The set had gone as smoothly as any had. Dressed to the nines with Liv’s help and with the perfect music, it made for a flawless evening. Though I had watched Liv interact with Jonas without a hitch across the room, I couldn’t help but feel a thread of uneasiness wrap its little tendrils tightly around my chest as I struggled to fight off the anxiety building in me. Only the music had calmed my uncertainty, that and Saul’s constant reassurances.
“She’s an adult. How long before you let her go?” He’d leaned into my ear and whispered loud enough for me to hear over the loud club music thumping in the background. I didn’t need him to tell me such an obvious observation, but he didn’t know Liv like I did. Yes, she was grown up. No, we weren’t nine anymore, when tragedy struck and left the remains of embedded scars forever tattooed across our souls, but that was beside the point. Liv could tread into the fire so easily, without a second glance behind, burning her very soul at the same time. It wasn’t until afterwards, when her ship had sank and her heart lay in tatters of a thousand shredded ribbons across the floor, did she come running back, begging me to pick up each and every little shard.
“There is no letting go, not when you’re in this deep,” I whispered back. I turned and almost bumped noses with Saul. His faded blue eyes looked through me, but I could feel his soul bearing the weight of concern onto me. Funny, his eyes may not be the windows to his spirit, but their ghostly shadows still amplified the soul within. “She’s like that. She jumps in full throttle and goes until she crashes and burns. It’s not that she can’t handle it. It’s not that she can’t live another day after it all goes down. It’s that she takes me down with her. She drags me in, no matter how hard I try and fight it with every little morsel of my being. Somehow I get dragged into it. Somehow it ends up on my shoulders. Yes, I’m tired of it, and no, I shouldn’t let her grip onto me so hard I can’t shove her off, but that’s the way we are. She’s my sister. I have to protect her.”
“Do you really know what you’re protecting her from, or are you doing it for reasons that don’t exist anymore?”
Why did he have to push so hard? If I wanted psychoanalysis of why I did things, it sure as hell wouldn’t be with some stranger I barely knew. I pressed my lips together and turned away, slamming the amp chord into Liv’s acoustic guitar. I lowered it to its stand on the stage and jumped up to thread the amp’s power cord toward the plugs against the wall. Saul stopped being so philosophical, and I moved back to the busy work that kept me sane−setting up the instruments for the show. We would be up in less than five, and I was the kind of girl that liked to have everything perfect.
“Liv!” I spotted her heading toward the stage. Jonas’ hungry eyes followed her the whole way there too. My temper seethed, but I swallowed it back and handed her some guitar picks. “Cutting it close, aren’t you?”
“Oh, untwist your granny panties, Sis. I was just warming him up.”
She turned to search the crowd, landing on Jonas and his somber bunch. She waved to the man, and he gave her curt nod, a grin warming his face. He was the only one not frowning in the bunch, and their cool, stony glares turned my blood cold.
“They look like they’re at a funeral.”
“His friends don’t really have any kind of personality.”
I glanced again at his comrades and shuddered. “The guy next to Jonas, who’s he?” I fixed my eyes on the one glaring at Liv. He seriously gave me the creeps. His features were similar to Jonas’ but more rounded and youthful. Where time had carved out their leader’s features, it had not touched this one yet. Only the hardened soul underneath gave away the death and destruction he could wield. Seriously wacked.
“Oh, that’s Emilio. I think he’s Jonas’ younger brother, but I don’t remember if he’s the youngest or second youngest.” She shrugged. “He’s got a big family.” Liv waved it off like it was no big deal. She leaned over her guitar after she’d dragged some slack for the cord over to the stool she would use during the performance. She quickly tuned it by ear and strummed the strings softly, unheard beyond the stage due to the overbearing thrum of house music.
“You sure know a lot about him for just deciding to go out with him. His brother looks like he’s forgotten how to party.”
She chuckled. “He probably has. I really do my research, Sis. Just haven’t gotten to him yet.”
“Why the fuck does he give me the heebie geebies, Liv? I thought Jonas was scary, but that one has him beat hands down. I don’t like this.” I felt my anxiety blossoming in my stomach like an over indulged meal.
“Relax. It’s show time, Sis.”
So that’s how she left me hanging, mumbling curses at her reluctance to give me the Intel here. I turned and found my own stool, and then pulled the tambourines from the table behind me. I would squeeze the info out of her later when we had a moment to ourselves—later, when the hungry vultures in the crowd weren’t drooling at us like pieces of bloody meat. Yes, that would be better. That would be when there’d be only us to talk to each other amongst the stars in the middle of darkness.