Stand: A Bleeding Stars Stand-Alone Novel

by A. L. Jackson

  A smoky dimness cloaked the night sky. City lights glowed against the fog that sagged so low and thick Zee could almost reach out and touch it.

  It cast his entire world in an ominous haze, everything he’d ever known vapors and mist.

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “It doesn’t matter?” Zee turned frantic, begging through the phone. “I’m sorry, Mark. I’m so goddamned sorry.”

  “You’re sorry? You were my best friend. My brother. I trusted you. Would have trusted you with my life. And I told you I was fuckin’ sorry for answering that phone…but you’ve gotta know what it looked like when I walked in on you two.”

  Zee blinked hard, trying to see through the torment. “It was a mistake.”

  But simply labeling it a mistake felt like committing treason. Another dose added to the mounting disloyalty.

  Mark’s words trembled with anger. “A mistake? You fucked my girlfriend. Didn’t think it was possible for you to commit something like that.”

  Zee’s hand fisted in his hair, and he began to pace. With each desperate step, loneliness closed in. His chest felt too tight and too empty, like he could feel the connection that had always bound them together loosen.

  Because he couldn’t ever take back what he’d done.

  “She said…she said you’d broken up with her. That you hit her.”

  “And you believed her.” It wasn’t a question, just a sinking acceptance that severed a little more of who Zee and Mark once were. “You really think I’d hit her? I loved her.”

  Sickness clawed at Zee’s being, sinking in like fangs and dripping venom into his soul.

  He bent in two, retching on the ground.

  What did I do?

  What did I do?

  The world spun faster.

  Dizzying.

  Ruining.

  Toppling.

  “I didn’t…I’d never—”

  Zee could feel the world splintering, his foundation crumbling beneath his feet.

  Opening to reveal his wrong.

  It tossed him headfirst into a bottomless chasm.

  Endless.

  Purgatory.

  Zee started to ramble, desperate for a solution. For the two of them to find solid ground. That place where they belonged. Where Mark was his hero and he was Mark’s rock.

  “I’m sorry, man. I’ll do anything. Anything. Come back to LA. We’ll work it out. Figure out how to get you out of this trouble. Just…tell me you forgive me. Tell me you’re okay…that this won’t cause you to slip. You’re scaring me, man. You’re scaring me.”

  Mark’s laughter was hollow. “What’s the point of staying clean…the point in working hard for what is right…when it’s just taken away from you anyway?”

  Zee gulped around the agony. “Mark—”

  “I have to go.”

  He ended the call and Zee choked over a strike of fear that hit him like a bolt of lightning.

  Without giving it a second thought, he dialed Baz. It went straight to voice mail.

  Searching for an answer, for courage, Zee turned his face to the heavens. It glowed like he was at the brink of day without the promise of a sunrise.

  The stars were obscured.

  Hidden.

  Stars he knew shined and glimmered so damned bright when you stepped out of the limelight and depravity of this sordid city. Somehow, he’d always thought those twinkling stars the guardians of the wishes he’d cast upon their fallen as a child.

  As if they held them protectively where they forever danced until the day those wishes were released and that dream became a reality.

  In that moment, Zee swore he heard a silent curse uttered that left them permanently dimmed.

  As a kid, Zee had breathed a million of those wishes.

  Countless.

  Infinite.

  Now he could feel them falling all around him. Burning and bleeding out.

  Disintegrating into nothing.

  “He’s gone, Zee. He’s gone. I’m so damned sorry. He’s gone.”

  Denial screamed in Zee’s head while grief clutched him like a vice. Squeezing him in two.

  He knew. He knew. He knew.

  “No,” Zee begged.

  On the other end of the line, Baz stumbled over deep, guttural cries, floored by grief.

  It was palpable. Too much. Too much.

  Zee choked over the emotion.

  What did I do? What did I do?

  “No,” he whimpered again. His spirit thrashed, crashed and collided with his heart that wept. “No.”

