— Chapter 79 —
The Dregs

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N O A H

"I did some asking around," Chains told me in the parking lot of Crave. "His name was Dylan Weller. The boys in Mayhem called him Dregs. Thirty-two years old. A retired boxer, from the west end. I knew him, man. He threw a mean right hook."

Nausea settled in the pit of my stomach.

We were barely a few feet from the crumpled lamp pole sitting in the corner of the sidewalk. Shattered glass and metal debris lay scattered all over the gravel. A line of police tape squared off the accident scene from onlookers, but that hadn't stopped people from crossing over to lay their flowers. Someone had died here, and I swore that if I squinted tight enough, I could see the final rays of evening sunlight reflecting off small splatters of blood.

"What have you heard?" I asked.

"He was racing with three other riders around midnight last night. Cops put out an APB on the bikes, but no hits yet." Chains saw me plucking out a cigarette while he explained the situation, and offered me a light. "They're saying Dregs hit about 80 miles an hour before he lost control and hit the sidewalk. Ran through two pedestrians—a young couple—and crashed into that lamppost. Helmet flew off and his head cracked open on the gravel. Onlookers came to help, but... he was dead before the cops even arrived on scene."

I could picture it all too clearly in my head as the smoke flittered from my lips. "And the couple?"

"Both died in the emergency room a few hours later."

Christ.

"Did they find anything wrong with the bike?" I questioned.

"Unlikely." He scratched the back of his head. "Besides, you'd have to dig through a million tiny pieces to find evidence of foul play. The thing's fucking unsalvageable. It's a shame, man. Heard it was brand new."

This doesn't make any fucking sense.

I peeled my eyes around the parking lot. There weren't any police officers around—I didn't expect any to begin with, considering how many hours had passed since the accident. Walking over and hunkering down beneath the crime scene tape, I stole myself a better look at the situation.

Blood.

The drops were so tiny that I'd nearly missed them. On reflex, my hand struck out. Crimson liquid invaded clean skin as I smeared the blood with two fingers. The shadow of Chains' figure loomed over me as he watched.

I barely noticed him, too absorbed in the memories flashing into my line of sight.

There's blood on your hands.

A cold shiver tickled its way down the tips of my spine. I kept seeing my hands—mine, but years younger—coated in liquid crimson. My heart clenched; my hands shook. The tremor was strong enough to dust the cinders off my cigarette. Fuck.

I couldn't shake myself out of the daze until Chains muttered, "You think they'd have cleaned it up by now."

Pressing the cigarette to my lips, I pulled in a deep inhale of viscid air and tried to clear my head.

"It doesn't make sense," I breathed. "You said he crashed at 80. Most riders hit double that during these races. If there was nothing wrong with the bike, and nothing came in his way, then... he couldn't have just lost control."

"Oh, yeah," Chains said sheepishly. "There may be one other thing I forgot to mention. Ready to hear the real kicker?"

"I don't have time for this, buddy."

He cleared his throat and lowered his voice. "Alright, look. According to some of the boys in Mayhem, Dregs started acting strange a few weeks before this happened. Said he was irritable, reclusive, paranoid. Next thing you know, eyewitness reports are saying that the poor guy was found frothing at the lips, choking and bleeding from the nose, with blown pupils and fingers so blue you could mistake them for popsicles."

I looked up, expression creased into a deep frown.

"Chains, are you trying to tell me he was on drugs when he crashed?"

A quick nod. "Yep. Dregs would've overdosed even if he hadn't struck the pole. Paramedics haven't been able to figure out what he was on." He sighed. "But I've been asking around, man. Dregs never sipped liquor, never did drugs, never even touched steroids. This guy wrote the damn manual on sobriety."

I caught sight of the blood on my fingers again. "Any underlying health conditions?"

"I know he was taking medications for a liver transplant he had a few months ago—the same reason he dropped out of boxing. But other than that, no idea." Chains read into the dread-filled silence I was giving him and realized, "You don't think—"

"Someone gave him Blitz."

The four words forced his eyes wide. "Shit."

"Whoever he got it from must've told him it could help with his recovery," I explained, crushing the butt of my cigarette. "Dregs started taking it a few weeks ago. It had him acting irritable, then he hit his peak on it sometime yesterday. I'm guessing he entered the race fried out of his mind, and... well." I gestured haphazardly toward the crime scene.

The biker beside me let out a heavy breath.

To think anybody would let Dregs race in the state he was in—I couldn't fathom it. But Blitz was the only thing that made sense. And because of it, three families were now mourning their loved ones. Who knew how many more deaths there'd been in the past—how many more there would be.

