Unfaded (Faded Duet Book 2)

by Julie Johnson

  “Are you okay?” Carly whispers, as though she’s afraid to break the silence. As though I might shatter at any moment, under the strain of the past few minutes.

  I glance at her, glance at all three of them, and try out a smile. “Actually… I am. I’m more than okay. I feel… somehow… free.”

  She throws her arms around me and squeezes so tight, I can’t breathe.

  “Carly, you’re strangling her,” Aiden points out.

  No sooner has Carly pulled away than I’m swept into Lincoln’s arms. His hold is even tighter than hers. I laugh, startled by the unexpected show of affection, and pat his back gingerly as I struggle for breath.

  “You scared the pants off me, Fee,” he mutters, arms flexing.

  “Linc, I’m fine. I promise.”

  “Give her some room to breathe, you idiot.” Aiden sounds stern enough that the drummer complies. When I’ve been released, his hand lands on my shoulder and delivers a quick, reassuring squeeze. “Glad you’re okay, Felicity.”

  I nod at him, smiling. A sudden thought makes my forehead furrow.

  “Where’s Ryder?”

  They all glance at each other, concern etched on their faces. It’s Carly who finally answers. “Honestly, we’re not sure. He wasn’t anywhere in the penthouse when we heard you were in trouble. We called him on our way down, but he isn’t answering his phone. It goes straight to voicemail.”

  Unease ripples through me, but I push it aside.

  He’s fine. I’m sure of it. Probably just went out for a pack of cigarettes, or something.

  “Wait…” My brows lift. “What do you mean, you heard I was in trouble? How did you hear?”

  Linc snorts. “More like York and Stevens heard. They got a call from Linden, who was alerted by hotel security that they’d spotted a scuffle by our tour bus on their surveillance feed. A call we happened to overhear, since they were in our suite at the time, checking for hidden cameras and shit.”

  “And you decided to be heroes?” I ask, incredulous.

  He shrugs unapologetically.

  “That wasn’t smart!” I glance around at all of them. “I can’t believe you’d all just go rushing into danger…”

  “You were in trouble,” Carly says simply.

  “We weren’t about to wait around, wringing our hands,” Linc adds. “Not when we were in a position to help.”

  “Not that you needed any.” Aiden’s voice is warm. “You, Felicity Wilde, were pretty damn badass today.”

  My eyes fill up with tears as I look around at them.

  My band.

  My friends.

  My family.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  felicity

  I’m feeling remarkably calm, after the incident with my father. At least… until we pile out of the elevator into our penthouse and find it empty.

  No Ryder.

  I don’t truly start to worry about him until the first half hour has passed. I don’t begin to panic until the one after that has slipped away.

  Where are you?

  Where are you?

  Where are you?

  Linc, Aiden, Carly, and I sit on the sectional, staring at each other in silent worry. Ryder’s phone is going straight to voicemail. Our dinner reservation has come and gone. The show is scheduled to start in three hours — soon, we’ll have to depart for the Garden.

  “Are you absolutely sure you want to play, tonight?” Carly asks, for the thousandth time.

  “Yes.” I rub my temples. “If I don’t play, my father wins. And he doesn’t get to control my life — not anymore. I’m getting on that damn stage, and I plan on giving the best mother-fudging show of my life.”

  Linc lifts his beer in a toast to my declaration.

  Aiden chain-smokes another cigarette, staring at the clock.

  With growing worry and no other options, we call the security team. They’ve scarcely finished dealing with my last crisis when I shove a new one into their laps.

  “Ryder’s missing,” I say as soon as York and Stevens step through the door. “He hasn’t been here for over an hour. I’m worried something might’ve happened to him.”

  The guards trade a meaningful glance.

  “What?” I snap. “What is it? Is he okay? Did my father— Did something happen?”

  “No, Miss Wilde.” York’s eyes are steady on mine. “Mr. Woods is fine. He was away from the hotel during the incident. Smith is with him. He’s told us to assure you all that he will be at the venue, as scheduled.”

