Page 79 of Sage Haven
Even if I had to destroy her first.
Because care and affection wasn’t what I could offer her.
Not now.
First came survival.
Then came vengeance.
And if there was anything left of us after that,
Maybe she’d forgive me in the end.
17
SAGE
The House of Musicwas a riot of chaos and charm. A place where everything felt louder—wilder—alive. From the outside, it didn’t look like much. Weatherworn bricks. Faded murals peeling from the walls like molting skin. But inside, it pulsed.
A living, breathing thing.
It was as if the walls themselves inhaled every shout, every scream, every bass drop, and exhaled them in raw, eclectic art.
And beneath its unassuming exterior, buried like a secret only the bold could find, was the basement stage.
An intimate den where the ceilings hung low and flickering lights swayed in sync with the pulse of the crowd.
The air was thick and drenched in the scent of whiskey, cheap beer, cigarettes half-smoked, and something else I couldn’t quite name.
Something electric.
A charge crackled under my skin, filling the space between each ragged breath.
It hummed through the soles of my boots, up through my spine, until I swore it was becoming a part of me.
And for the first time in weeks—maybe even months—I felt awake.
Like I belonged to something bigger than the ache that had been eating me alive.
I had resisted coming here. Sam had practically dragged me out by my wrists, her usual sunshine glow laced with iron determination.
“You need this,” she had said earlier that night.
She wasn’t wrong.
The suffocating silence of my apartment had become unbearable like a self-made prison with walls that whispered things I didn’t want to hear.
But the moment I stepped through the battered entrance to this place, the moment the bass thundered against my ribs, something deep inside me cracked open.
And for a second, just a second, I remembered who I used to be.
Before everything.
This was freedom and I clung to it like it might vanish.
Even now, with the weight of my past pressed tight against my ribs and with the memories waiting to swallow me into the dark, I let myself smile.
At least, for tonight.
