It doesn’t matter. It only matters that I play.
As I raise my bow, the side door off-stage bursts open with a wham against the wall. Shadows flicker off to my right, and I turn to see Aurora and her crew, followed by Finn. Aurora looks smug, but Finn just looks angry. Why is he always so angry?
“Hey, there, free range,” Aurora says. Lilith, Ivy, Blythe, and Arabella all titter.
This can’t be good. I am immediately on edge. My brain thinks I should run, but my feet stay flanked to the ground in disobedience. My fight or flight instinct must be broken.
“Can I help you?” I am clenching my violin so hard my fingertips blanch white.
Aurora smiles and blows a big bubble of gum before it pops. She twirls the pink, stringy stuff around a finger before plucking it off her knuckle and back into her mouth with her teeth.
Finn walks to stand behind me, his nose flaring like a bull at the twitch of a matador’s cape. I shift away from him, and Aurora steps in front of me, blocking my retreat. The witches, more like bitches, of Voclain step in line behind her.
“I said, hey, free range,” she repeats. I frown at the name. “Or, maybe I should call you free game instead?”
“I’m also organic, but I don’t think you’d qualify, too many fillers and all.”
Damn my mouth!
Her lips twist upward into a tight smile the moment before she rips the violin out of my hands.
What the—?!
I struggle, trying to reclaim it, but Finn steps closer, his meaty palms wrapping around my arms and yanking them behind my back.
“What are you doing?” I snarl, trying my best to remain calm. I can’t let them know what this means to me.
One, two, three, four, blue.
One, two, th...th...three...
“Ian let you off easy,” Aurora remarks, dragging one long manicured finger screeching across my violin. I wince. I feel the bite of her fingernail like it rakes across my own skin. “It’s time to make up for that.”
Without another word, she slams my violin into the floor of the stage, kneeling at the last second, so she can continue to beat it into the polished hardwood after the first hit.
My heart bursts open and bleeds. I am drowning from the inside out.
My last reminder of William.
Our final shared duet.
“Noooooo!” I yank toward her and almost make it, so close I could nearly bite her nose. Finn grunts and curses as I try to rip free of his grasp.
Aurora pauses, looks up at me, and laughs before she continues slamming my violin into the stage until it is nothing, just pieces of splintered wood and broken cords.
It’s not just my violin that lays there, broken and discarded on the floor. William lays there again, among the splinters of wood, and it’s too late. I can’t save him. I can’t do anything but watch.
“Why?” A sob escapes my lips with the word, but no one answers me.
Aurora swims behind my tears. She looks bored.
“Bring her here,” she says. A moment later, she snaps, “Bring her here, Berkshire.”
Finn shoves me forward, nearly into Aurora’s face. She doesn’t even flinch. She looks straight at me, pinning me with those cold, green eyes of hers as she utters her next command.
“Make her bow.”
Finn slams his knee into the back of my legs, and they give out beneath me. I topple to the stage, but I’m not there long.
Fuck this! Fuck them!
I try to stand, my movements jerky and wild. Finn grunts with the struggle. Aurora’s friends are shouting, but I have no idea what they are saying.
“Stop moving, bitch!” Finn roars, bringing his knee into the back of my spine this time and then leaving it there as he finally wrestles me to the stage and pins me.
Finn’s hands are clammy around my wrists. He smells like sweat and a bottle of sour cologne, and it settles thick on my tongue.
Finn’s fat palm smears my face across the floor, bruising my cheekbone. I can make out Aurora in my peripheral, holding up the neck of my violin, slivers of wood still sticking out of it. I shake, fear and adrenaline and rage speeding through my veins.
“Give me her hand,” Aurora commands.
“No, no, no,” I say, trying to shake my head and causing my head to squeak against the floor. “Please. Please don’t.”
“Aurora?” Ivy questions. I can’t see her, but she sounds afraid. That makes two of us.
I don’t know if it’s because Finn’s knee is carving out a spot in my spine or it’s the darkness, but I can’t breathe. Aurora raises the neck of my violin, preparing to strike. It’s weak, and I hate myself for it, but my tears fall just the same.
In my head, I see all my dreams disappear. No medical degree. No patients. No surgeries. My dreams demolished before I even have a chance to try.
She raises the neck of my violin like a bat over her shoulder.
“WHAT THE FUCK?!” a voice roars.
Although Finn’s still got me trapped, I can see him in my peripheral. Ian stands on stage, his shoulders heaving with each breath. He’s tall already, but the rage etched across his skin seems to make him even taller, meaner, deadlier.
I try to say his name, but all that escapes is a wheeze.
A blush warms his cheeks. Snow dusts his shoulders and falls to the floor next to his black boots. He’s wearing a black hoodie that falls just above his eyes and a matching peacoat, open at the center and stopping just above his knees. He may not be an angel, but he certainly looks like a fallen one, delivered to earth to save me.
Aurora ignores Ian and swings. A fraction of a second later, Ian slams into Finn, and it moves me just enough so the blow misses my hand.
Aurora screeches, and it happens so fast. Ian is on top of Finn, punching him in the face. Each