  “I found him, Zee. I fucking found him. Face down on the tour bus. I should have known. I should have known. He’d been clean. He’d been clean, but he was acting sketchy. All itchy and wired. Should have known he was gettin’ ready to slip.”

  Zee tore at his hair as the words tumbled out. “Someone…someone was after him.”

  Another sob ripped through the line. “No, Zee. No. He OD’ed. There was a bag…I was there. I found him. I found him. I tried. I fucking tried to breathe life back into him. I promise. I tried so fucking hard. He was already gone. Oh…God—”

  Baz broke on the confession.

  Sobs tore through the air.

  Agony.

  Torment.

  It was my fault.

  My fault.

  I did this.

  Zee dropped to his knees.

  Because he no longer knew how to stand.

  Wind whipped through the air like a heated tornado that spun and churned and destroyed. It lashed and beat, catching up the cries that echoed at Mark’s graveside.

  The coffin was lowered into the ground.

  Zee’s mother moaned. The deepest kind of grief.

  Zee clenched his fists and ground his teeth against the agony that shredded his insides.

  Grief and guilt and devastation.

  His mother buried her face in his father’s chest, and Zee stood there. Alone. Drowning in a hollowness unlike anything he’d ever experienced. Excruciating. Violent. Piercing.

  He watched as his mother stepped forward and tossed a handful of dirt onto the gleaming black wood. The tiny particles scattered across the top like a booming proclamation.

  The final declaration that Zee had nothing left.

  His mother’s knees buckled, and his father led her away, while Zee stood there with his throat thick and his eyes stinging.

  Baz stepped up and squeezed his shoulder. “He loved you, Zee. Know this has to be killing you…but if you know one thing, I want you to know that.”

  Zee mashed his eyes shut, desperate to confess it all. To admit to Baz what he’d done. To tell him Mark had begged him for help, told him he was afraid, and in his petulant anger, he’d turned him away.

  Instead, he slowly turned when Baz’s spine stiffened, hackles almost visible as he lifted his shoulders and cocked his head.

  Veronica strode through the grass, a clingy black dress displaying her body and black sunglasses hiding her eyes.

  Zee fought the overwhelming urge to vomit.

  Baz pointed at her. “I dare you to take another step closer.”

  Her chin trembled as she came to a stop, confusion in the way she released a surprised breath. “I came to pay my respects. He was my boyfriend. I loved him.”

  Baz scoffed. “He’s dead because of you. You were the one who dragged him back into that mess when he tried to get clean.”

  “No.”

  Ash and Lyrik took to either of his sides, making a wall, like it was their last chance to protect Mark from her. Like maybe they wished they had taken that stance all along.

  “Go. None of us ever want to see you again. You come around? Promise you, I’ll make sure you regret it.”

  Bitterness and anger pushed through Zee’s being. He hated. He fucking hated.

  He strode up the stone steps to the building that had intimidated him when he’d first walked through its doors when he was sixteen years old. The culmination of his every goal.r />
  Now his heavy footsteps echoed through the vacant halls. He knocked at the Dean’s door and opened it when he heard a gruff, “Come in.”

  Zee had little left to give.

  But this. This he could offer.

  Zee cast his dreams at the feet of the Dean and left them there.

  For his brother.

  For his honor.

  For his legacy.

  The next day, Zee rang the doorbell to the Sunder house in the Hills. Two months before, the guys had purchased it. They’d crawled their way out of dives and into theaters and stadiums. This place had become like a testimony.

  Not to the wealth and the number of dollars in their bank accounts. But as a declaration of their success. The fact they’d made it even after all the bullshit they’d been through. The adversity and affliction. The tragedy and addiction.

  Now it stood like a sinister reminder that Mark had not.

  You did this.

  You did this.

  You did this.

