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The route to The Pour House was quickly becoming one of her favorites over the past few weeks, which was saying a lot in such a small town.

Not only that, but the band’s music was really starting to grow on her since she first heard it a month ago. She thought that if she really wanted to, she could sing Lay It Down word for word.

She always looked forward to their gigs. They made up for the ones in Bellevue that she couldn’t go to and saved her from self-seclusion away from her parents, who seemed to be growing extra interested in her recent outings. Outings she would never tell them the full details of.

However, her parents had eyes all over this town, and she was learning that she had to be more and more careful these days.

“Janelle!”

Nell pulled the brake and skidded to a stop on the sidewalk at the sound of her name coming from the grocery store parking lot. She found the old, white-haired Mrs. Dubois with her fake Midwestern niceties waddling over to her.

“Janelle! Hello!”

Nell forced a tight smile on and held the handlebars tighter. If she let go, she might give the impression she planned on staying.

She used to be friendly with Mrs. Dubois before her glances turned sour and captious.

The old woman was once her Sunday school teacher—for both her and Minnie when they were eight years old.

“Hi, Mrs. Dubois.”

“I’m so glad I caught you. I’ve been running into all sorts of people today.”

Nell recalled the way the woman glared at her each Sunday, and the sweet smile on her face was the scariest thing about her. Nell knew there had to be some hidden venom there waiting to strike.

She shifted on the seat, unsure what to expect. “That’s nice.”

“Oh yes,” she said. “I just ran into Emilia Francisco, right inside while buying burgers for this weekend’s barbecue.”

Nell stilled as ice froze her veins.

She knew Mrs. Dubois noticed her reaction because her sweet smile grew sweeter, while Nell’s stomach turned.

“Poor thing,” the woman continued. “I haven’t seen her out in months. She hasn’t been able to leave since Minnie’s death, and how could she? Even I’ve a hard time moving on.”

She put her hand on her heart and tsked as if she were gossiping with other nosy neighborhood women and not Minnie Francisco’s best friend. But Mrs. Dubois knew that. That’s why she’d brought it up.

She wanted to see Nell’s reaction because how else would she have material to gossip about with her nasty neighbors?

People couldn’t stand seeing Nell anymore.

But they really couldn’t stand that she was out and about, getting better—she thought—and smiling every once in a while. They must be able to sense her changes, even if they didn’t know why.

Her mother must have told them Nell had friends, and no, they couldn’t let her forget what had happened to her last friends.

They refused to let her forget she was the reason they were dead.

Mrs. Dubois’s stare was intense, boring into Nell.

Bile rose in Nell’s throat. She might be sick—right here on this sidewalk, all over the nasty woman’s shoes. Words and defenses tried to arrange into something coherent, but it was hard to come up with excuses and responses when you couldn’t find any.

She used to be so good with her words, always knowing the right way to respond to a compliment or turn insults into sugar. She hated herself for losing those guts.

She turned away from Mrs. Dubois and pedaled off and away. The wind hitting her face was the only thing keeping the bile down.

“Well, I never . . .” Mrs. Dubois’ voice faded into the background the further Nell got and the louder the ringing in her ears became. “Incredibly rude.”

Mrs. Dubois had a new story to tell.

Let them talk. They would do it anyway.

Nell kept on her original path because, right now, she could think of nowhere else to go.

As much as she loved those gigs, her mind might have become too foggy to hear the music.

But it was that or be alone, and she found being alone a much worse fate when there was someone there who would hear her even when she couldn’t hear him. As much as she would love to dissolve into a wisp of smoke, the thought of Barrett was just as addicting.

Plus, the drinks that came with the trip would help with the tightening in her chest.

She pulled to a stop in front of The Pour House a little too fast, almost falling to the ground. Whatever coordination she had left was still intact, and she managed to just drop her bike and hobble into the smoky bar.

The bartender, whose name she thought was Erik, immediately pulled out the beer she normally ordered and informed her—through the cloud in her head—that it would be added to the band tab, as per usual. She took it and nodded a thank you before moving to her table in the back corner.

The regulars she had begun to associate with the setting barely acknowledged her, but the growing number of girls who had been showing up for the past few shows were watching her too, she realized. She never did talk to them.

They must have worked out her association with the band and taken it upon themselves to despise her for it, but at least they did it quietly.

