The Lost Girl

by Lilian Carmine

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Lilian Carmine

  Title Page

  Chapter One: Ending with a Bang!

  Chapter Two: Life on the Road

  Chapter Three: Hotel Bar

  Chapter Four: Home, Sweet Home

  Chapter Five: Kitchen Love

  Chapter Six: Book Signing

  Chapter Seven: Perfect Day to be Okay

  Chapter Eight: Bumps in the Night

  Chapter Nine: Plan of Action

  Chapter Ten: Beanie Boy

  Chapter Eleven: Afterparty

  Chapter Twelve: Baby and Doll

  Chapter Thirteen: Sneak Attack!

  Chapter Fourteen: Mismatch

  Chapter Fifteen: Fragile

  Chapter Sixteen: Witch & Crafts

  Chapter Seventeen: Turning Tables

  Chapter Eighteen: Elevator Lockdown

  Chapter Nineteen: Without a Word

  Chapter Twenty: Evil Is Going On …

  Chapter Twenty-One: Rattling Chains

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Slow Dancing

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Rescue Me

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Search & Destroy

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Nowhere Left to Run

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Let it All Burn

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Night of the Hunter

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Into Dust

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Thought of You

  Chapter Thirty: Holding On

  Chapter Thirty-One: Letting Go

  Chapter Thirty-Two: Walking in the Sun

  Chapter Thirty-Three: To Win Over a Princess

  Chapter Thirty-Four: One and Only

  Chapter Thirty-Five: Honeymooning

  Chapter Thirty-Six: Vows of Love

  Chapter Thirty-Seven: Never-Ending Love

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  About the Book

  EVEN DEATH CAN’T KEEP THEM APART

  After falling in love with a ghost, Joey has succeeded in saving her boyfriend from Death, not once but twice.

  But then a mysterious and horrifying creature begins stalking Joey – can Tristan save her before it’s too late?

  A chilling romance perfect for fans of Stephenie Meyer and Lauren Kate.

  About the Author

  Lilian Carmine is the author of The Lost Boys trilogy.

  She plans to live in places all over the world, but for now she settles for the worlds and places that her mind can conjure up.

  She currently works with illustration as well as the next book in The Lost Boys series.

  Also by Lilian Carmine:

  The Lost Boys

  Chapter One

  Ending with a Bang!

  I walked backstage with my ears ringing and heart thumping hard in my chest. It was always like this after every show we did; the rush of blood to my head made me feel like I was having a wild hallucination. I never understood why so many of our musician friends needed drugs to get through a concert. I got all the rush I needed just by playing; hearing the crowd cheering and singing our songs at the top of their voices was enough. By the end of each of our shows, I felt as high as I could get. And I knew all my band felt the same way. Especially Harry and Sam – it took them a long time to calm down after our concerts.

  I could still hear the crowd screaming as I walked backstage. Harry was tagging right behind me, jumping around and being as wild as usual.

  “That was pretty outrageous, eh? This last show was raging!” he said loudly. Even this far backstage we could still hear Josh coming to the end of his drum solo, and Seth starting to say his goodbyes to the crowd.

  “Yeah, it was insane!” I yelled back, but Harry couldn’t hear me over all the noise. He wrapped his sweaty arms around me and landed a smacky kiss on my cheek, and then let go of me as suddenly as he had grabbed me, whirling away like my own private hurricane.

  Tonight had definitely been special. It was our last show of the tour and it had ended with an epic bang! And the crowd had been amazing. I had mixed feelings about the tour ending: even though life on the road could be very exciting, we’d been away from home for a long time.

  Three years ago, my band, The Lost Boys, and I had been graduating school and our only worry was finding a way to keep Tristan with us. I had met Tristan, the love of my life, in a cemetery, one fine winter’s day in December the previous year, and had fallen in love with him the second he’d flashed me his incredible smile. It had been love at first sight for both of us. He had the most stunning gray eyes I’d ever seen in my life. They shone with a silver edge around the corners, reflecting the sunlight in a mesmerizing mercury pool.

  To begin with, I didn’t know he was a ghost; he kept that a secret and I only discovered the truth during a New Year’s celebration when we accidentally performed a spell that brought him back to life. But Tristan’s ghostly past brought us many complications, and we found ourselves fighting for his very existence. We had a year – our last year of high school – to find a way to keep Tristan in the land of the living. For a boy who was originally alive during the 1950s, he actually adjusted remarkably well to twenty-first-century living. However, nothing could have prepared any of us for how successful our band became after we finished school. We landed a record deal soon after graduation and launched our first album by the end of that year. The Lost Boys grew bigger and bigger in our home country with each passing year, and the release of our second album even looked likely to take the band to an international level of fame. That was what we were hoping for.

  Tristan was living the dream with his second chance at life, cherishing every single moment. Our first year together had been an intense, scary rollercoaster, what with magic spells, the supernatural bond between us and the struggle to keep him alive. In the end, I struck a deal with Death – or, as I liked to call her, “Sky” – to get him back, and now he was safely in my arms. I not only had the most incredible, beautiful boyfriend – albeit an ex-ghost – by my side, but also the best band-mates of all time as well! My beloved geeky singer, Seth Fletcher; my goofy guitarist, Sam Hunt; my warrior drummer boy, Josh Hart; and my lovely bassist, Harry Ledger. Life couldn’t get any better than this!