We're still nowhere closer to solving the problem, I thought, frustrated.

"There's one thing about all of this that I don't get," said Chains. "You told me you were taking this Blitz crap too, right? So... why didn't you react to it like the rest of them, you know? I mean, how come you're not dead or frothing at the mouth?"

"I don't know."

I'd thought about it, of course. I'd spent restless nights racking my brain over it, trying to understand the different possibilities, trying to figure out why I never felt as goddamn horrible on it as everyone said I would. Instead, I kept coming up with more questions than answers. Blitz didn't exactly feel horrible, at least not to me. Hell—for a while, it even worked. No dreams. Nothing. Not even a stray hallucination.

Sometimes it made me weak. Physically weak, like I could barely lift my own arms. And me, who never used to be sick so often, was suddenly sick every other weekend. I used to blame it on the sleeplessness, but the longer I went without it, the less those symptoms lingered.

I didn't know what to think anymore.

A roll of thunder split the air. Moisture hit my hands. One droplet, then two, until the blood on my fingers started to drip down. It's going to storm. The very thought made me shudder—because where there was thunder, there was almost certainly lightning. And noise. Too much fucking noise.

Chains sucked his teeth and grumbled.

"Well, that's fuckin' delightful," he said, shielding his face from the rain. "You okay?"

What difference does it make?

I wiped the blood off against my pants and got to my feet. With a glance to Crave's front doors, I inquired, "Is Tats inside?"

A brisk nod. "Saw him walking in earlier."

"Good," I said, mentally bracing myself for the pounding music that waited inside that building. "I think it's time we paid him a visit."

===

"Jeez, I must be fucking powdered," someone called from a booth in the VIP section, gesturing over to where Chains and I were ascending a red-carpeted staircase. "Is that Chains I'm seeing? In the flesh?"

Music ricocheted back and forth through my pounding skull. The floor beneath my very feet trembled with the bass that resounded through the two-story building. Lights of every color and intensity blared about a massive space that was thrumming with people. Drunks, dancers, drug-loving bikers. My head ticked like it was seconds away from implosion. All of this was a cocktail of sensory-overwhelming nonsense.

I could spot barely a fraction of the Mayhem boys around the place. They'd clearly taken a hit since the ban came in. Those that were here quickly turned to stare as we approached.

I didn't blame them. It must've been quite a shock to see me out in public considering recent events.

"How you doing, Jackie?" said Chains, greeting the noisy Mayhem biker with a half-assed hug.

"Better, now that I know you're not dead!" Jackie laughed, spit lurching from the missing tooth in the top row of his mouth. "I heard you bit a bullet, man. Bloody fucking hell."

"Not just yet, Jackie," my confidant murmured.

"Hah, that's what I like to hear!" Barely paying attention to the conversation, what I managed to hear went something along the lines of, "What're you doing here, dude? Feening for a good time? Wanna let Jackie take your mind off things? Look, I got about a gram of the magic snow, man. I say we hit the—"

"Nah. I'm good."

Jackie shot Chains a perplexed look. "That's real funny. Come on, man." He nudged the Stray Dog's side and removed a plastic bag from the back pocket of his jeans. Cocaine, no doubt. "Since when have you been one to turn down a good line? Stop acting up."

Hard pass. Chains shoved the intoxicated biker away from him.

"Get that shit away from me," he snarled. Jackie stumbled backward, barely managing not to trip over his own ankles at the force, a face of confusion quickly shattering into one of red-hot anger.

"The fuck?" he spat out, yelling over the music. "What's the matter with you? You lost your damn mind or something?"

Who has the time for this?

"Where's Tats?" I spoke coldly, quickly drawing focus.

"Man, where the fuck do you think?"

Chains clenched his jaw at the brazen disrespect. "Watch yourself."

"Whatever." Jackie scrambled away with his little bag. "More for me."

Biting back a grumble, I rubbed away the throbbing ache in my eyes and headed in the direction of Tats' usual private room. Chains was quick to follow, a looming darkness set on watching my back for me.

A familiar and out-of-place person spoke up when I finally opened the door.

"Took you long enough."

It was a grating voice that made me want to tear the hairs out of my head and slash the marrow from inside my bones. For Christ's fucking sake and heaven above, what in the—

The sight to behold was even worse. Because it was James. James, standing in dress pants and a suit shirt, with his gray sleeves rolled up to the elbows. More than that, it was James with an intricately-carved weapon in his hands. Tats' gun. The same masterpiece that never left the belt of his pants, now being held to the side of the biker's head.

"Come in," said James, checking his silver wristwatch. "There's plenty to discuss, and I'm afraid I don't have much time."

