Page 151 of Fame & Obsession

Gage bounces a shocked stare from Tanna to me. Noticing the shift in his vision, Tanna twists back around just as I lunged forward. Pressing the tip of the device into her ribcage, I hold the button as an explosion of light and sound fills the room. She lets out a garbled cry, then falls motionless to the floor.

Cursing, Gage rushes to me and pulls me securely into his arms. “Jesus, what the hell did I walk into?”

I rest my cheek against his chest and listen to the steady beat of his heart. I pray with everything I have in me that the same one still beats inside of Julian.

“My nightmare,” I whisper before passing out.

Forty-One

Julian

As I liein a hospital bed, I keep replaying everything over and over in my head. Wondering what I could’ve done differently. Trying to decode the signs I missed. Admitting, if only to myself, that there’s only a few degrees of separation between my obsession with Phoebe and Tanna’s obsession with me.

But the more I think, the more muddled shit gets.

I’m not sure any of it will ever make sense.

But one thing’s for sure—the betrayal still fucking hurts.

I’ll never forget seeing Tanna’s twisted infatuation in its true form. That vacant look in her eyes will haunt me for a long time to come.

I would’ve been justified in taking her life. She didn’t think twice about trying to take Phoebe’s.

Tanna…

I’d counted on her friendship and support for so many months. She’d stood by me and dragged me through a dark time in my life, and the whole time she’d been plotting against me, ready to sink the blade hard and deep between my shoulders.

The only thing that stopped her was an obsession. She thought she was in love with me, and that fixation overrode all the hate she felt. She couldn’t bring herself to stab me, so she knocked me out with Harlow’s bat.

Amazingly enough, Phoebe didn’t end up killing Tanna herself. She finally used that damn stunner she always threatened me with.

I suppose what she said to me ended up being a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“Good thing I’m a law-breaking rebel girl who packs heat.”

Good thing, indeed. As it turned out, both our lives had depended on it.

By the time Hough and the NYPD got there, Tanna had started to regain consciousness so he handcuffed her on the spot. Phoebe’s moment of brilliance in recording the entire attack made Tanna’s arrest and conviction an open and shut case. Although, instead of prison, she’ll be riding out the rest of her days in a psychiatric hospital.

I hate her, but the girl needs help before she hurts someone else.

Good fucking riddance.

Since we can’t hide Tanna’s arrest from the media, thoughts of filling her spot in the band not only feels ethically and morally wrong, it scares the shit out of us.

We all trusted her with our lives. We never would’ve suspected there were so many personalities hiding inside her. The hole she’s left is deep. No amount of intel or background checks from the NYPD, the FBI, or the fucking KGB could make us trust anyone new again.

Ironically, while I’ve been brooding my life away, hating myself over Lam and opening the door wide for Tanna, my little brother, Ryker, had learned the fraternal business and could play the fuck out of a guitar. I’d been so consumed with my life that I never even knew he cared about music.

I have a lot to atone for.

By unanimous vote, we hired him on the spot. Shockingly enough, Helena didn’t put up a fight. After the dust settled, she seemed to be shaken up just as much, if not more, than the rest of us. It was her job to look out for us, and in her eyes, she failed.

Then there were the ghosts that flashed in Phoebe’s eyes as she knelt, bleeding on the floor. Would she ever be the same? How could anyone fight the same monster twice, in a different skin, and come back a whole person?

I demanded to see her in the hospital.

Luckily, she was stitched up without major surgery, and according to the doctor, would make a full recovery. Tanna’s knife only made it through the muscle. But I saw the darkness in her eyes and the dead calm of indifference.