The last thing she wanted was more attention.

She downed half of the bottle on the first go, and within minutes, it seemed to start working to combat the aching in her chest and panicked thoughts in her head. The walls, which had been slowly growing closer, eased up.

She was glad she had forgotten to eat any meals. It made her get a buzz quicker.

By the time the band exited through the stage door and took the stage, Nell was walking back to her table with her second bottle.

They had a new set of songs that night—songs that they hadn’t performed before—which made the girls scream in delight as they started the chords of what Barrett had told her at their practice was The Trooper by Iron Maiden.

She’d enjoyed it in practice, but now it was hard to enjoy much other than the bottom of her bottle and the moment Barrett easily found her, catching her eye over the heads of the girls who swung their hair to the beat.

He winked, and Nell wished she could feel the heat rush to her cheeks, her heart stutter, and her breath steal from her throat like it usually did, but all she got was a dull thud that echoed through her head as her bottle set down on the table.

And so it went.

She got up two more times for two more drinks, each one stronger than the last.

Every time she met Barrett’s eye, he raised his brow just enough for her to notice—because she was looking for it—but he had a show to carry on.

She did manage a few, painfully stiff smiles to appease him, and it must have worked because he was back at the mic, closing his eyes and riffing away and doing that thing that made him magnetic.

That magnetism grew stronger in her chest the louder the buzz became. Soon, her smiles weren’t forced, the drunken blushes were back, and Barrett lost himself as she lost herself on another trip to Erik at the bar.

She leaned across and yelled her order into his ear, her foot tapping along to the beat.

She was back to normal again.

She swayed—a mix of rhythm and tipsiness—but it was better than the weight that threatened to drag her down, and she lived for it.

Erik set down an amber liquid with a lemon wedge on the side, and she almost got it to her lips before someone else got to her.

“You look happy.”

Nell’s fingers went limp before her mind even registered the voice.

The glass fell from her grip and landed with a loud clink on the bar top, luckily not shattering. But her top was now covered in whiskey, and her stomach spun into nausea.

She didn’t want to look. She wouldn’t look.

She didn’t have a choice because he was in front of her.

Jake made sure she could see him by stepping in and blocking her view of the stage.

His thin irises, as crystal blue as Sam’s, were blown out, dilated into nearly black behind alcohol and rage.

She had no idea how long he’d been there or how long he’d been watching her, but whatever he saw made him sneer at her like she was a disgusting, aggressive disease.

People used to tell the three of them that they could be triplets: the same light hair, eyes close enough to be mistaken for the other. She’d loved the idea of not one but two siblings just like her.

She’d lost both.

One six feet under, the other three inches away with his hand grabbing the top of her arm into his tight fist as he breathed hot, putrid air into her face.

“Do you think you deserve to be smiling right now?”

She wished she could sober up. Instead, she stumbled as she tried to back up, giving him the advantage to grip her harder until the pinched skin on her arm stung.

She didn’t try to talk, because what was the point?

“You make me sick,” he hissed.

A shrill squeal of microphone feedback rang through the bar, and people hissed in annoyance. Nell winced. Only then did she realize the music had stopped.

“Get your fucking hand off her.”

The words echoed through the area. With the abrupt cut-off of music, the sudden silence rang through her as much as the words did.

Nell barely registered them before she recognized Barrett’s voice. It was different than she’d ever heard it.

Even when he was serious, he never sounded it. There was always some facetious hint in his tone to keep her happy.

But right then, it sent a chill down her arms. It was hard, curt, and venomous.

Jake didn’t falter. He didn’t even acknowledge the sound; his mouth kept moving and words kept spilling out. Loud. Loud enough to be heard by the people around them.

“I wish every fucking day that it had been you. You know that? I’d give everything I have to see you dead instead,” Jake said.

Each word was like a hammer to the skull and a nail to the heart. Nell thought she might be crying, that there might be tears.

There was a sound of something that she couldn’t see falling behind him and a wave of raucous shouting that Jake ignored.

“And I want you to do it to yourself, so you know what it fucking feels like to be killed by someone as sickening as you.”

For a moment, she thought she’d blacked out. There was the sensation of moving and the room spinning and then . . . darkness.

Until she realized she was staring at the back of a black shirt and a hand was holding her behind it.

Barrett was in front of her, shoving Jake backward into the bar.