It was taking me everything not to throw myself over the glass coffee table and smash in his goddamn skull. Instead, with rigid anger masked by immense patience, I asked slowly,

"Have you lost your fucking mind?"

Tats sat frozen in the position he'd managed to land himself in. "Edge, you know this guy?"

"Like I said, gentlemen," James reminded us, "I really don't have time for this. You need my help, and as it stands, I don't think you have any other options. So sit down, while I'm still being courteous."

Chains stepped forward, his fists clenched in preparation. I held him back. Glancing toward the weapon in the room, I found myself reconsidering the circumstances.

"Lose the gun," I demanded. A condition of our compliance.

James wasn't so eager to follow through with the request. "The gun is on loan to me by your friend here. He'll get it back when I decide it's no longer useful—assuming he plays nice. I'm not here to make enemies."

"Do I even know you, motherfucker?!" Tats complained.

James, disinterested, turned to acknowledge Chains.

"You," he said. "Out."

An empty laugh left the Stray Dog's sharp teeth. "Is he serious?"

"Completely. I don't know you, I don't trust you, and your miserable existence serves me no purpose." James nodded to the door behind us. "Leave."

But Chains was already pushing up his sleeves for a fight. "Oh, yeah? How about I show you something miserable, you stupid d—"

I stepped in his way, my back facing the gun but my eyes trained over my shoulder. We're not armed. And I wasn't going to risk my best friend being hit with another bullet—especially not under these conditions.

"Watch the door," I instructed him.

Chains' eyes shot open. I could sense his frustration carving valleys in the air between us. "Are you kidding me?" he hissed. I stood firm. When he saw that I wasn't going to back down, he huffed and pinched the back of his neck. "Un-fucking-believable."

He all but slammed the door shut on his way out. My only other line of defense, gone in an instant.

He's safer out there.

I let out a slow breath and inquired into the room, "How did you know I'd come here?"

As if it were obvious, James replied, "It doesn't take a genius to know you're desperate."

"Desperate, huh?"

"A week ago, you lost your uncle. A few weeks before that, your club disbanded. Now the Stray Dogs—whatever's left of them, at least—are under the control of someone working for Midas, a traitor you didn't have the sense to sniff out sooner."

Shooter. The name had been scarred into the front of my brain.

"I know you're fighting a losing battle," James clarified, "and it'll stay a losing battle until you manage to regain some semblance of control. For that, you need help. You need numbers. With that in mind, predicting your next moves was easy."

"Is that right?"

"The Stray Dogs have always had a close connection to Mayhem. It's how you've been able to maintain order in Boston for so long." He tilted his head, unimpressed. "I figured it wouldn't be long before you came running for their help. All you needed was a wake-up call, and well... I'd say the death of three people is pretty damn eye-opening."

I turned around.

"Alright, so you've cornered me." My hands dangled lazily in the air, a sarcastic gesture of surrender. "What exactly do you want?"

It'd better be worth my time.

"I want Midas dead, same as you. And right now, we might be the only two people in this entire godforsaken city that share the same goal. I can see it from here, your need for revenge—it's devouring you whole. You won't rest until someone pays for what happened to your uncle, and right now, I can use that."

My whole body reacted to the counterfeit laugh that emerged shallow from my lungs. I dropped my hands. James's stare followed every movement of mine as I moved to sit on the chair furthest from them both.

"You really expect me to work with you after everything you've done?" I asked him. "After everything you've said?"

"I know you don't trust me," said James. His grip tightened on the gun. "Honestly, I couldn't care less. But I'll remind you again: you don't have any other op—"

"Forgive me, Kato," I hissed, "but emancipated or not, you're still your father's son. And if what you say is true, that he's the one responsible for this whole mess... why the fuck should I count on you to not be sending me into a trap?"

"How many times should I have to say it for you to comprehend what I'm saying? He's not my father. He has never been my father. We may share the same surname, but that's as far as it has ever gone. If I could, I'd kill him with my own bare hands. But I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because he's untouchable, that's why! You think Midas is bad?" James scoffed wryly. "He's barely the tip of the iceberg. My father—" he almost laughed at the word— "has connections with people who'd make Midas look like a goddamn saint. The things he's done... the things my father is capable of... you could never even imagine it."

Tats inched away from the tip of the gun. "If I may interrupt here—why aren't we taking this fight to your old man, then? Why even bother with this Midas guy?"

"Because you'd in be packed into body bags long before you even got the chance to darken his front door." Abyssal eyes found mine, a half-lidded stare ripping holes through my head. "This fight isn't against Councilman Kato. It never was. He doesn't personally involve himself in criminal affairs if he can get someone else to do it for him, so getting to him would be impossible. All he's done so far is provide Midas with a bank to pull endless amounts of money from—apart from that, I'm not sure he even knows the half of what's happening down here."

