Page 4 of Taken By the Twins

Hope that, with Damien’s hold on our shared essence growing more tenuous by the cycle, she can save him.

Hope that she can love us both, and possibly even saveme.

And then, only when the doppelseers are whole at last, can we hope to save Sombra from the fate we foretold millennia ago—and that, with the upcoming birth of the first human-demon spawn growing closer and closer, we might not be able to avoid.

CHAPTER 2

NEW YEAR’S EVE

TANDY

Whenever Jared Turner starts texting me out of nowhere, I immediately have this need to check and see what my old friend Sierra’s up to.

It’s been like that ever since the two of us—Jared and me—fucked-up our lives so badly, we both lost something super important to us. For me, it was my spot as a member of the all-girl singing group Thr33peat. And, of course, Jared’s relationship with Sierra was over the second he convinced me that she’d grown too successful for his level of fame as a boybander, and that he chose me over her.

It’s been twelve years since I stupidly,stupidlybelieved him. Twelve years since I fell into bed with one of my best friend’s boyfriends, and twelve years since my life imploded for the first time, but definitely not the last.

I loved him. Stupid to admit it after how everything went down, but I did once. With Sierra working toward becoming Whiskey Rose, I knew our days as ‘One’, ‘Two’, and ‘Three’ were numbered. She was going to break out and go solo, and alreadybelieving I was being left behind, I turned to Jared. He turned to me. We ‘fell in love’, only I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who really did.

I was twenty then. My rep as the sultry redhead with the soprano voice only got worse when news broke that I slept with Sierra’s long-term boyfriend behind her back.

I was the slut. The homewrecker. The replacement.

Sierra’s career took off almost right away. She wrote a song after she dumped Jared, and once ‘Heart Barely Used’ went, like, triple platinum, everyone in the fucking world knew who Whiskey Rose was.

She’s the most famous popstar of our generation. And Tandy Lewis? I’m the most infamous tramp in our circle.

I’m thirty-two now. Once Sierra became Whiskey and Jared regretted getting some side action, he’s spent the last twelve years chasing her. He wants her back desperately, though he’ll never admit he will, and whenever he starts chasingmeagain, the reason why inevitably leads back to her.

I have a party to get ready to go to. Christmas when you’re on tour—no friends, no family, and decade-old gossip still following you wherever you go—really sucks. My hotel has a Christmas tree in the lobby and old-fashioned carols piped in through the halls, but that was the extent of my celebration. I got drinks with a couple of girls in the show on Christmas Eve, but when Moira—a one-hit wonder who peaked five years ago—asked me if I have had a threesome with Jared Turner and Whiskey Rose, I paid my part of the tab and went back to an empty room.

That wasn’t the plan. Though I’ve never been able to outrun that rep, it makes finding a bedmate for the night pretty damn easy. My ‘fuck me’ green eyes and styled red hair—as natural as my tits, thank you very much—has never left me alone in bed for long, but considering Jared Turner was my last real relationship… yeah.

And now, a week later as I get ready to try again for New Year’s, that rat is slinking out of the shadows again.

Jared T (don’t answer)

Hey, babe. You got a date for New Year’s?

I’m in town through the third and got a night off. What do you think?

I miss you, Tandy.

I miss that ass. That mouth.

Baby, please.

Call me.

No, thanks.

Though, I have to say, like most everything else that’s gone wrong in my life, Jared’s whining and pleading is my fault. I used to joke that, once a guy got a taste of Tandy Lewis, he could never get over me. I tend to linger in their memories, like they’re wondering if sex with me was just that good. It would explain the handful of exes that didn’t take it all that well when I inevitably dumped them, though that might also be because they rarely saw it coming.

I have this thing with commitment. As in, I don’t ever expect it, and I’m not about it. I could blame Jared for that, for how he promised me the world after Sierra ended things for good with him, and for how he didn’t keep any of those promises. I thought I loved him. Obviously, I was wrong, but when Jared didn’t even have the decency to dump me before he moved on to his next conquest, it messed me up.

And I know that you can’t expect much from a playboy like Jared Turner. Like, once a cheater, always a cheater, right? I helped him betray Sierra, even though I honestly believed at thetime that the two of them had broken up before I ever fell for any of Jared’s cheesy come-on lines. It was probably just karma that Jared cheated on me with Molly May, the nineteen-year-old supermodel, while Thr33peat was in the middle of disbanding.

But it’s twelve years later mow, and as much as I want to believe that Jared still holds a torch for me, I know better. As though both of us are still stuck in the heyday of our teenage years, Jared is absolutely obsessed with Sierra. Between being proud that her break-out hit, ‘Heart Barely Used’, was written about him, and secretly aggravated that—as her alternate persona, Whiskey Rose—she became untouchably famous after they broke up, he’s determined to win her back.

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