When Devils Sing(69)

Trouble? Neera took the card, holding it as if it could cut her. “Why would you help me?”

Grant nodded to the guitar case slung across her shoulder by way of response.

“What—because of the Yamaha?”

“Somethin’ like that.” Grant chuckled, easy and light. “Well, because of Ajay. We used to be old friends. In fact, we were once in a band together back in the day. Nothing serious, but it was a good ol’ time. I learned a lot about music from him.”

“You and Ajay? In a band?” Of everything Neera had learned in the past few days, this was, somehow, the most shocking. “I had no idea. My mom never told me.”

Something flashed behind Grant’s eyes. “You should ask her about it, as I’m not sure it’s my place. Regardless, you best take good care of that guitar, kid. It’s a real beauty.”

With that, Grant tipped his head, then returned to his table, barely sparing Neera another glance.

Neera remained frozen, struggling to parse through what she’d just learned. Heat lightning flashed in the distance, illuminating the black sky. Unwittingly, tears welled up in her eyes. She’d always been able to keep her emotions under control, but this was different. This was a feeling boiling beneath her skin. The night air was balmy and electric, mirroring the energy that sizzled inside of her. Despite being in the open air, she felt as if the world was closing in on her.

Neera looked over her shoulder at Grant, but he was already laughing easy with his buddies.

Her hands trembled as she tightened her grip on the Yamaha’s case. She didn’t understand what her body was feeling, what she was feeling. All she knew was that she wanted to go home, but that didn’t mean a whole lot.

The Colonial wasn’t her home.

The dozens of houses she had lived in by the age of eighteen weren’t home.

When Neera imagined home, it was a person. It was a feeling. It was a memory frozen in time. It was Ajay’s apartment. It was his little corner of vintage guitars before he’d sold them off, one by one, over the years. It was his old piano with missing keys, his bookshelf of eighties movies and dog-eared Stephen King novels. His crate of Pink Floyd records. It was her and Kiran and Ajay celebrating holidays wherever they’d found themselves. It was a family that wasn’t quite normal, but it made perfect sense to her.

Home was the past. Home was a fading memory. Home was something she would never be able to return to because, three years ago, someone took that from her.

Neera gripped her throat. The cicada was crawling inside of her. It was in her lungs, beating against her rib cage with sharp wings. Humming. Buzzing. Preparing to scream. She needed to get away.

Now.

She walked away from the patio, stumbling down the sloped, manicured grass to the water’s edge. The sounds of the Tavern grew muffled behind her as she put much-needed distance between herself and the crowded restaurant.

She sought refuge on a dock, nearly hidden in a bend of the lake. Neera began to cough as she stood there, cloaked in the dark behind a weeping willow. This time, the cough was throaty and thick, as if there was something slick stuck in her throat. She coughed, and coughed, and coughed, collapsing to her knees onto the splintered wood. Her throat was closing, as if no matter how deep she inhaled, she couldn’t get enough air.

The edges of her vision grew black. She coughed one last time before something twitched, moving up from her throat to her mouth. A writhing thing with spindly legs that tasted like acid and dirt.

Neera spit up onto the wood.

Covered in her own saliva was a buzzing, red-eyed cicada.





CHAPTER 27SAM





Sam took her fifteen-minute break early into her shift that night. If she hadn’t, she surely would’ve lost her shit on a customer and swiftly been out of a job.

After seeing Jonah Langley try to hide beneath his table, she’d figured it out, and she was fuming. It didn’t take much to put the pieces together. Russ Langley paying for Ben’s hospital bills? He’d never done an act of kindness for them before—so why now? The reason was painfully obvious. Russ was covering his son’s tracks, saving him from a DUI, or worse, a vehicular homicide charge.

Not that Jonah would face any real consequences if the truth came out, other than a sullied reputation in Lake Clearwater. But he was spared from even that. Too spineless to own up to what’d he done. She considered telling her daddy, but it was only the briefest thought. He wouldn’t believe a word out of her mouth, if he bothered to listen at all.

Besides, what could Wiley Calhoun do to the Langley family that they wouldn’t inflict one hundred times over onto him? Or her? It was a losing game.

Good thing Sam was no longer playing. She had the devil on her side, with an offer in hand. The question was this: Would she be willing to do what he asked of her next?

Sam hovered outside beside the Tavern’s dumpsters. She kicked the steel side one good time, letting out a cry of frustration. Her anger wasn’t just from seeing Jonah—but also, Reid Langley. The nail in the coffin of her and Dawson’s friendship.

It’d been a little over a month since their fight. That night, they’d lingered in the Tavern parking lot after Dawson’s last shift as a caddy. All the while Reid had idled in his Land Rover a few yards away. The sight of him had only pissed her off.

“Y’all got plans?” Sam had asked, not bothering to hide her judgment.