"So what do you expect us to do?" I snapped. "Midas is a contract criminal. We kill him, someone else takes his place, and we'll be right back to where we started."

"No."

I bit back, "The hell do you mean, no?"

"Exactly what I just said. My father isn't the one with the formula for Blitz, he's just financing its production. Midas is the one in charge of everything. The whole system. He knows the labs it's made in and the names of every single person entrusted to distribute it. Boston is just a testing ground. If we kill him? It all falls apart. Blitz ceases to exist. It's taken right off the playing field." James dragged a hand over his face and muttered, "My father won't bother to pursue a failure."

No wonder he has so much security on him, I realized. If Midas were to drop dead, so too would his fucking cash cow—the entire operation he'd been running in Boston since he'd stepped foot into it. The faster Blitz got out onto the streets, the faster it made money, the faster Midas could prove to the councilman that all of this was a worthwhile endeavor.

"Okay, you've lost me," Tats huffed. "What the fuck is uh... what's a Blitz?"

"Need to know basis," I communicated through tight teeth, with my attention still set on the loaded gun in the room. "Alright. So the goal is to pump Midas full of lead and sink him to the bottom of the ocean. Fine. Fine. How do you propose we do that?"

James managed to find humor in the question, weapon steady. "You're trying to run before you've even learned to walk. Right now you have nothing, no one. Before you do anything, you need numbers. People willing to fight for you. That's why you came here, is it not?" An annoyed shrug. "I can't fight him on my own any more than you can."

That seemed to be the one thing Tats did manage to understand.

"Well, you don't have to worry about Mayhem," the ink-ridden biker assured me. "We've lost enough of our boys already. I think it's high time we got this city back to normal—so we'll follow your call. No questions asked."

A slow breath filled my lungs. A slower exhale escaped my nose. Too many thoughts were bouncing around in my head, and in an effort to silence them, I reached for the crystal bottle of liquor on the table and poured myself a glass. Barely enough alcohol to have me blurring the grooves on my fingers.

"I need the Stray Dogs under control," I decided, tilting the whiskey down my throat. Cheap shit, I thought, hardly feeling its burn. "Which means I need Shooter dealt with."

Tats spoke up. "That might be a tad difficult, boss."

"And why is that?"

"Your Stray Dogs took a serious hit to numbers, man," he said. "People only stayed around because they believed in the Chief, and now that he's dead, a bunch of them are still on the fence about going along with Shooter." The pads of his fingers found his forehead. "I mean, as far as I know, this is all just rumors... but from what I hear? The few of your boys that stayed are a part of the races now. They're being paid pretty damn good to do Shooter's bidding."

"I think this is where I can be of some assistance," James intruded.

My head fell back against the sofa. I still can't believe I'm even considering this.

"Fucking enlighten me."

Nothing short of unimpressed, James's half-lidded eyes managed a glare. "The Stray Dogs used to host a fair at the start of spring every year. I think I attended once. It's the biggest event for motorcyclists in Boston—people from all over the state show up to show off their bikes and hear some live music by the water. From what I gather, it doesn't matter if you're a Stray Dog, a Pit Viper, or patched to some other club. Everyone's invited."

"Are you going to get to the point?" I muttered. "Or are you going to keep telling me things I already know?"

"Depends. Are you going to quit interrupting me? Or do I have to be the one to pull your massive head out of your ass?

"Oh, that's real fucking rich coming from—"

"Oh-kay," Tats butted in, putting up his hands. "I can sense there's some pretty bad blood here. How about we skip to the plan before the two of you decide to break in each other's heads? Or worse—put a bullet in mine? Does that sound good?" Nobody bothered to argue, so he leaned a little back from the gun. "Good."

James cleared his throat. "As I was saying. I think our best course of action is to host the fair as soon as possible. With the current state of the city right now, nobody in their right mind would pass up an invitation—especially if they knew it was coming from you. Not even Shooter." He checked his watch before he spoke again. "All those bikers in a public place? That's how you get to your Stray Dogs. That's how you get them off the fence and back on your side."

"You're forgetting one little detail," I mentioned. "We're not allowed to host events anymore. Your father banned biker clubs from congregating anywhere near the city. None of us could even get to Carson Beach without ending up in handcuffs."

"That's where I come in."

Maybe it was the liquor, but I just could help a laugh. "What, now you've got some miracle potion that'll get the cops off our asses for a day?"