  Emotion raced Zee’s throat, this tingly, burning feeling he beat down into the blackened pit of his soul. He shifted his feet, anxious, waiting, a heavy backpack on his shoulder.

  Inside the bag were his only remaining belongings.

  The tour had been sidelined. The guys came back for the funeral and to figure out what direction they were gonna go.

  Lost.

  One side of the ornate doors swung open. Baz stood in the middle of it. Stricken by grief.

  “Zee,” he murmured in surprise.

  “I’m in.”

  The doorbell rang incessantly. Over and over. Devastation slowed his feet, his mind foggy from wasting the day away skating the fringes of sleep in his bed.

  He’d have to get it together soon. For the guys. He had to take care of them. Protect this band. Make sure they made it.

  Mark had told him the band staying together was the absolute most important thing to him.

  Zee made a silent promise he would never let his brother’s dream go.

  He snagged a shirt from the floor and threw it over his head. He jogged downstairs and into the stilled vacancy of the mansion in the Hills that had become his home.

  “Coming,” he yelled, hustling when the bell rang two times in a row.

  He jerked open the door and then stumbled back. The anger that struck him was the most intense kind.

  Brutal and violent and savage.

  But hate always was.

  Violent.

  Veronica stood in the doorway, wearing frayed, ripped jeans and a super tight red tee.

  “What the fuck are you doing here? You were told when you showed up at the funeral if we ever saw your face again, you would regret it. Did you think it was a joke?”

  Nervously, she shifted on her feet, peering over his shoulder into the rambling foyer of the house. “The rest of the guys are gone?”

  He pressed his hand to the wall, leaning toward her face and spitting the words. “I take it by the fact you’re actually standing there, you already know the answer to that.”

  On a hard swallow, she nodded. “Yeah. I heard they were gone.”

  She reached out and touched his shoulder. “I need to talk to you.”

  Zee snagged her by the wrist and jerked her away. “Don’t fucking touch me. You did this. You did this. He’s gone because of you.”

  She blinked at him. “I wasn’t alone in this.”

  Hatred burned, and Zee stepped back, trying to catch his breath, to keep himself from coming unglued. “You came to me…took advantage of the moment. Of the fact Julie left me. You lied to me.”

  “I was lonely,” she shot back on a wounded cry.

  “You were lonely? That’s your fucking excuse?”

  She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand, her shoulders heaving. “Please…I need to talk to you.”

  The anger he felt butted against the guilt. The fact that ultimately he’d been responsible.

  He widened the door. “Five minutes then you’re gone. Things aren’t gonna be pretty if the guys catch wind of you coming around here.”

  Dropping her head, she angled past him, heels clicking on the marble floors as she stepped inside. She stopped just at the end of the foyer, her arms crossed over her chest as she looked out over the expansive living area and to the wall of windows that overlooked the glittering pool and the city sprawled out below.

  Seeing her there made Zee’s skin crawl. She shouldn’t be. It was a disrespect to Mark.

  “What do you want, Veronica? Tell me and then get the hell out.”

  She looked to her feet, before she shifted enough to peer back at him. “I need money.”

  Rage boiled through his blood, and it took everything he had to remain rooted. To keep from rushing her and tossing her out. “You need money?” It dropped like an accusation and disbelief.

  She hugged her arms tighter. “I…just three hundred dollars and I’ll go. You won’t ever have to see me again.”

  A sinking awareness washed over him, and his mouth went dry as he forced out the words. “For what?”

  More tears streaked free. “I’m pregnant.”

  Panic and grief came so close to dropping him to his knees. It was the hate and fear that kept him standing. “What are you saying?”

  Her voice turned frantic. “I’m saying I’m pregnant and my boyfriend is dead and I can’t do this. That’s what I’m saying.”

  Terror bottled in his throat, the words barely a breath. “It’s Mark’s?”

  The nod of her head was spastic. “Please, you don’t know what it’s like having to stand here and ask you for help. I know you hate me…but please…I just need you to help me out this once.”