  I blow out a breath, relief flooding me. “Oh. So… he’s okay? He’s not hurt or maimed or lying in a ditch somewhere?”

  “Not last I checked, ma’am.” Stevens’ eyes gleam. “But if you’d like us to check in with Smith for a status update, we’re happy to do so.”

  “That won’t be necessary.” I blow out a breath and plop down on the sofa, my body going limp as tension leaves me. “I’m glad he’s okay. In fact, I’m glad he wasn’t here. If he’d seen my father…” I shake my head. “He probably would’ve killed him.”

  Linc snorts. “Tortured. Then killed. In that order.”

  “Verbally berated. Then tortured. Then killed,” Aiden amends. “In that order.”

  I sigh, but don’t disagree with their somewhat dark assessment. York and Stevens are fading toward the door when I call them back.

  “Does Ryder know about what happened yet?” I ask. “Did Smith tell him?”

  “No, ma’am.” York’s eyes are intent. “We thought we’d leave that to you. But if you’d like us to call him—”

  “No!” I exclaim sharply, making everyone jump. I mellow my tone. “No. I think, honestly, it’s best if we wait to tell him about this until after the show.” I glance around at Linc, Aiden, and Carly. “Otherwise, he’s just going to flip out. And the show…”

  “He won’t play,” Carly murmurs.

  “If I know Ry, he’ll blow a fucking gasket when he hears.” Linc winces. “Still, I don’t like lying to him.”

  “Not lying,” Aiden murmurs. “Delaying the truth until a more opportune moment.”

  “So, lying,” Linc says bluntly.

  “It’s a sold-out show. In New York City. At Madison Square Garden.” Aiden’s tone never rises, but his words carry weight. “We’d be insane to cancel two hours beforehand. We’d be insane to cancel, period.”

  Lincoln grits his teeth, but doesn’t disagree.

  “We all have to be on the same page, here.” I blink at the boys. “So? Do we wait to tell him?”

  They both glance at me for a long moment, then nod.

  “We wait.”

  Standing in the dark backstage, I adjust my sparkly dress one last time and try to breathe. I can hear the swelling applause as the lights begin to dim. The crowd is growing increasingly restless as they wait for us to start — we were supposed to be out there fifteen minutes ago.

  “Where the fuck is he?” Aiden mutters, looking like he’s about to blow a gasket.

  “He’ll be here,” Carly says, her tone soothing. Without thinking, she reaches out and puts her hand on Aiden’s arm. As soon as their skin brushes, they both leap apart. Carly mutters something about checking the dressing rooms as she hurries away, cheeks aflame.

  I watch her go, brows raised.

  Lincoln snorts. “Those two get weirder every damn day.”

  Another few minutes pass, the cheers growing to a dull roar. We’re seriously considering starting without him when Ryder finally steps through the back door, Smith following him.

  “Fucking finally,” Aiden mutters, signaling to the tech crew. “He’s here, let’s get going.”

  I look into Ryder’s face as he stops beside me in the wings and know, within the first instant, that something is wrong. Terribly wrong. His eyes are rimmed with red and dark with thoughts I can’t decipher.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, grabbing his hand. It’s limp — he doesn’t lace his fingers through mine, or return my warm squeeze. “
Ryder, you’re scaring me. Look at me.”

  My breath catches as he complies. His gaze locks on my face, so empty you’d think he was staring at a stranger.

  “Tell me what’s wrong,” I say, feeling my eyes start to prick with tears. “Tell me what happened.”

  But there’s no time. The house lights go down as Linc and Aiden run out. The audience screams their approval, more than ready for us to finally start our set. The roadies are pushing us forward, signaling for us to take our spots centerstage.

  “Ryder,” I whisper in the dark, trying to keep hold of his hand. Trying to hold onto him, when I feel him slipping away from me.

