Singe

by Casey Hays

  “Look.”

  Letting go of his hand, I move into the lounge. Along the back wall is a bar. The bartender wears a sleeveless, white shirt that shows off his bulging muscles. He holds his black wings close to his body to accommodate the small area behind him. The shelves above him are littered with an assortment of glass liquor bottles that sparkle in the lighting. There’s a quiet murmur of conversation from the hotel guests enjoying their drinks on low sofas around short tables or lined up on barstools. But that’s not what lured me in.

  Quietly sitting in the corner, just waiting for someone to play it, is a shiny black, baby grand piano.

  I stand in the entrance, longing. Beside me, Kane leans with a whisper.

  “What are you waiting for?”

  His breath tickles my ear, dulling my senses. All but one. Excitement. We shouldn’t be in here. This is literally a bar. So… what am I waiting for? That’s pretty self-explanatory.

  The room is full. People conversate in low voices over the clink of wine glasses or beer bottles. High-pitched laughter rings out from a corner table and fades back into the low hum of voices, and with a shiver of reserved excitement, I do it. I glide across the room before anyone can tell me to get out. Kane follows, finding an empty cushioned chair close by the dais.

  The baby grand piano is a William Knabe brand with a beige-cushioned bench. I brush a stray curl out of my face, slide my hands down the sides of my red dress and sit, testing the keys with a couple of scales. It’s tuned perfectly. One glance around the place proves no one plans to charge over and admonish me, so… I play.

  I start with a show tune I know from memory. Something from Westside Story. A tribute to movie nights with Dad. I move on to instrumental versions of a couple of well-known love songs. I lose track of time, lose myself in the music, forget where I am. I’m slightly aware of the small audience that begins to form around the piano, but I keep playing. I feel brave, displaying my talent, and it feels good. I end one song on a soft note; the room explodes in applause. I look up.

  The small audience has doubled in size. I flood with self-consciousness, scan the dimly lit room until I find Kane, one leg crossed over his knee. I make a move to stand, to join him, a slight smile sliding into place at my delinquent behavior, but something stops me. A flash of his eyes? A shake of his head? Yes. He wiggles his fingers, mimicking a pianist, urging me on with an admiration he can’t hide. I love that about him. That he makes me want to be me.

  Still, I don’t know what to do at first. I’ve pretty much played every song I know by heart. A restlessness flutters in the air on the last echoing notes I just played, the audience blinking at me. Waiting for me to start the next song. I sink back onto the bench.

  I focus on Kane, soaking up courage while I rack my brain, trying to remember just one more song. If only I had his memory; I’d be set. I’m sweating; I feel a drip of it sliding slowly and methodically down my spine. A few more tense moments of silence, and it comes to me. I reposition my fingers. Sonata Gallagher quietly makes an entrance.

  It’s been years since I played this song within earshot of anyone, so it’s a big moment for me. For a heartbeat, I second guess what I’m doing. Because this song . . . it’s so intimate. So personal. But it feels right to play it. Like it’s time. Like it has more meaning than it ever did before because I understand it. The saga of the Gallagher children.

  The room grows staunchly silent as I play through the first couple of measures, and something suddenly feels off. I don’t know what it is exactly, except that a sea of mesmerized faces stares back at me— as if I’ve compelled them. Five or six people, clearly Firebloods by their tall statures and lightly glowing skin, flow in through the entrance, and pause to listen. Nervous, I lift my fingers, and the song comes to an abrupt halt. I hesitate, and then quietly, I begin to play only my part of the song. The acciaccatura.

  I don’t know what prompts me to do it, but the small crowd goes wild with applause. I lose myself in the sound—of everything. The song, the performance, the admiration. I get caught up in the beauty of it all and let myself go completely, wrapping the experience all around me. It feels good to be here, finally doing what I always loved to do before my dad died.

  Right in the middle of the third measure, I plant my full attention on Kane and ready my fingers to make another brave shift.

  It’s so simple to naturally ease right into our duet. It’s engraved on my heart after all, and I look for Kane’s reaction. He’s rigid, and the second he realizes what’s happening. He springs to his feet and makes a quick move toward the dais. My fingers falter, baffled as he comes for me.

