Inspire (The Muse #1)(68)
Author: Cora Carmack

You’re the last thing I see as I hit the ground

Oh, I know you, honey. Too late to show you.

We end the song to cheers, and I sneak a glance at my watch. Sure enough, we’re due for our first break, and I gladly put up my guitar and hop down off the stage.

Then I see her again, and this time I know I’m not going crazy. She’s heading for the stairs, and she flicks her head around to look at me, her hair spinning with her. She freezes when our eyes lock, and once again starts to run.

Fuck it. She’s not doing this to me again. Once and for all, I’m going to get my answers or I’m going to put this to an end for good.

We’re not playing by her rules anymore.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Kalli

I thought I could do it.

Just a little push. I wouldn’t even have to go as far as last time. If I just opened myself up and poured a little energy out on the crowd, I felt confident that the watcher would find me. He’d been stern in his last warning. Any reckless behavior, anything that put the secret of our existence at risk, and he would come for me.

And considering I didn’t want him to come with a fury on his heels, just a small amount of energy is all it would be.

But I couldn’t get myself to do it. I couldn’t even get myself to go inside that club again. So instead, I go for a place down the street where I hear music streaming out of the door.

And fate has a cruel sense of humor because when I follow the strains of music up the stairs to the crowd, it’s Wilder on the microphone. His hair is damp with sweat, curled and sticking to his forehead. His lips hover over the mic, and he sings with abandon, making it hard to look away.

When I’d seen him playing in that kitchen, I’d been so horrified, so distraught that I hadn’t really heard his voice. I’d taken in the words. I remember that his voice was low. But now … he’s stunning. His tone is warm and deep with just enough of a rasp that he sounds uniquely like himself. And I can’t do anything but watch the way his mouth forms the words, the feeling he infuses into each syllable.

How did I miss this? How could I have loved him so completely and yet not known this integral piece of him? If I didn’t know him, and I’d just walked into this bar by chance, he’s exactly the kind of artist I would have gravitated toward. The passion pours off of him in waves, and he could be really great. More than great even. He’s gorgeous, and he looks so incredibly good up under the lights. His movements are magnetic. He’s the kind of musician that people would fall in love with.

I fall in love all over again just watching him. Then his eyes meet mine, and he stumbles. His fingers strike the wrong chord, and he glances at Rook, who picks up the slack. I shift behind a group of people standing and chatting nearby, and I watch his face fall when he looks back and can’t find me.

He apologizes to the crowd, and reminds them that it’s a new song. I press a hand to my chest, feeling like all the air has been sucked out of lungs. This is his song. He wrote it. He must have mentioned it before I came upstairs, and now I run through my memory, picking out the lyrics that I remember, and I know with a sickening certainty that this song is about me.

I’m outnumbered in a fight against none

Planting my feet just to watch you run

I shuffle backward, and I run into someone waiting at the bar.

“Sorry,” I mumble.

My heart pounds in time with the song, and I know I should leave while he’s distracted. But I can’t bring myself to walk away from his voice. From this song that beckons me even as it heaps grief atop my head.

Somehow, despite how careful I was, I still let my ability affect him. Maybe the energy leaked out in an unguarded moment. During sex or while I was curled up sleeping against him. Maybe my control isn’t as good as I thought it was. Whatever happened, this is the result. His mother said he’d stopped playing after everything happened with his father, and it was only after me that he started again. As sorry as I am, as awful as it is to have envisioned a future with him only to feel it slip from my grasp … I can’t be sorry that it brought out this.

It’s perfect. He’s perfect.

He clearly needs music. So I stay and listen through the end of the song, and I fight my watery eyes as it ends.

Oh, I know you, honey. Too late to show you.

Too late. Too far. Too much.

There was never anything about my relationship with Wilder that fell within normal levels. It was always bigger than it was supposed to be. Scarier. Harder. Better.

The band starts removing their instruments for what I assume is a break, and I panic. What if they come this direction? Back to the bar to get a drink? I abandon all thoughts of catching the Watcher’s attention, and just try to escape Wilder’s notice again. I glance back once. Maybe to make sure he’s not watching. Or to get one more look. He’s looking in my direction, but I don’t know if he sees me. I don’t stop to find out, breaking for the stairs as fast as I can.

I make it downstairs, and through the long room, but there’s a back up of people at the door.

Damn. It’s pouring outside.

“Kalli!”

I don’t look back. I don’t have to. I would recognize his voice anywhere. But there are half a dozen people in my way, and two more have just stepped inside, trying to escape the rain.

“Excuse me,” I say, not bothering to wait before I start squeezing my way through people. “Excuse me, I need out.”

I hear my name again, and I give up being polite, pushing my way through. Someone calls me a bitch, but I couldn’t care less when my hand reaches the door enough to push it open. I throw myself outside, and the wind hits me so hard I stumble back. The rain pelts sideways, and the bouncer reaches out to tug the door closed. My clothes are soaked through to the skin in seconds. I try to wipe my eyes, but it’s raining too hard to make much of a difference. It runs over my eyelids and into my nose and mouth, and it’s like I’m drowning on land. So I put my head down, and start walking, trying to cover my face enough to see my feet. I don’t even know what direction I’m walking, if I’m getting closer to my car or farther away.

“Kalli! Damn it, come back inside.”

I don’t know whether I loathe or love his persistence.

Love. Where he is concerned, the answer will always be love. But that doesn’t mean I want to face him. Not yet. I just need to get the Watcher first. Maybe then. When I hear his feet slap through puddles in the pavement behind me, I start to run. My sandals slip on the rain-slicked concrete, and I can hear him gaining on me.