  “No.” It flew from his mouth. A desperate demand. “I won’t let you take my brother’s kid from me, too.”

  Disbelief twisted through her features. “You think this is about you?”

  “I think this is about my brother. About the fact that baby is the last thing we have of him.”

  Her head shook. “I don’t…I don’t want to do this alone. I can’t, Zee. I’m not equipped.”

  He rushed forward and gripped her by the forearms. “I’ll do…anything. Tell me what you need. Just…let me take care of you.”

  “I don’t want to be a single mom.”

  “You don’t have to be.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, I’ll be whatever you need me to be.”

  She looked around the house. “They’ll never go for it. They hate me.”

  “They should. If they knew, they’d hate me, too.”

  Doubt filled her expression. “So, we don’t tell them?”

  “No. We don’t tell them.”

  Maybe it was to protect the baby. Maybe it was to protect himself. Zee didn’t know. He only knew offering this fucked-up solution was the only thing he could do.

  The only thing that felt right in the midst of everything that had gone all wrong.

  Veronica reached up and touched his cheek. “If we do this, you belong to me.”

  “No drugs, Veronica. You take care of Mark’s child…take care of yourself…and I promise, I’m yours.”

  Night pressed all around. Heart pounding in his throat, he jumped out of the taxi and raced through the hospital doors.

  The last seven hours had been agonizing. Getting the text. The lie telling his crew he needed to cut his trip short because his mother needed him. The flight across country that felt like it’d taken a lifetime. The worry and questions and anxiety that he had made the wrong decision.

  His entire body vibrated as he took the elevator, his gaze frantic as he stepped off it and explained who he was at the nurses’ station and showed his ID.

  He was a mess when he came to the door. Sucking in a steeling breath, he dropped his head, closed his eyes, and whispered a silent prayer.

  I’m doing this for you, Mark. I’ll regret what I did to you every fucking day of my life. But I will do this
to honor you.

  Then Zee pushed open the door. Veronica was asleep. Beside her was one of those hospital bassinets.

  Zee kept his footsteps light as he edged forward, his pulse a stampede, so fast he swore he could hear it ricocheting around the room. He lost his breath when he looked down to find the child nestled inside.

  Dark, wide eyes blinked up through the muted light, a single arm breaking free as the baby flailed against the confines of the blanket he was wrapped in, the tiniest, sweetest sounds grunting from his mouth.

  A swell of emotion crashed over Zee.

  Grief and hope.

  Grief and hope.

  He felt the world freeze when he leaned down and carefully picked up the baby boy. For the first time since he’d lost his brother, Zee felt like he could fully breathe.

  He held the child against his chest and silently carried him over to the chair in the corner. He sat down and cradled him in the safety of his arms.

  Sitting there, Zee had no questions that remained.

  He would do anything—give up anything—for even a second to have this part of his brother.

  Zee lifted him up, pressed a kiss to his forehead, and breathed him in.

  Zee had loved before.

  But never had he loved like this.

  Not the way he loved Liam Kennedy.

  Zee jerked his head up when the door cracked open. Anthony stuck his head inside before he came the rest of the way inside. Worry crested his brow. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  Zee swallowed around the emotion. “I’ve never been so sure of anything in all my life.”

  Through the darkness of the bedroom, Zee lay on his back staring into the shadows that danced and played across the ceiling. Searching. Trying to focus.

  Straining to hear it.

  Desperate to feel it.

  The missing strains of music that had once twisted through him like magic and poured from his fingertips. Since the day he’d lost his brother, they’d been silenced.

  It seemed insane he spent his life in recording studios and on stages, playing other people’s music. The songs they’d written. While that voice had dried up inside him.

  It left a hollow, vacant space that moaned. Loudest in the quiet, lonely hours like this.

  A hand fumbled for him in the night. He tried not to cringe, tried to shove off the nausea that gathered like a swilling tide and soaked him through.