  But he’s too late.

  Like a phantom, Joshua tears out of thin air onto the scene, the room splitting in two as he storms the small dais to stop the show. He has my left wrist in his hand in seconds, yanking my fingers from the keys and bringing the sounds of the piano to a dissonant end.

  “Okay folks, thank you for coming.” He gives the crowd a curt nod, somehow pulling off a calmness despite his hasty entry. “The entertainment is over for tonight.”

  The words sting the air; the guests throw out a few protests, irritated at the sudden end to the music. But the doctor’s fingers match his words—a vise, firm and abrasive on my skin—and I’m scared.

  We never should have come into this lounge.

  I take a minute to scan the faces of the crowded little room. I didn’t notice any Firebloods besides the bartender when we first came in; now, Firebloods seem to be everywhere. Slowly, the place thins out as people saunter off, talking quietly about the amazing performance of someone so young—a phrase I’ve heard all my life, really. But the Firebloods aren’t so quick to dissipate. They stare a little longer, whisper behind their hands as they take their leave. I watch it all in slow motion until Kane reaches the piano and pulls me out of Joshua’s grip.

  “Take it easy,” he growls under his breath, a protective tone underlying all of it. “She didn’t know.”

  “Didn’t know what?” I drop to the floor next to him in wide wonder, my mind reeling in confusion, and frankly, still a little hazy from the high the music always gives me.

  “Why are you two out of the penthouse?” Joshua’s irritation laces every inch of him from the fine lines in his face to the rigidity of his shoulders to the embers simmering in his eyes. I blink. Embers?

  Wait a minute. Is Joshua… a Fireblood?

  “Just taking a breather,” Kane answers.

  “Taking a risk you mean?” His growl is intense. “Let’s go.”

  “I didn’t know what?” I repeat, but Joshua just flicks his hand, clearly annoyed. He has no plans to have a conversation here, within earshot of the few people who have returned to their drinks at the low tables but still have their eyes pinned on me.

  Kane weaves his fingers into mine, tight, and heads for the exit. I’m tugged along, his demeanor making me anxious. Like one of us has done something out of line… again… and we’ll both be paying for it… again. A few people praise me with compliments as we pass. I give a few “thank yous” but my heart’s not in it as Joshua herds us out of this lounge like a couple of elementary-aged kids in trouble for throwing rocks on the playground. The whole experience just loses its initial enticement, and the heat that presses in on us as we pass the line of Firebloods near the exit is stifling. My heart gallops way too quickly.

  “Did you know he was Fireblood?” I mouth the question almost silently as Kane leads me back into the noise of the casino. His fingers tense in mine, but there’s no talking—no clarification and no explanations.

  The lab is as quiet as night when we enter it from the maintenance elevator, and still, Joshua says nothing. He simply marches up ahead toward the private elevator that will take us back to the penthouse, and we fall in line behind him. Kane says nothing, so neither do I.

  Joshua hits the button and waits.

  “We did not think we would have to babysit the two of you,” he finally says, an
edge pricking his words. Arms crossed tightly, he glares at us down the sharp bridge of his nose. “Did you not think about the dangers of exposing yourselves? You didn’t make that hearing today Kane. Use your head. Detectors could be anywhere.”

  He glides through the open door. We follow, and I feel just awful.

  “Look, it’s my fault,” I say flatly. “I wanted to play and—”

  “No, he’s right.” Kane stops me with a gentle press on my arm. “It was my idea to go down to the casino.” He faces Joshua. “I take full responsibility.”

  Joshua assesses this. After a few seconds of contemplating, he sighs.

  “I was told you were the sensible one, Kane.”

  “Who said that?” Kane’s brows constrict into a scowl, as if being called sensible is the worst insult of his life. Which is funny considering he really isn’t a rule breaker.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Dr. Kennedy concedes. “This little escapade proves otherwise.”

  “Okay, look.” I lift my hands, stopping them both from saying anything else until I can get a word in. “We’re both to blame, and we’re very sorry.”