  He lets go.

  When he speaks, he only says one word, his tone so devoid of hope and love and that infectious charm of his, I barely recognize it.

  “Later.”

  He’s off, that much is clear.

  At first, I think he’s drunk, or maybe high. But I’m not so sure, anymore. His words aren’t slurred. His eyes aren’t hazy. He’s simply…

  Not himself.

  I can hear it in his inflection, see it in the stiffness of his posture, the tension in his hand as he grips his guitar, the veins in his neck as he leans into his mic. As though the Ryder I know, the Ryder I love, is somehow lost, buried beneath this closed-off stranger singing beside me.

  Thankfully, the audience is so enraptured, they don’t seem to notice.

  My heart races almost as fast as my mind while we blunder through our first five songs. I can’t fathom what could’ve set him off like this. Can’t imagine what could be bad enough that he’d disappear for hours on end, blowing off our date, nearly missing our show…

  “You’re the moon, I’m the sun, stuck in distant skies…” I sing, trying to catch his eyes.

  “I’d gladly burn out, to see the light in your eyes,” he echoes, avoiding mine entirely.

  I grit my teeth and carry on. There’s no other choice, with twenty-thousand people watching our every move.

  We just have to make it through this set.

  Then we’ll deal with…

  Whatever the hell this is.

  We’re almost done, almost through… one song away from our curtain call… when someone in the front row screams, “Play Move the Stars!” during the brief interlude before Faded.

  At those words, Ryder’s whole body goes stiff. He glances at me, shakes his head, and snatches his microphone off its stand.

  “Y’all want to hear Move the Stars?” he asks the crowd, sounding nothing like himself. It’s as though someone else has overtaken his body.

  The audience screams at the top of their lungs.

  “Well…” Ryder’s eyes narrow. “Unfortunately, I’m not in the mood to sing that one tonight.”

  The crowd boos.

  Aiden, Lincoln, and I trade anxious glances.

  “Don’t worry! I have something that’ll make it up to you. I’m always the one doing solos… Why don’t we give someone else a chance?” His eyes slide over to me. His voice booms out over the speakers, totally devoid of feeling. “I think Miss Felicity Wilde might have something up her sleeve for y’all! How would you feel about that?”

  The crowd goes absolutely crazy — I never do solos.

  “Ryder!” I hiss lowly, taking a few steps toward him, a fake smile affixed to my lips. “What the hell is your problem?”

  He ignores me, leaning back into his mic. “You heard them, Felicity! They want to hear you sing!” His smile is arctic cold, his gaze burning into mine. “How ‘bout you do that new one you’ve been working on… Nineteen?”

  I don’t hear the crowd chanting my name, voicing their support.

  I don’t see the looks being traded between the bassist and the drummer.

  I just see him — the lines of grief and pain on his face, the utter desolation in his eyes, the broken twist to his smirking mouth.

  Realization crashes through me in a heartbreaking tide.

  He knows.

  I’m sure he expects me to walk off stage.

  To make some excuse, to play one of the other songs in my repertoire.

  Because the only thing that overtakes the pain on his face is the look of sheer surprise that twists his features when I adjust my guitar strap and turn to the crowd, a determined set to my shoulders.

  “You know… this song I’m about to play for y’all… I’ve never done it before.”

  They applaud like their lives depend on it, and I let the sound fill me up, buoy me along this tidal wave of pain.

  “Felicity—” Ryder whispers, but I ignore him.

  “This song is about the hardest year of my entire life. A year I lost not one love, but two.”

  The crowd’s murmurs ripple all around me.

  “I wasn’t planning to play it tonight, but I think…” I look over at Ryder, who’s standing there like a ghost — his face bloodless, his eyes hollow. “I think, sometimes, the only way to rid yourself of darkness is to shine a light.”

  They scream again, louder than ever.

