thinks she shorted out the elevator when she pressed the button to come up here.”
Twenty-Eight
Darcy
The call button console on the elevator had melted. The plastic buttons were cracked, and smoke had puffed up, curling around the top of the elevator.
My powers? Well, they’d gone haywire. For no reason. One second I was reaching out to press the button for the tenth floor, the next, my back hit the ground and plastic was crackling and sparkling.
The alarm button was melted too, beside
s, I didn’t want to touch anything. My heart was hammering in my throat, as I held my hands out in front of me.
Something was wrong with me. I’d never been able to so much as spark up before, and now I was calling lightning, murdering people, and frying electronics. As the smoke drifted upward, the alarm set off, and the noise pierced my ears, reverberating in my skull. I clapped my hands over my ears and huddled down in the corner of the elevator.
The alarm cut out and I fished my phone out of my pocket and texted Ace.
You okay?! Was his immediate response.
I’m good just broke the elevator. I’m so sorry. My powers just kinda… yeah. Fried.
My phone was quiet for a few minutes. In the silence, banging started up.
“Are you safe in there? Can you answer me?” the voice was muffled through the doors.
“I’m good! Just stuck! The elevator control panel fried!” I shouted back, settling on the floor again. I heard some cursing and the sound of someone calling 911. Oh god, they were calling the fire brigade. I texted Ace.
I am never going to live this down ever.
It’s okay, Darcy, it’s not like you meant to.
That was the problem. I hadn’t meant to. I hadn’t even really ‘meant to’ when it came to the hunter that had attacked Ace. There was a whole bunch of things I wasn’t meaning to do, and they all came back to my lightning powers. I was out of control.
A pit of dread was forming in my stomach. What was happening to me? If my grandmother had been alive…
Except she wasn’t.
I took a deep breath to calm down and tried to center myself before my racing thoughts really got out of control and I started sparking up and frying more things.
In the far distance, the sound of a firetruck siren wailed. I got to my knees, and then my feet. Hopefully, they’d be able to get me out soon.
There was more banging, and my phone buzzed.
We’ve been told the firefighters are here to get you out.
Oh good, I’ve always had a thing for firefighters. Maybe I’ll find a new boyfriend or five, I texted back.
That’s not funny, was Ace’s response, but he added a few smiley faces so I figured he knew I was just trying to keep things light.
There was a cracking noise at the doors, and I stood back. Freedom was hopefully a few seconds away.
Cash’s jacket wrapped around my shoulders as I sat in the production room of the radio station, finally freed. I was a little worse for wear, maybe, but I was good enough to sit, watching the band through the glass viewing window as they did their radio interview. Too bad my mind was anywhere but in that room. My nerves fizzed away. When were my powers going to flare out of control again? Sometimes it made sense- when I was startled, or scared, but I hadn’t been either of those things in the elevator.
“So tell me what’s inspired you most with your debut album?” The radio DJ, a guy called Eric Fenton that wore too much cologne and who’s mustache was actually waxed for God’s sake, had been asking the most basic questions possible. So far my guys were doing great, not letting my elevator emergency disturb them all too much.
Charlie was leaning on the arm of his chair, his chin in his hand. He wasn’t doing all that much talking and neither was Ace. Most of the responsibility for that was falling on Finn and Cash’s shoulders, with Eli interjecting every so often.
“I think we wanted to write songs about feeling good,” Finn answered, glancing at Cash. “Life’s tough enough as it is, music’s gotta be about pushing the envelope, but also about feeling good. We wanna write about how we feel when we’re playing music, doing shows, that kind of thing.”
Eric’s mouth spread into a wide grin showing too many teeth.
“So no deep politics for you guys? Nothing about the war, or police brutality in your lyrics?” Eric gazed from Cash to Eli and back to Finn. Cash cleared his throat.
“I think there’s a lot of white rocker dude-bros already talking about the big things. Maybe we just wanna write about the girls we’ve loved, also personal loss, y’know, the small everyday things, life stuff.” Cash relaxed in his chair, but his blue eyes were trained on Eric. Cash’s lashes fluttered, just so, and I wondered what he was thinking.
“Makes sense. I heard you’ve been doing some touring with Chelsea Sawyer, although she’s not playing dates. Buzz is that she’s going to all your shows. It would make sense, if one of you was dating her, you wouldn’t want to talk bad about candy-floss pop like she writes.” There was an edge in Eric’s voice, and the way he was shifting his eyes between the guys made me think he was looking for them to spill some sort of gossip. I held my breath. This was their first radio spot, and they needed to not fuck it up, even if Fenton was being kind of a dick.