  “Regardless, I’m restricting your comings and goings to the lab and the penthouse only.”

  “What?” I pull back, shocked and aggravated all at once. “Can you please tell me what happened back there?”

  “What happened is you went into a lounge you shouldn’t have been in.” Joshua keeps his eyes pinned on the cracked space between the elevator doors as he speaks. “And you played a song you shouldn’t have played in a casino full of Firebloods.”

  The elevator settles on its cables and slides open at the end of his sentence. He steps out of the cab; I don’t—frozen to my spot as my brain processes what he said. Kane plants himself in the open doorway to keep it from closing on us. He leans his back against one side and just looks at me.

  “They knew what it was?”

  “That’s how well you play.”

  Voice low, Kane hands me a quick, almost shy smile. The compliment bounces off like a rubber ball. I just gave us away, and I feel sick. Numb, I step past him; he stays put a minute, like he’s just dropping me off and has some other place to be. Joshua waits for us, his hands tucked into his cardigan pockets. I don’t bother trying to talk my way out of this mess when I face him.

  “I screwed up,” I confess.

  “You did,” he agrees. His tone fills with a softness, but this doesn’t alleviate how miserable I suddenly feel. “No one should be able to play a mantra on a manmade instrument. Not even the Musicar. And yet, you—a human girl by all appearances—have mastered it. That raised some suspicion down there.”

  Kane steps out of the elevator, the golden doors swish closed behind him. He moves in close, his heat giving me a little bit of comfort and courage.

  “But my dad—” I break off, confused. “He could play my mantra. He wrote Sonata Gallagher. It’s mine and Jarron’s mantras together.”

  “I suppose hybrid mantras can be learned. Apparently, your father proved it to you and taught you well. But you just did the impossible. You played part of a Fireblood’s mantra.”

  My heart drops all the way to my feet. I barely feel Kane’s hand press into the small of my back. I’ve exposed us. This is bad.

  “You are a very talented musician, Jude. This adds one more quality to your already intriguing nature.” He addresses both of us. “It’s best you keep your mantras inside your heads.”

  “I’m sorry.” I have nothing left to say. “It’s my fault.”

  “You didn’t know.” Kane’s hand on my back floods hotter in defiance to my words. “I encouraged you to go into that lounge. I’m to blame.”

  “You two can fight it out all you want as long as you stay hidden.” Joshua stiffens, and for a second, and I imagine the clipboard staunchly tucked into the crook of his elbow. He looks so uncomfortable without it. “They will be coming.”

  They will be coming? Oh, man. I swallow hard as bile floods my throat.

  “And?” I ready myself for the outcome. Joshua juts out his chin.

  “We’ll be ready. It isn’t the first time we’ve had to buckle down on security.”

  “Is Rylin back?” Suddenly it’s so important that this answer be “yes.”

  “I don’t know,” Joshua says. “And he isn’t my concern at the moment.”

  My heart skips a single beat. “But—”

  “Look,” Joshua cuts me off before I can finish my sentence and folds his arms behind his very straight back. “My first responsibility is in keeping the lab secure and keeping those who choose to take refuge here safe. Rylin left… with his father. He’s not my responsibility any longer. And he’s not yours either.”

  Kane’s aversion to Rylin is replaced by indignation—for my sake. I sense it, his protectiveness seeping in again. His camouflage slips a little, and orange markings crawl up the side of his neck with a swift crackling.

  “So your precious lab is more important than life?”

  “That isn’t what I said at all.” Joshua rubs at the whiskers on his chin.

  “It isn’t, Kane.” I tug on his arm. “It isn’t what he said.”

  “This isn’t just about Rylin leaving.” Kane voice rises. “It’s about me staying. It’s about my parents, and what they might be facing now because I chose to hide away and let Rylin face the consequences alone.” Tears well. “Because I was afraid of a dream.”

  And now we’ve gotten to the heart if it, and I clench his hand in mine. Everything Kane didn’t say to me before comes rolling out of him in this moment of heightened emotion.