"Perhaps." He clarified, "Her name is Anneka Hassan. You may have heard of her. She's the candidate best positioned to be running against my father in this year's election." A small smile split the seam of his lips. "Ms. Hassan despises him just as much as I do. She'd jump at the chance to oppose one of my father's ridiculous policies—especially one that vilifies a big part of Boston's population."

Tats rolled his eyes. "Let me guess. You've got her on speed dial?"

"Why is it so difficult," asked James, his left brow twitching slightly, "for people to understand that I have my own connections?"

"Right. So that's it, then?" I sat up, hands furling and unfurling. "You expect me to believe that you're willing to put aside our differences? Just like that? All of a sudden you even give a shit about us street rats?"

He shrugged. "I never said I was doing this for you. Or the Stray Dogs."

"No," I said bitterly. "Of course not. You're doing this for Elliot. But that's not really what this is about, is it?"

His scowl hardened. "What exactly are you insinuating, Street Rat?"

"Jeez. Come on. How fuckin' stupid do I look?" My head shook in disbelief. "You might have everyone else fooled, but I was raised in a city crawling with cheats and liars. I know when someone's hiding something, Kato. I think you've been hiding something ever since you walked into Boston."

James swallowed.

There it is, I thought. Caught you.

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," he affirmed. Making a desperate attempt to derail the conversation, he forced himself away from holding eye contact. "I don't understand why I keep having to repeat myself. All I care about is Elliot. All I have ever cared about is Elliot. I won't rest until he's safe. The rest of the world can burn for all I care. Including you, if that's how it must be."

But James's words meant nothing. He'd already shown me the truth, right there, when he'd changed the topic in an attempt to protect himself.

James couldn't be trusted.

What's the secret behind all of this? And why is he going through hell to keep it buried?

What don't I know?

"Nah," I countered. "The way I see it—for some deluded reason—you think helping us might win him over. Isn't that right?" I didn't know whether to scoff at the notion or prod my fingers into his eye sockets. "Wake up, for Christ's sake. He sure as shit doesn't want anything to do with you."

"Maybe not. But I'm the one who brought him into this mess. I'm the reason Midas even knows his name, which means Elliot's in danger. And I know you hate the thought of that just as much as I do." His expression flatlined. "Both of us are fighting for the same thing, so there's no use in fighting each other. We're better off pooling our resources. Believe me, I wouldn't even be considering this if I had other options."

I let out a sharp breath. Midas couldn't be beaten by playing the hero. No, he'd force us to get our hands dirty too. Still, working with James in any capacity was the last thing I wanted—but I was on my last set of options. Being civil hadn't worked. The Stray Dogs playing by our own rules hadn't worked. And following the law sure as shit hadn't done us any good.

Right now, as much as I hated the thought—James had half a plan.

Half of a plan was still better than no plan at all.

"You really think Anneka can get the ban overturned?" Tats asked his aggressor, doubt plaguing his facets.

"Maybe not completely," James admitted. "But it'll be a good start. I'll give the councilor a call. With her support, we'll get our fair, and she'll get to boost her standing with votes from the bikers." A resentful grin—if it could even be called that. "Heh. Maybe if we're lucky, my father might even get kicked down a few points in the polls. Wins all around."

The room was silent for a few blissful moments as I contemplated everything.

"It's not the most horrible idea, boss," the Mayhem biker confessed. He made sure to add, "As much as I hate to say it."

The gun against his head finally lowered.

"So it's settled. Good." James checked his watch and knocked the safety on the gun. I watched him slide it onto the table, a metallic clang making me flinch. "I'll leave you gentlemen to discuss the rest of the details amongst yourselves. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm late."

My lips curled. Late for what? But it was only after that thought popped into my head that I realized, I really didn't fucking care.

James turned away for the exit. Watching him walk away felt like a goddamn blessing—like I could finally breathe again. God knew the bastard was a black hole for anything pleasant.

"This doesn't change anything, Kato," I reminded him. "I still hate your guts."

He laughed curtly.

"Tell someone who cares."

Then he was gone, the doors colliding shut once more.

Tats moved as if he were about to leave as well. I made a gesture for him to stay. "You," I said. "Sit. There's something else I need your help with."

He gave me a look. "You have an idea of your own?"

"Maybe. But it goes against everything the Stray Dogs stand for. It'll be risky. Illegal in every conceivable way. And people could end up hurt—maybe even dead."

Tats grinned the biggest grin he'd ever dared to initiate in my presence.

"That doesn't sound like an idea, chief," he cackled, rubbing his tattooed hands together. "That sounds like a plan."