“Chelsea Sawyer is a sweet person, and she writes songs that mean something to her,” Cash said, a smile on his face and a bite in his voice.
“So no tales of lovesick songwriting sessions between you guys to talk about?” Eric pressed on. Eli leaned forward and cocked an eyebrow.
“Even if there was someone in the band who had a thing with someone like Miss Sawyer, I don’t think we’d be talking about it right now.” Eli put his hand lightly on the desk, but the message was clear: move on. Eric’s shoulders straightened, and his expression was strained.
“Your boys are making a scene,” Jake’s voice over my shoulder made me jump, and one of the show producers, sitting a few feet from me, glared at us both.
“They’re fine,” I said through gritted teeth. Jake chuckled and put his hand on my arm. I froze, the breath stealing out of my lungs. Creston, his hands on me… the hunter, flashes of blue and white, and the roaring warmth of lightning as it crawled up my spine and exploded out of my hands-
I jerked away and stood up.
“I need some water,” I said as the producer closest to me glared again. Jake’s gaze on me was heated as I pushed past him and left the room.
“Hey-“ Jake was following me. I turned, and glared at him, stopping him right in his tracks. “Darcy-“
“No,” I said shortly. “Whatever this thing is you think is happening between us? It’s not happening. It was never happening.” I couldn’t help it. Deep down, the frightening swell of power was starting up. Breathe, breathe!
“Darcy.” Jake’s expression went from irritated to contrite instantly. “What did I do wrong? You seem to hate me all of the sudden.”
Anger flashed in front of my vision.
“Maybe making a creepy-ass Twitter account, posting sneaky little pictures of me when I wasn’t looking.” I crossed my arms. Jake was taken aback, and he paused for a moment, clearing his throat.
“I-“
“Don’t lie about it. I know it was you. Shara told me what you were up to.”
His face darkened, his mouth pulling down into a frown. I was grateful we were alone in the hallway, and that the radio station employees weren’t around to witness this little meltdown. I didn’t need it getting back to Willa that I’d confronted Jake, even though I was pretty sure that privately she would congratulate me while professionally needing to rake me over the coals.
“Well,” Jake cleared his throat. “I guess an apology is probably in order.”
I nearly stepped back in surprise.
“Uh, yeah. That would be good,” I recovered quickly, but his frown quirked into a smile.
“What, didn’t think I could admit when I was wrong?” he asked. “I’m not a monster.”
Yes, you are, my instincts screamed. Maybe he wasn’t a monster like hunters or even Creston, but there was no doubt in my mind that Jake Tupper was a monster in his own right. The silent kind that you saw coming but couldn’t do anything about. The only thing I needed to do right then was make him go away. Monsters like Jake were only fixed by taking yourself out of their sphere.
“I accept your apology,” I said brusquely.
“Is that it, Darcy?” His voice dropped a half-octave, going husky. “Is that
all you got for me?” He moved closer.
“I’m not sure exactly what you’re looking for here, Jake.” My skin was tingling. I needed to get out of there.
“Finn’s got you wrapped all around his finger, huh? Damn shame. He’s gonna drop you as soon as your internship is done, or they get bigger, which they seem to already be doing.” Jake reached for me suddenly, fingers caressing the side of my face.
I jerked back to avoid his touch, nearly stumbling over a potted plant that was snugged up against the wall.
“You seriously need to stop,” I spat, my heart thumping in my throat and my ears. My powers were now shuddering through me, on the edge of control, and I knew if he touched me again I’d spark up.
“Mr. Tupper?” a voice at the end of the hall made him turn around, and it gave me a second to catch my breath. The wave of lightning crackling under my skin, making my fingertips burn, seemed to hold its breath, waiting on me.
A tall, pretty blonde woman was at the end of the hall, walking toward us with a clipboard in her hand. I think her name was Susan. She’d been one of the first to go over the schedule of the day with me when they’d finally pried me out of the elevator.
“Susan,” Jake drawled, tugging her name like taffy being pulled. Susan’s cheeks went pink as he smiled at her, his shoulders straightening. “Whatcha got for me?”
“Um, there are some CDs that we’d like you to sign for a giveaway we’re doing next week to celebrate your next single,” Susan said. She glanced at me, standing right behind Jake. Her lips parted. “Oh! Darcy, if you don’t mind, I have some posters as well and…” She pushed past Jake. He frowned.
“Posters?” I tried to look only at Susan, but I could see that frown on Jake’s face getting deeper and wider.
“The label sent over posters to us for Phoenixcry to sign, we have a bunch of fans here in the office, and me personally, wow, I’m a huge fan.” She tapped her fingers on the clipboard, a nervous little beat.