“Calm down. You’re going to be all right,” Riya Natrajan yells, her voice a whisper among the panicked crowd. She kneels next to Brandy Shafer, one of her backup singers going on four years. Brandy could have been her own star with a face and moves like she’s got, but for some reason that Riya will never understand, she’s never had the confidence to step out of the shadows. To be fair, it’s not like she ever encouraged the young woman to do anything of the sort—in fact, she’s probably done a lot to add to the girl’s lack of confidence—but now isn’t the time to worry over such trivialities.
A thousand cuts cover Brandy’s writhing body, her skin a sea of blood and shards of glass. Riya plucks the glass from Brandy’s wounds, then pulls her in tight and sings her sweet lullabies as she begins the healing process. She sings out of necessity—it’s an emergency pressure release valve for the pain. She’d been hoarding it before, so stingily that she couldn’t control her voice once she finally did release, and now Brandy and countless others are suffering because of it.
In the midst of the chaos, Adam Patel scrambles onto the stage. He crouches down beside her. “Oh, thank God you’re all right,” he says to her, then cringes at the sight.
“We’re fine,” Riya Natrajan says as she devours the worst of Brandy’s wounds, then begins to mend the gashes in her skin. “But there are plenty of others who aren’t.”
“And you intend to help them?” Adam scoffs. “Come on. This place is falling apart. Your fans are behaving like maniacs. We need to get you to safety.”
“Shhh . . .” Riya says into Brandy’s ear, squeezing her tight. “There’re no cuts. It’s just blood. Just blood.”
Brandy calms some, sits up under her own will, then examines her skin for herself. Her arms tremble as she holds them out.
“How do you feel?” Riya Natrajan asks.
“I was cut,” Brandy’s voice snags in her throat. “I was cut,” she says again in disbelief, then starts to weep at Riya’s feet.
Riya Natrajan pulls her close, avoiding Adam’s intense stare. “Not anymore.” She helps Brandy up. “Come with me.”
“Yes!” Adam yells. “Let’s get out of this madhouse.” He wedges his way between the women and pushes them toward backstage, but Riya Natrajan digs her heels in.
“There are people hurting out there, Adam. I can help them. I can heal them.”
“Come on, Riya.” Adam tugs at her again, and when she doesn’t budge, he wraps his arms around her and starts dragging her. “You’ll thank me when you come down from whatever you’re tripping on.”
Riya Natrajan rakes the heel of her stiletto into Adam’s shin. He collapses to the ground, cussing her a thousand names. “You staked your career on believing in me,” she grates at him. “Why can’t you do the same now?”
The hurt is brimming in his eyes, and it takes everything she’s got not to pull it out of him. The thing about pain is, sometimes it teaches a lesson—it teaches you not to stick your hand on a hot stove, and it teaches you not to cross a friend who’s got nothing to lose.
“I’m sorry,” Riya says. “This is just something I need to do. Take care of yourself, Adam.”
And with Brandy’s help, Riya Natrajan attends to their fallen comrades onstage, two dancers and another backup singer. There are more out there in need of help, but even Riya’s miracles can’t convince Brandy to leave the relative safety to venture out into that hell. So the pop star makes her way to the edge of the stage alone. She presses her way through the surging crowd, pushing and shoving and trying not to end up trampled into a pulp, oh, like this poor girl.
Riya Natrajan bends down, keeping one arm outstretched against the flow of people. The body isn’t much more than a sack of crushed bones, face bruised beyond recognition. Riya puts her hands on the girl’s body, digging deep for any sign of pain, any sign of life. But there’s nothing, not even a sliver. And she isn’t the only one. Everywhere Riya looks, bodies serve as mere speed bumps under her fleeing fans. This isn’t happening. She tugs the body into her arms, pulls harder for the pain.
“Mama, she’s gone,” comes Rife’s voice out of nowhere. He lays a comforting hand on Riya Natrajan’s shoulder. She turns and weeps a thousand tears into his chest. Then all at once she pulls back, her eyes hot like coals, sinking deeply into his.
“This blood is on your hands!”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” Rife says, words sticking in his throat like he’d swallowed a fist full of stones. “Please, come with me. We don’t have much time.”
Before she can protest, Rife lays one hand on her and she feels a sudden dizziness. Her ears pop like there’s been a sharp change in pressure, only she feels that way head to toe. The roar of the crowd is still there, only now it sounds as if it’s coming over a tin can and string. And it smells clean, sterile. It smells like nothing.
There’s a guy coming, a big guy, a brooder in gray combat boots up to his knees, and a dull green trench coat that could sleep four to six people if pitched properly. He doesn’t see her, still crouched. She waves at him, screams at him to go around, but he keeps stepping, getting pushed so hard from behind, he couldn’t stop if he’d wanted to. Riya braces for impact. He takes a step, his big boot landing right on her thigh. She waits for pain, only there is none. The brooder’s foot goes straight through her, and as he continues, goes right through Rife as well, without stirring a single hair on his head—like they’re invisible, like they’re ghosts.
Chapter 36
Stoker
In the privacy of his dressing room—that’s right, his own dressing room—Stoker dances to the bootleg video his alpha bot had captured of his performance. The angle is bad and the image is fuzzy, but the notes he hits are like velvety pillows of angst. In the video and in his mind alike live the fervor of his audience, cheering and screaming his name. Well, maybe not his name, but the one on the door of his dressing room.
He closes his eyes and lets the sounds of budding fame fill his soul. His mind wanders to a reality where Felicity Lyons has got more fans than God, and lyrics that heal every aching heart on this planet. Stoker can’t contain his delusions, nor does he even try. This is what he was born to do, and there’s no longer any doubt lingering in his mind. The realization is orgasmic, his nerves sitting on edge all at once. Stoker shudders, then he cranks the alpha bot’s volume to maximum and relives the greatest moment of his life again and again until a subtle movement from the corner of his dressing room snatches his attention.
The leaves of a potted palm tree rattle, a tree he doesn’t remember being there earlier when he was prepping for his set. He approaches slowly, shifting his weight to remove his left stiletto without breaking stride. Stoker parts the fronds carefully and is greeted by the mesmerizing hiss of a green snake nearly as long as his arm. Its head undulates from side to side, and Stoker quickly finds himself rapt. Can’t look away.
But he’s not scared. There’s something familiar about its eyes.
“Mother?” he ventures aloud, the word tasting ridiculous as it leaves Stoker’s mouth, but his mind accepts it with ease.
You defied me, her voice slithers directly into his brain with an inflection that can’t be interpreted as anything except disappointment. How could you so blatantly disrespect the wishes of your own mother?