  I glance at Aiden and Linc, reading the worry on their faces as I strum the first notes. They’re frozen, not knowing what to play, not knowing whether or not to improvise an accompaniment.

  I shake my head, to let them know I’m okay on my own.

  My guitar sounds lonely in the vast arena — my chords frail and fleeting as butterfly wings as they fly out over the hushed crowd. I smile, though my heart is in a thousand kinds of pain, lean into the mic, and let the words fly straight from my soul.

  Lying here, this empty bed

  Broken crown upon my head

  The king, he’s gone

  Our realm in ruins

  Wish you’d listened when I said…

  I look straight at Ryder. A tear tracks down my cheek.

  I never wanted to be queen

  Never wanted anything but you

  Now the kingdom’s torn up at the seams

  And this is too much pain, too much pain

  For nineteen…

  Everyone in the audience has pulled out their cellphone and lit it up. Their arms sway to the beat, a sea of stars, as I serenade them with my darkest secrets.

  Crying here, the world aflame

  No one but ourselves to blame

  A heart of holes

  A soul of sorrow

  No amount of time can tame…

  I sing the chorus again, louder this time, my voice going ragged as the words pour out in a flood.

  I never wanted to be queen

  Never wanted anything but you

  Now the kingdom’s torn up at the seams

  And this is too much pain, too much pain

  For nineteen…

  Ryder never looks away, but his face is taut with tension. He knows what’s coming next.

  The last part.

  The hardest part.

  Dying here, can’t make a sound

  No trace of our crowns around

  Cursed my throne

  Since that day I

  Buried our heir in the ground

  My voice decrescendos to almost a whisper. The audience leans in, enraptured, shattered. I can see the girls in the front row wiping tears away as I sing the last lines.

  No king, no prince

  Just a broken queen

  At nineteen…

  As I watch, a single, glistening tear streaks down Ryder’s face. I watch it roll from the corner of his blue-brown eye, over his chiseled cheek, past his stubbled mouth. I watch it hit the ground.

  Splat.

  “Thank you,” I say to the crowd in a voice I don’t even recognize.

  Turning, I walk off stage, into the wings, leaving behind the thunderous crowd, my loyal bandmates, and the man I love.

  I don’t look back.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  ryder

  I stand there in the spotlight, broken.

  Watching the love of my life walk away and cursing myself for my own reckless anger. I never would�
�ve brought up the song, if I thought for a single second that she’d actually play it. I heard the crowd call out for Move the Stars and something inside me just… snapped. I couldn’t spend one more instant on this stage, harmonizing with her, without her knowing I’d discovered her secret. The one she’s been hiding from me for weeks.

  For months.

  For years.

  I couldn’t smile and sing about our perfect love, pretending that I don’t know about our baby.

  Our son.

  Our almost-prince.

  Hearing her sing those lyrics… it was so much worse than stumbling across the words in her notebook. Whatever hurt I felt at her deception, whatever anger I experienced when I realized she’s been keeping this from me, whatever rage I endured as I asked myself whether or not she knew, when she walked out on me, that our child was growing inside her…

  All that paled in comparison to her pain. Her anguish. Her grief.

  What the hell have I done?

  I turn to the crowd, feeling like I might drown under the weight of all my mistakes, and clear my throat.

  “Thank you so much for coming out tonight, New York!”

  Their applause turns to confusion when I turn and walk off stage without finishing the set. I hear a wave of indignation breaking behind me as complaints start hurling from the front row all the way to the nosebleeds.

  BRING BACK FELICITY!

  WILD-WOOD! WILD-WOOD!

  PLAY FADED!

  ENCORE!

  WE WANT FADED!

  I tune them out. I don’t give a shit what they want. What they need.

  Right now, the only thing that matters is Felicity.

  Racing into the wings, I scan every face backstage, seeking golden eyes and long, dark hair, but I can’t find her anywhere. I’m about to run for her dressing room when I smack straight into Carly. She’s trembling with anger as she stares at me.