  “Kane, you can’t surmise.” Joshua works to keep his hard expression intact, but it starts to slip. Because he isn’t an insensitive man, and a small regret at his seeming heartlessness steps into his features. He toys with the idea of smiling—a weak and forced effort that he abandons quickly. “We always tend to think the worst, and the outcome is rarely what we expect.”

  Not helping there, Dr. Kennedy. Kane shifts his weight, his nerves bouncing in his pulse, and it sucks that he can’t simply pick up his phone and call his mom. This safe house really is feeling like a prison at the moment. But still…

  “We’ll stay out of sight,” I agree. Joshua visibly relaxes.

  “Get some sleep.” He gestures toward my suite. “With any luck, Rylin may very well be back by morning.”

  Morning? That’s ages away.

  Joshua tosses me a tiny, stiff smile before he turns and makes his way up the opposite hallway toward a different wing.

  “This blows,” Kane whispers.

  “I’m so sorry.” At the moment, this move is just as rotten as Rylin’s. Maybe worse.

  Kane casts me a flash of golden specks, and nudges me gently toward the direction of our suites. The hall is completely silent, and when he hangs an arm around my shoulders, I take comfort in the quietness of just us for a minute. And then I ask my pressing question. The one that lingers on the end of the conversation.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me I shouldn’t be able to play your mantra?”

  “Because you can.” He buries a kiss in my hair. “And I love that you can. And you’re finally playing the piano again, and I didn’t want to hinder you in any way.” I look up at him; he rubs his nose against mine, his voice quiet. “And… I guess I didn’t think you’d play it for anyone but me.”

  I swallow. There’s the jab, and I deserve it. I know how Kane feels about the mantra.

  “I’m really sorry,” I whisper again, and the repetition begins to bug me, but I don’t know what else to do. “If it’s any consolation, I was playing it for only us.”

  “I know. But next time, play it for us in a more private setting, would you?”

  “Noted,” I sigh.

  He breaks away, turning to walk backwards in front of me, matching my steps. After a second, he takes my hand, and pulls my ring free, pocketing it. “You don’t need this anymore.”

  “Nope.
/>
  Another step, and he brings us to a stop right in the middle of the hallway. He crushes me to his chest, his hand on my hip sending waves of heat down the side of my leg, and he kisses me— deep and rich—easing his mantra into my mind.

  When we reach Rylin’s door, we give it a knock… just in case. No answer. It’s going on midnight; the hearing has been over for hours. I try to convince myself that he and Mr. McDowell are just enjoying some much needed “father/son time,” but I don’t believe it. Rylin assured me he’d be back as soon as possible. And this… is not that.

  Something just doesn’t feel right. And it itches all over Kane too.

  In my suite, I flop onto the couch and kick off my shoes, letting my head fall backwards. I roll my neck and study Kane. He leans on an elbow against the bar, watching me. I lift my head.

  “What?”

  “You and your piano.” My ring is pinched between his thumb and forefinger. He toys with it. “Tonight, it reminded me of the fifth grade recital my parents dragged me to.”

  “Oh.” The tension of the night eases off as Kane allows himself to relax. “They had to drag you to one of my recitals, did they?”

  “Yep.” His skin glows brighter. “But… they also had to drag me away afterwards.”

  My heart melts… just a little. He discards my ring on the bar with a solid clink and moves toward me.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have busted out with our mantras.” He sinks down next to me, taking a wild strand of my hair between his fingers. “But you’ve got mine down… almost perfect. Do you know how attractive that is?”

  “Uh, yeah. I attracted a whole group of Firebloods.”

  Kane just ogles at me flirtatiously, and I feel the blush before I can stop it. It was exhilarating, in a terrifying sort of way. I’d forgotten how it made me feel to play for actual people instead of the furniture. I’d also forgotten about how much music is like another being, you know? It breathes something into the soul, something contagious that infects and spreads through a crowd until everyone is connected by the beat or the lyrics or the musicality. It’s universal. One language that everyone understands together. And despite my misstep, I got to contribute to that for a whole room of listeners. I smile to myself, preening toward Kane.