  All these memories flashed through my mind as I followed Harry through a dark corridor towards the back security door that would take us outside to our tour bus. The walls around us shook a little with the vibration of all the stomping and shouting the crowd was still doing at the front of the stage.

  Harry started talking excitedly to our personal security guards, Johnson and Jarvis, while we waited for the rest of the band to join us. It was sort of a tradition for us to leave the stage one by one, rather than en masse. Normally we’d then hang around to give the fans a little attention, sign some autographs, or allow them to take a few pictures, but today the crowd outside the venue was so dense, Johnson had insisted we head straight off after the concert.

  “It’s just a precaution, Miss Gray,” he’d said reassuringly, after noticing my worried expression earlier.

  Big Johnson, as we called our giant, muscled head of security, still insisted on calling me “Miss Gray”, no matter how many times I had told him to call me Joey. He’d been with us for over two years now, and his cousin Jarvis had joined his team a year ago. Jarvis wasn’t as tall or as impressively built as his cousin, but he was still big enough, with a habitual steely expression that most sane people would take as a warning not to get in his way.

  I pulled my orange hoodie over my head, trying to prepare myself for the short but difficult walk to the bus. I could already hear the noise of overexcited fans waiting outside the exit door; it sounded insane!

  As we continue
d to hover anxiously by the back door, Josh and Sam caught up with us, but Tristan and Seth were still finishing up onstage, delivering their final, parting words of the show. Jarvis opened the security door and rushed out, with Harry tagging closely by his side. As soon as the crowd realized one of The Lost Boys was in close range, the noise doubled in intensity. I hesitated for a second, but Big Johnson’s towering presence reassured me that everything would be all right. I smiled up at him before running outside, where a voracious sea of screaming faces and bright flashes engulfed me in a blazing explosion of sound and light.

  Chapter Two

  Life on the Road

  I watched as Josh and Sam climbed up into the bus a few minutes after me, their eyes wide with excitement after all the commotion outside. Harry hadn’t moved from the window; he had his face glued to the glass, making funny squashed faces at the fans outside, even though they couldn’t see him because of the tinted dark glass of the tour bus.

  This year’s tour had been crazy. We’d never had so many shows booked and had completely sold out during the final week. Our record label couldn’t be more happy to be hitting the jackpot with The Lost Boys. The band was becoming a huge success considering we’d only been around for three or so years and had worked our way up from the bottom rather than being launched off the back of any reality TV show.

  “Did you guys see all that?” Sam asked, his deep blue eyes wide in awe. “We almost couldn’t get through the crowd!”

  Tristan joined us a few minutes later, followed shortly after by Seth, our blond boy wonder; the whole band was now on board.

  Our tour bus was a luxurious double-decker. The bottom deck was for bunk beds, bathroom and an area for a few of the crew to hang out. The top deck was just for us, the band, and it was kitted out with a long couch, TV and some video games for entertainment.

  Harry finally gave up pulling funny faces at the fans and was now jumping onto Seth’s back, making him stumble forwards a little, and Sammy was cracking up laughing at them.

  Tristan peered out through the bus window, before turning towards me. He slumped, exhausted, on the couch, pulling me towards him and wrapping his big arms around me.

  “You look beat,” he murmured in my ear.

  “You’re one to talk.” I laughed. “You look as beat as I do!”

  He only smiled in reply, a weak, tired smile. Long concerts like today’s always drained him. He was going to sleep like a log tonight. I lay my head on his chest, closed my eyes and sighed. All I wanted now was to go to our hotel, hit the shower and dive into bed. The prospect of a few hours’ sleep sounded like utter bliss for my tired bones.

  Jamie arrived a few minutes later, clutching the video camera that seemed to be permanently attached to his hands. Jamie was Josh’s old friend from high school, a short, brown-haired, shy boy, who had been taken on as our media guy. He’d been hired to record our shows during tours, plus a few events and interviews we had to attend from time to time. Jamie was always around, always with his camera. He was also spookily quiet and sometimes we even forgot he was there at all.

  Only a small group of people, just our closest friends, knew about me and Tristan being together, and Jamie was one of the chosen few. Our manager, Becca; my best friend, Tiffany, and our producer, Mr. Silver, also knew about us.

  In our first year of the recording contract, Mr. Silver had asked the whole band to keep our relationship statuses a secret. His orders were to inform the media and press that we were all single, so our records would sell better. It was the first time we’d had a glimpse of how “ugly” this music business could get. It wasn’t just about the music, Mr. Silver said; it was about being a good product to sell, for our record deal to be profitable.

  At first we thought it was kind of wrong for him to ask that of us. Who could be that superficial? Wasn’t our music enough for the fans to decide whether they liked us or not? What did being single or not have to do with selling our records? We wanted to make it as a band because of our music, not because of our looks or our supposed “availability”.