The two of us sat for a while longer as I relayed the details of the situation. He listened closely to the plan, helped me flesh it out further, and by the time everything had been set into place, I'd come to realize that Chains was probably still waiting outside by the door.

"Don't forget what I told you, Tats," I said whilst heading for the door. "It has to be there before the fair. Not after."

"Trust me, boss. If there's anything we Mayhem boys know how to do, it's wreak some mother-loving havoc. You've got nothing to worry about."

I wish I could believe that.

Leaving out into the open nightclub, the first thing I noticed was the music—it wasn't so loud. Someone had dialed it down, much to my relief. The next thing that struck me was the fact that Chains wasn't stationed in his post. In fact, he wasn't here at all.

"Where the hell is Chains?"

I didn't ask the question to anybody in particular, but people still craned their heads to hear me speak. My attention fanned out through the few bikers that loitered in the booths. I spotted a familiar face amongst the crowd, and in a few dazed blinks, I was holding the guy up by the collar of his shirt.

"You," I snapped. "Where the fuck is Chains?"

Jackie, drooling liquor down the side of his chin, offered a lazy laugh. "What, you've lost him already? Hah! Maybe you should keep a better leash on your bitches."

Who the fuck has time for—

My patience evaporated. I snatched him by the forehead and knocked the back of his head into the black-painted wall nearby. Then again, a little harder, so I knew he'd get the message.

"Alright!" he yapped. "Alright, Christ! I saw that damn hothead dragging one of our boys down to the doors! The two of them got in an argument. Damn near started brawling on the table. Don't know what started it, man, but it seemed pretty damn bad." There must've been a scowl on my face, because he quickly defended, "I don't know nothin' else!"

"Who was he with?"

But I didn't get the chance to hear the answer to that question. Instead, I caught the sound of a gentle voice speaking into a microphone on stage, and in that same instant, my surroundings were blown away to nothing.

"You'll have to go easy on us." His breathy chuckle carried through the building. "It's been a while."

Chains could wait for now. Jackie himself was an afterthought. I'd already let go of him.

Rushing over to the glass banister, I looked over a crowded club to the stage below. Whistles and applause followed as a small crowd of people urged on whatever band had been set up on stage. My attention wasn't on the band. No, it was on the five-foot-something bartender who'd taken up the microphone.

Elliot.

More than that.

My mother was standing on the dance floor at his feet, so close to the stage that she could rest her cocktail glass on it, watching up in delight at the performer with a mic stand in his grasp. I could barely make out her figure in the crowd, but that grey streak in her hair was impossible to miss.

Shock folded in and out of my face. What on earth are they doing here?

Yet another question I didn't have the time to linger on. Because Elliot looked fucking incredible. Hell, I was leaning so far over the banister just to get a look that any sane person would think I was gearing to jump over it.

"Uh, I think this was one of the very first songs we ever wrote."

He spoke with such softness into the microphone, with subtle uncertainty, like his confidence was just barely beginning to take root. I watched him pick up the glass that was sitting on the piano and drag a metal barstool closer to his microphone. He brushed a hand through his hair, adjusted his gloves, choked down whatever was in the glass. And I wished that I could see more of his face from up here—that fringe of his was too damn good at concealing his eyes.

The drummer behind him popped the sucker from his lips and laughed into his microphone. Riven, if I'd bothered to remember his name correctly.

"Don't let us take any credit," he said. "You and Piano Man over here took the reigns over the whole thing."

"Here's hoping we don't screw it up," joked an unfamiliar guitarist. He didn't have a microphone of his own, so another nearby mic must've been picking up the sound of his voice. One of his arms was draped over the side of a cherry-red guitar.

James remarked from the piano, "Just keep your eyes up, Nate."

With a roll of the drums, the band finally began to play.

Piano first, then guitar, followed by a few bass-kicks on the drums. By the time the song was in full swing, Elliot was hesitating towards the microphone. In the next moment—he was singing.

This is Elliot.

A bartender with the voice of a weeping angel, one that kept its pain hidden behind a wall of glass. Beautifully broken. And I thought, God. If his voice were a drug, I'd take it in pills every night and let my mind be slave to its high.

"Shit," said Tats, emerging from somewhere behind me. He gestured to James down below. "I thought that bastard looked familiar. Little fucker and his band used to run a few songs round here back in the day. Jesus. I was still a prospect back in then, you know. Brings back good memories."

I didn't answer, too far lost in my own awestruck silence. My system was electricity on water; I could feel every nerve springing around like liquid on a speaker.

For once, the music in Crave didn't feel like mind-numbing noise. It was real. It was Elliot.

And he was breathtaking.

No, more than that.

