Page 44 of Nevermore
I can barely draw a single lungful of air but I don’t need it.
The seductive draw of the haunting melody fills every cell in my body, it gives me life all on its own, and practically puts me in a trance while it pulls me toward them.
My boys.
The four corners of my tired mind, the four pieces of my bruised heart, the four elements that make up my battered soul.
My fucking boys.
They’re all at their posts, their eyes gleaming with hope, the music resonating off of them like the goddamn rays of the sun, and their instruments mere extensions of the beauty and spirit pouring out of each of them.
The song draws to a close just as quickly as it began, Norm’s voice slowly fading, and I’m left feeling hollow, aching at the silence that will follow.
And I don’t want that.
I don’teverwant the silence again.
I step up to the microphone in the middle of the semi-circle they created, the position that allows me to face all of them while they surround me, while I let them swallow me whole.
My fingers tremble as I run them up the stand, barely touching the mic itself before I glance at Lucky.
His smile is beautiful, and full of so much love. So much fucking love and pride, so much blind faith; faith in something I owe to him, to them, and to myself.
“So, what do you say, Miss Murder?” Mark’s voice booms from the speaker next to him but almost as quickly as the words leave his lips, his smile falls and all the color drains from his face.
Mark gave me that nickname years ago, almost all the way back to the beginning of us after he watched me beat the ever-loving shit out of a girl who had gone through Lucky’s stuff backstage and threw off his routine so badly he almost had a panic attack.
Which he did not ever have before that night.
Lucky has pre and post-show rituals, and he can’t play if he doesn’t get the pre-show ones in before we go on. They aren’t super intense but they are important, and most of them pertain to being a germaphobe.
This chick had touched all of his clothes. She rubbed them on her neck so her perfume stuck to them, she used his deodorant and hairbrush, and she stuck her worn panties in the pocket of his jeans.
I don’t know what exactly it was that she was trying to achieve but Lucky freaked out over the germs and started excessively washing his handsaftersetting all of his stuff, including the duffle bag, in the sink full of bleach. That bitch threw him off so bad that he was almost in tears and hyperventilating.
I beat the hell out of her, threw her out, pushed our start time back by an hour while Pete and I sat and held Lucky until he was calm enough for me to take him home to get everything he needed to start over.
The nickname stuck after I started to rack up altercation after altercation—all of which revolved around one of them for one reason or another—and because I would apparently get amurderouslook on my face whenever I fought and occasionally when I sang, it became pretty permanent. I even had a steady stream of fans who started calling me that as well. But now, now the nickname has a whole new meaning.
At least I figure that’s what Mark is thinking now while he looks at me like he just punched me in the tit instead of only using a pet name.
I smile at him and squeeze his arm as I walk past him, heading to the part of my apartment I’ve actively tried to avoid for years. I always loved that Mark called me that, I wore the name like a badge of honor, and it felt like that made me areal part of the band. That first nickname made me feel like they accepted me for all my flaws and shortcomings along with everything else I brought to the table.
After the shit that went down three years ago, that name is more of a reality than before, so it would be ridiculous to change it.
Call it a bit of morbid irony.
My eyes scan the rows of instruments, obviously organized by Lucky, their sections clear and divided by family and again by size. I reach for my old acoustic and smile at him, appreciating his quirky OCD’s just as much as I appreciate the rest of him.
How that man lived with Pete and Mark for seven years is completely beyond me. I may be a tornado but they can be straight up slobs. Honestly, I’ve never been able to understand how any of them managed to live together in any combination and still survive. It’s pretty impressive actually, and it made touring real interesting.
I know they’re all trying to get me to remember that.
I might want—needthem back in my life, but this is their way of reciprocating that. All four of them are showing me that they need me just as much, and I won’t lie and say it doesn’t do something to me.
So, I meet each of their anxious stares briefly before hopping onto the stool, tuning my guitar, and answering Mark’s question,theirquestion the only way I know how.
Once I started playing,it was game over.