  But apparently we were very young and very naive. We didn’t know how this business really worked, so Mr. Silver told us to let him take care of everything and we would do just fine. And since the boys – except Seth – weren’t dating back then, they didn’t seem to mind much. It was only Tristan who’d been really bummed about it. It seemed to him we were back at square one, trying to hiding our relationship all over again.

  When we’d first met, Tristan and I had to pretend to be siblings so that he could get his application accepted at Sagan, the prestigious boarding school that I attended. With the birth certificate and other important documents that my mother had secretely arranged for him, with the help of some people in her law firm, Tristan was passed off as her own so that the school would take him. We didn’t just lie to the school, though; we didn’t think my mom would approve of us dating while living together under the same roof, so Tristan and I pretended to be just good friends for the whole of that year.

  But then I managed to get Tristan back from the dead (again) and everything was brought out into the open. Mom found out the truth about our relationship and she was fine with it. We were finally free to be a couple. Then we started our first tour, only to be told by Mr. Silver to continue the lie about being “just friends” – just for a little while, until we had launched our careers.

  Around that time, before the band’s official debut concert, Tiffany helped Tristan to get all of his papers, legal documents and IDs bullet-proofed with the help of her family’s name, power and influence. After the Worthingtons’ lawyers were through with everything, there were absolutely no holes that any nosy reporter could find. Money could truly buy anything, we learned back then: even bringing the dead back into legal existence.

  The heavy lifting had already been done, Tiffany used to say, when we’d made a ghost come back to life. Mere paperwork was an easy feat after that.

  Three years have passed since then. Three years of smiling to reporters and lying through our teeth, and still it wasn’t enough for Mr. Silver. After so many times repeating The Lie, I was now a master at this pretending game.

  Tristan didn’t like lying, though, and so had become skilled at deflecting The Question.

  But for the past year or so, the rest of the band had started rebelling against these conditions. Seth was tired of sneaking out with Tiffany, a particularly hard feat since Tiff was also famous in her own right as she came from a wealthy family and was easily recognized everywhere she went. We managed to cover it up because as my best friend she was always around Seth anyway; sometimes I even had to hang out with them during their dates, so nobody would suspect anything. It sucked being the third wheel, and they hated it as much as I did.

  But one day, at the beginning of this year, Tiffany decided she had had enough, and grabbed hold of Seth in front of a dozen paparazzi, kissing the living daylights out of him. Mr. Silver didn’t say anything. He was no fool – Tiffany was a Worthington and it was not a clever move to have a public fight with the aristocracy.

  Sammy was dating a beauty queen, Miss Amanda Summers. She was real pretty, sweet and looked like a doll. I didn’t know much about her but Sammy liked her a lot and he was getting pretty grumpy about having to sneak out with her too.

  Josh was always in and out of relationships, but never “in” for long enough to bother about having to lie to hide it. Still, he supported our rebellion because he was on our side, no matter what.

  But it was Harry who was the second to break the deal with Mr. Silver. One sunny day, without a single warning, there he was in public, making out with Jackie Sunford, the lead singer of a rising pop rock band. Jackie was the complete opposite of Amanda: she had a truckload of bad manners in her arsenal.

  For me, covering up my relationship with Tristan was fairly simple because he was also my band-mate and we were supposed to spend a lot of time together; we only needed to be careful not to be too intimate whil
e we were out in public.

  The crowd around the bus was still cheering when Becca, our super manager and all-round lifesaver, arrived announcing we were leaving for the hotel. Rebecca had been with us from the start of our first tour, keeping everything organized with her impeccable and efficient scheduling skills. Without her, we’d be completely lost.

  I had a feeling our cameraman, Jamie, might have a little crush on her. Or maybe not. Jamie was hard to read. His eyes were usually blank, like his camera lens, recording everything he saw without thinking much about it.

  The crowd continued screaming as the bus pulled away, and I could hear them chanting my name now. I was always surprised when they started doing that. I mean, I could understand that reaction to the boys in the band; they were all really handsome, young, fit guys. It was normal for teenage girls to go wild about hunks like that. But for them to do that for me? I couldn’t undersand it.

  I put the blame on Paul Brady. His talk show was one of the most important interviews we did in our first year. Mr. Brady was notorious for his teasing way of dealing with his guests, and that night he kept directing all his questions towards me. He was the first to start the joke about me being the only lost “boy” with “lady parts”, and also about how I even had a boy’s name to complete the act. The fact that I was kind of dressed like a boy at the time didn’t help my case, either. Things started to escalate pretty quickly after Paul Brady’s show. I was the headline in every gossip mag, the star of every chat show. “The only Lost ‘Boy’ that was a ‘girl’.” People thought it was amusing, and the line had a certain ring to it, so they kept repeating it everywhere. After that interview, I couldn’t stand at the back of the band any more. People demanded that I was up front in the spotlight. Girls loved my tomboy attitude – they shouted “Lost Boy Power!” and “Joe Gray rocks!” everywhere I went.

  Tristan laughed at my shock, saying I should stop trying to swim against the tide; it was a battle I was sure going to lose. It was “impossible not to fall in love with me”, he would say.