When Devils Sing(67)
In that moment, at his mother’s side, Reid was safe.
He was protected.
He was home.
Neera strummed the final notes and Reid’s eyes reluctantly opened, though his lids were heavy. The Tavern was dead quiet. He could’ve sworn no one was breathing. He could barely move, barely even speak. He felt a heavy weight on his chest. It was a familiar feeling—one he always had after dreaming of his mother. Dreams were cruel that way. They were brief reprieves from the pain of grief, tricking his mind into thinking she was alive.
But Reid’s body knew better. Warm tears threatened to spill onto his face. It took all of his strength to prevent them from falling. Not here, not now, he pleaded to himself. Grow up.
On the other side of the restaurant, Grant peeled himself away from a crowded booth, standing slowly. He put his pinkies in his mouth, breaking the silence with a whistle that sounded more like a howl. He did that several times, before slowly, all around the Tavern, people began to clap. Whistles and cheers erupted. Reid had never seen anything like it. He clapped along with them, his sense of up and down coming back to him in ripples and waves.
“Thank you,” Neera said into the microphone. Her eyes were wide and glistening as she stared down at the crowd of people who applauded for her.
Jason hopped onto the stage, his face briefly dumbfounded. “Well, damn. That was somethin’ else. Will surely be a tough act to follow. Sorry, Jimmy.” The crowd laughed, while others continued to cheer.
Neera stared at the crowd, mouth agape. Then she quickly righted herself, mouthing the words thank you. She took a small bow, then exited off the stage with her guitar in tow.
“Holy shit.” The words slipped from Jonah’s mouth, heavy and pronounced. His gray eyes glistened with the look of unshed tears, too. Everyone at the crescent table seemed out of sorts, all bleary-eyed and slow to speak. “That song was weird, right?”
Even Farris, normally composed to a fault, looked unsettled. “Definitely not normal,” she admitted under her breath. “Unnatural, even.”
“What’re you suggesting?” Reid asked, sweat beading on his temple.
He still wasn’t exactly sure what he’d witnessed with Neera and the buck the night before, but it wasn’t his place to tell anyone. Though it was clear now something strange had gone down.
“I think…” Farris paused for dramatic effect. “That she sold her soul.”
A few people at the table laughed as if she’d said Neera could walk on water. Jonah’s mouth quirked into a grin, while Reid’s head spun. The image of Neera beside the mutilated buck, with the bloody guitar, was seared into his brain.
It’s impossible.
Reid scowled. “I thought you didn’t believe in that stuff.”
Jonah nodded in absent agreement. “Since when did you start believing town legends? Come on. It’s not like they’re actually true—oh, shit.” He sank into the booth, suddenly going still.
Reid followed his brother’s line of sight to the next table over, where Samantha Calhoun was taking a group’s orders. Once she was done, she glanced briefly in the direction of the Langley siblings before disappearing into the crowd.
“You think she saw me?” Jonah whispered, still slumped low in the seat.
In a rare moment of solidarity, Reid and Farris shared a look of embarrassment. His sister pulled him up by his shirt collar. “Stop being stupid,” she barked. “You’re only drawing attention to yourself.”
Reid leaned close to his siblings. “You think she knows the truth about the accident?”
Farris pursed her lips. “It wouldn’t matter if she did. I heard from Dad that Wiley’s blaming it all on Sam anyway, even got a restraining order taken out on her for Ben. He doesn’t care about the other driver.”
The siblings looked to Jonah, whose bushy eyebrows had gone high on his forehead. “No fuckin’ way. That means I’m out of the woods?”
“It means Wiley won’t likely kill you, but Sam still might,” Farris said wryly.
Jonah scoffed at the thought but seemed otherwise unbothered. Now that a few days had passed, his brother didn’t seem particularly upset by the accident at all, which only further disturbed Reid. Sam’s life had been irreparably changed by Jonah’s drunken mistake, yet she was paying the price for it. The ugly truth of it made Reid feel sick.
“I need some air,” he said aloud to no one in particular. With a shove, he pushed past his siblings, inching out of the packed booth. “Don’t wait up,” Reid said over his shoulder, before stepping into the dense crowd of Clearwater bodies, in search of Isaiah.
NEERA
NEERA COULDN’T HAVE a high without it being chased by a hellish low. She’d been camped out on the floor of the Tavern’s family-designated bathroom for the past hour, listening to the other Cicada’s Song musicians through the wall. After her performance, nausea had hit her like a freight train. She tried to focus on the shining mosaic squares that made up the wallpaper, desperate to calm herself.
Her performance on the stage had been more intense than she’d anticipated. The crowd seemed transfixed by her. It had been as horrifying as it was exhilarating. She’d never felt that before, as if all the energy in the room was hers to control.
But there was something wrong with Neera. If she concentrated hard enough, she swore there were wings fluttering inside of her. Like the cicada she’d eaten had crawled down her throat and taken root inside her stomach.