Familiar. The answer was right in front of me, somewhere. The frustration of figuring it out was ruining me. I must have known Elliot once, in the past. I had to have known him—or at least seen him. It felt like the solution was right at the tip of my tongue, like a breath about to be taken or a word nearly spoken. I thought for sure I was losing my sanity.

The song, I thought. I know this song.

It hit me all at once. The memory of him was a flood slamming into me from all sides. A runaway train gone off the rails. I'd just fallen over the face of a cliff, and nothing had ever felt better.

"That was awesome," Riven told the lead singer, a childish grin from ear to ear. "Sounds freakin' crisp, you know."

Nate, the guitarist, chuckled. "We still got it, huh?"

"That's Serendipity for ya'," the drummer echoed. His Australian accent, though faint, cruised on the ends of his words.

James made a face. He corrected into the microphone, "We never agreed on that band name."

Riven laughed. "None of youse had any better ideas."

The lighter.

Hell, I'd completely forgotten about that goddamn lighter. Digging into my back pocket, I gripped the rusty square of metal in hopes that I wasn't imagining things. This can't be a dream. I turned it over. The cursive word engraved into its side had never stood out to me more.

Serendipity.

Everything finally clicked into place.

But it wasn't over yet. Though the band appeared to be done for the night, Elliot stood up off the stool to borrow one of Nate's spare guitars.

They all watched him move back to the microphone with confusion on their faces. If there was an encore planned, they certainly hadn't been given the heads up. Elliot was doing this song alone. After resuming his seat by the microphone again, he strummed a chord to himself. Just one—and his eyes lit up as it resounded through the busy nightclub.

"Uh, bare with me," he told the crowd with a shy glance. "I've been working on this for a long time. I think I just figured it out."

A blonde girl—Lucille, who I knew was one of Angela's friends—whistled in encouragement from a few feet away. Elliot gave her a shy smile.

One of the microphones picked up Riven's quiet ask. "Eli, what are you...?"

The sound of the guitar cut him off. Elliot started playing again, and this time, I knew the song from the very first note. He'd played a part of it for me once already, back on Jasper's guitar in the apartment. I watched him sing it tonight with the best view in the house, falling weak beneath the spell of his voice.

The lyrics told a story of love and loss—the last five years of Elliot's life. I couldn't tell if he was making the words up on the spot, but the change of pace from the last song people turning their heads. Watching. Listening. Even his bandmates, who were still on stage and staring in total silence. He'd captured everyone under a siren song, and I didn't want to be set free.

"Sheesh." Tats whistled at Elliot's notes, impressed, wincing his face. "You hearing this, man?"

"Tats. Shut up."

"Gotcha."

It took me some time to notice, but bits and pieces of the song weren't in English. Some lines were in Russian—he's never spoken Russian to me before—and some, I thought, must have been short expressions in James's mother tongue. He would've been the only one to understand them. From the way he'd stilled by the piano, I knew whatever Elliot was saying was resonating with him on a level so much deeper than any of us would ever be able to understand.

Elliot wasn't singing for the crowd. For now, he was swimming in the dark waters of his own creation, and the rest of us were just spectators.

I wish I could see his eyes.

He stopped singing. The chords stopped dead. A few moments of breathless silence rippled through the room.

Then, all at once—the audience erupted.

Applause rumbled like thunder. I'd gone flying down the stairs, pushing people out of the way. My heart was pounding too fast for anything else to keep up. I was pure adrenaline. A firework igniting sparks of gold. And I was hopelessly, endlessly, utterly and irrevocably infatuated with him.

Heaven help me.

I came up on the dance floor behind my mother just as the band started packing up on stage. She whistled along with the applause that rang about the building. When she spotted me, her face awakened into a wide grin.

"There you are! Isn't he fantastic?" Her arm hooked itself to mine. Elliot was still composing himself by the microphone when she gestured to him and cheered, "I didn't know he was so talented! Where on earth did you find him, really?"

Too dazed to speak, I offered only a short nod.

My silence went misunderstood. In Italian, she told me, "Oh, don't be like that! It was my idea for us to come. I made him bring me here."

"It's okay," I managed. "Thank you, Ma."

A puzzled laugh. "You're not upset?"

"Why would I be upset?"

She opened her mouth to say something, but my attention had already drifted the brown-haired bartender being dragged off stage by his bandmates. James had stayed back—still glued to his piano. Following my train of focus, my mother gave me a nudge in Elliot's direction, and I shot her a look.

"That was insane, dude!" I overheard Riven saying whilst I approached them. Elliot was pink from the tip of his nose to the back of his neck, awkwardly waving off the attention.

The guitarist spoke next. "Who knew you still had those pipes on you?"

