Page 102 of It Happened on a Sunday
My blood runs cold. “It’s really that bad?”
He looks grim. “It isn’t good.”
“Okay.” I take a deep breath as the opening act starts to play their first song. The crowd cheers and sings along, and it’s such an incongruous sound considering our current conversation that it takes me a second to reconcile it in my head. “So what do you need me to do?”
“Same things we already talked about.” He ticks them off on his fingers. “No going anywhere alone. No walking the crowd line after a concert until we figure out what’s going on. No more early-morning trips to the hotel gym with just one of us by your side. I want you covered by at least three people every time you go anywhere.”
“Three guards? We’ve already bumped up to two. Three doesn’t seem…excessive?”
“I told you when we got the second doll that I had a bad feeling about this.” He looks me dead in the eye. “Well, that feeling just got worse.”
Of course it did. I blow out a breath. “Fine, do whatever youneed to do.”
“I plan on it,” he replies. “Including making sure you don’t move from that room without me.” He gestures to my dressing room door.
“What? But we’re backstage,” I protest incredulously.
“We are,” he agrees.
“I don’t understand. Fans can’t get back here—”
“Theoretically, they can’t. But you don’t know who knows someone who works at a venue somewhere. Also, whoever wrote this letter had to have backstage access.”
“Backstage access?” I ask as my stomach sinks. “How could they get back here? It’s restricted.”
“That’s exactly what I’m wondering. Plus the fact that they’ve moved states…”
“Please don’t tell me you think they’re on tour with us.”
I’ve worked so long and hard to get to a point where I feel safe, if not in public then at least with my people. The people who are hand-selected to be near me, to make up my world. The family I chose for myself. And now Marco’s telling me that even that tiny bit of safety could be yanked away?
After I sent that text to Sly this morning, I didn’t think it was possible for any more jagged little pieces to break off my heart. But standing here, looking at Marco’s face, I swear I can feel another piece crumble.
How much more can I lose before I cease to be? Before I become nothing but the glitter and smoke they pay to see?
“Okay,” I whisper, because it’s not like I have a choice in any of this.
“Hey,” Marco says, and for the first time since I hired him and told him I don’t like being touched, he puts a bracing hand on my shoulder. The gesture tells me everything I need to know about how I must look. “It’s going to be all right. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
“I know,” I tell him, even as the searing pain in my chest settles down to a dull, constant ache. “I just needed a minute to absorb it.” Or a decade, but it’s not like I can tell him that. “I won’t leave my dressing room without one of you.”
“Good. And just so you know, Jace and I have narrowed down the access list. Only Bianca, Olivia, Pauline, and Sly are allowed back here. Since your PR team tends to float people in and out to work with Bryan, we’re going to have to set something else up with them. We can’t be too careful at this point, okay?”
I start to tell him he doesn’t need to worry about Sly being on the list anymore, but I don’t want to say the words. Maybe if I don’t say them, they won’t be true. I didn’t let Sly go because I wanted to. I let him go because it was the right thing to do. And if I don’t close off access, I can pretend—at least for a little while—that I’ll see him again.
But Marco’s still waiting for an answer, so I nod and whisper, “Okay.”
He pats my shoulder clumsily again, then steps back. “I’ll be here when you’re ready to move to the stage.”
I nod a second time, then reach for the handle of my dressing room door. Already I can hear the opening act launching into another song. Which means the countdown to when I need to be onstage has already started.
Since I have a feeling I’m going to need every single one of those minutes to put myself back together after the double whammy of today, I don’t even try to muster up a fake smile before pushing inside the room.
But the second I close the door behind me, I realize I’ve made a huge mistake. Because someone’s alreadyinmy dressing room.
Chapter 46
Sloane