"You've really been holding out on us!" Riven messed his knuckles through Elliot's hair and slumped his weight over the bartender's shoulders. "Jeez. What a show. Remind me why the band broke up again?"

"It was nothing," Elliot told them, ever so humble. "Really. I'm uh—I'm glad you guys liked it."

The uncomfortable spotlight on him made it seem as if he needed saving. But the closer I got to reaching for him, the better my view of what he was wearing. I'd been so caught up in my memories of him that I'd completely skipped over what were most certainly my clothes—draped like art over his slender figure.

He's wearing my clothes, I thought, trying to keep myself composed. He looks so fucking good in my clothes.

Gone were the baggy fabrics that lumped over his limbs. With fingerless gloves and jacket tied around his waist, he'd dressed himself in a an oversized top that left his ribs mostly bare and his arms clear to see. He looked like something off the front page of Rolling Stone.

I blamed my mother for this. That damn woman knew exactly what she was doing.

"Elliot."

He swivelled around, lighting up at the sight of me. The smile on his lips forced sparks up my arms. I found myself comparing him to the Elliot I'd known so briefly in the past. He'd looked so different back then—I could hardly blame myself for not recognising him sooner.

This is the boy that saved my life, I thought, and he didn't even know it. The fact alone made me want to laugh until my stomach was sore. I wanted to sweep him into my arms right here, and take him someplace far, far away.

"I took your advice," he said, hope like stars in his hazel eyes. "My voice isn't what it used to be, but... what did you think?"

God. Like a complete fool, I had so many thrilling things to say that I ended up saying nothing at all.

He deflated slightly. "Oh. You're uh... you're really quiet. You didn't like it, then?" Stumbling over himself, he asked, "Was I really that bad?"

I didn't know what I was thinking. I probably wasn't thinking at all. But words weren't working at the moment, and I knew if he kept looking at me with those heartbroken eyes, I'd probably never recover.

In a swift moment, my arm wrapped around his waist and tugged him against my body. I let a hand get lost in his hair—and my heart get lost in his kiss.

He calls me Sugar, but he's the one that's sweet.

"Oh." Nate cleared his throat and told his friend, "Avert your eyes, Riv. They forgot we have impressionable children around."

The Australian yapped, "I'm literally older than you, cunt."

My mother chuckled somewhere off to the side.

Elliot's fingers fluttered up my arms as he melted into me. I could feel him weaken at the gesture, kissing me so softly, so tentatively... almost as if he thought he didn't deserve it. But there was a reason for that tattoo he'd been given. The number was there, somewhere. And whether he knew it or not, Elliot was breathing life into me—the same way that he did all those years ago.

"What was that for?" he breathed not long after we parted.

Still holding him close, I grazed my mouth over the shell of his ear and whispered so, so quietly, the words that'd given me more relief than anything else in the last few days.

"I remember you."

A still pause. "You... what?"

I pressed a rusty square of metal into the palm of his hand and repeated the same thing. "I remember you, Alley Cat."

He'd never looked more dazed than the moment I stepped away from him.

"Duuude," said Riven from beside him, "isn't that the lighter I engraved for your birthday back in like... the eleventh grade? You still have this?"

Elliot's brows furrowed. I could see the thoughts running through his head—all the different possibilities in his eyes.

"I thought I lost it," he murmured.

"Speaking of lost," said Nate, "has anyone seen Jay?"

I didn't care to take part in the rest of the conversation. Whilst his friends were distracted, I whispered to Elliot,

"Do you want to get out of here?"

He looked somewhere over my shoulder and chuckled. "What about your mom? I thought we were supposed to be taking her to dinner."

"Oh, don't worry about me!" Summoned out of thin air, Maria quickly pushed herself into the conversation. "It's too late for me to be going anywhere tonight. My feet are killing me, and Nero gets anxious when I'm gone too long. Besides, I've already called Jasper. That boy should be here any second to pick me up. You two should go!"

"Are you sure?" said Elliot. "We really shouldn't lea—"

"Yes, yes, it's fine!" My mother waved us away. "Off you go, kids. Don't have too much fun."

I smiled. "Have I told you how much I—"

"Yes, yes, I know." Leaving a chaste kiss on my cheek, she said, "Go, dear. Don't keep him waiting."

So, as I whisked Elliot away from the crowd, everything else seemed to fade away. I only knew one thing beyond all doubt: that I'd finally found the person who'd saved my life. And now that I had him, nothing would ever make me let him go.

=||A/N||=

i was busy making Stray Dogs playlists...
This chapter could've honestly been split into two :') If you made it this far, thanks for reading! <3