Supernova (Supernatural Superstar Book 1) Page 13

  Peg stopped walking and turned around, looking up. “Here,” he said, pointing up to a small gap in the staging.

  Audrey looked up. Through the gap, she could see Eli standing right above them. The ring on her finger started to prickle. Eli stumbled over his words and glanced down at them. A smile quirked at the corner of his mouth. That smile caught a place in her heart that all of Thorne’s calculated beams had never touched. It was so genuine, and just for her.

  Her hand rose, guided by the ring, as if it were a magnet being pulled toward him. He said something, and then Pete started talking instead. Eli crouched down near the gap in the staging, pretending to tie his shoelace.

  “What are you doing here?” he whispered from the corner of his mouth.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  His grin got a bit wider. “You talk now!”

  She nodded. “I’m a popstar,” she told him.

  “You need to touch hands,” said Peg.

  “Who’s that?” asked Eli.

  “Supernova,” she said. “They brought me to see you.”

  She stretched up, standing on her tiptoes as she tried to reach him. The gap was wide enough, but the staging was a little too high.

  Eli was wearing the ring on his finger now, not around his neck. For some reason, that made Audrey happy. He reached out for her hand. She felt a tiny click as her ring touched against his.

  For a moment, it was as if the ground had vanished beneath her and she was falling, falling, down into an endless chasm. Then Eli pulled her back into reality. The rings glowed. A surge of energy rushed through her.

  “I have to go,” Eli whispered.

  And he was gone. For a moment, Audrey still reached out toward him, then she let her hand fall. She was filled with a strange emptiness, a hollow space inside her chest that felt the same as falling through that chasm. Part of her wanted to keep falling, to chase that feeling into the black hole. Then Koko’s voice snapped her out of it.

  “Well, that was weird,” she said.

  “Can we go now?” asked Thorne. “They’re about to play ‘Tears of Gratitude’, and if I have to hear that song one more time, there will be tears of murder-tude.”

  Audrey glanced at Peg. He seemed dazed. “Is that what you saw?” she asked him.

  He blinked a couple of times. “I… I can’t remember. The vision is gone, like it was taken out of my head while it played out in front of me.”

  “Also weird,” said Koko. “Does that usually happen?”

  Peg shrugged. “My visions don’t usually come true, and they’re never that accurate, so… Maybe it’s normal? I’ll ask my grandmother.”

  The first few notes of a song rang out above them.

  “I am serious,” Thorne said, his teeth clenched. “Actual murder. Violent, bloody murder.”

  Audrey wasn’t sure why he hated the song so much. It sounded like a pretty song, but it also sounded like the final song, and the last thing they wanted was to be caught in a flood of people.

  They climbed out of the scaffolding and rushed through the costume area, weaving in and out of rows of feathers and sequins, then Audrey ran slap-bang into someone.

  “Sorry!” she said, trying to duck around them, but they moved so she couldn’t get past.

  Even though she knew she shouldn’t make eye contact, she couldn’t help looking up into their face. Horror flooded her body as she realized who it was.

  Sullivan Snell. And he was grinning.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Interesting,” said Sullivan Snell.

  Audrey stared at him in shock as he whipped out his phone and started snapping pictures.

  “Audrey, come on,” Koko hissed, pulling her by the arm.

  “No, stay,” Snell said, grabbing Audrey so she couldn’t get away. “Would you like to go on record with a statement—”

  Before he could finish his question, there was the crackle of lightning and Snell dropped his hold on Audrey. Koko’s hand was still sparking as she pulled Audrey away. The four of them ran for the hallway with Snell calling after them.

  Audrey was sure every person there was staring at them. This was bad. So bad. The president was going to find out. The whole group would be fired. Literally fired. Dragonfired. And they didn’t even know if they’d done enough to make it worthwhile, whatever had been in Peg’s vision.

  They piled out of the backstage area, feeling like the enemy was hot on their heels, even though there was no sign of anyone chasing them.

  “Thanks, Eric!” Peg called as they sprinted toward the exit.

  There were more people around now, and they stared as the members of Supernova ran past them. Thorne’s wig went flying off, but there was no time for him to stop and grab it. They had to get back to the academy. Somehow, it felt like if they could make it back before the president discovered what they’d done, everything would be okay.

  Finally, they got to the road, but there wasn’t a taxi in sight.

  “Uber?” Peg asked Thorne, who was the only one old enough to have a credit card.

  Thorne shook his head. Koko had not been wrong about his hair; it was all matted and weirdly flat against his head. The contrast with his pretty face made it seem even worse.

  “They banned me for complaining too much,” he said.

  “We are so screwed,” Koko said, pacing and tugging at her wig. “Agnes totally saw us. There’s no way she’ll keep this from the president. We’re so dead.”

  Suddenly, Peg started to laugh. “Did you see their faces, though? All the management people, when they realized it was us.”

  Koko stopped pacing and stared at him. For a moment, Audrey thought she was going to lose her temper at Peg, but then she started laughing too.

  “Agnes was like…” Koko sucked in her cheeks and made her eyes pop.

  Audrey couldn’t help but laugh at how accurate Koko’s impersonation was, especially with the blonde hair.

  “This is no laughing matter,” Thorne said, but his lip twitched, and after a moment, he burst out laughing too. “And the security guard was all…” His mouth hung open and he waved like a robot, his head moving from side to side like he was watching them run past. He bent over, clutching his knees as he laughed.

  For a moment, Audrey couldn’t move, she was so transfixed by him. He was usually so focused, a hundred percent business. She’d never seen him let go like this. He seemed as if he was made out of golden, shimmering light. Like, if she tried to touch him, her hand would pass right through because he was too beautiful to be tangible.

  Koko clutched her stomach, then pointed at Thorne. “Stop!” she gasped. “You look so ugly!”

  She pulled out her phone and started taking pictures of him. Thorne ran his hands through his hair, trying to fix it, but that only made it worse. Audrey thought Koko had a strange definition of ugliness, but Thorne did look like a demented triceratops with his hair sticking up like that. A really pretty triceratops. He even had the same nose. The thought made Audrey laugh even more.

  “Triceratops!” she told Koko.

  Koko grabbed Audrey by the arm, collapsing into her side as she howled with laughter.

  “Oi, you!” yelled Thorne. “Well, you look like a… feral stray cat!”

  The insult only made Audrey laugh harder. “I am!” she said. “I’m a feral cat!”

  She was laughing so hard, she didn’t even notice that Peg had hailed a cab.

  “Are you guys coming?” he asked. “Or do you want to stay here and wait for all the Tempest fans to see you?”

  He nodded behind them, and when Audrey turned, she saw a flood of people streaming out of the stadium. She hurried to get into the taxi, relieved at the relatively clean escape.

  Her relief was short-lived.

  “Looks like we might get stuck in the concert traffic,” the driver said. “Hope you guys aren’t in a rush.”

  The four of them exchanged worried glances. Stuck in traffic, they were sitting ducks. All
it would take was for one person to glance inside the cab and recognize them and it would all be over.

  “All four of us should’ve worn masks,” said Thorne.

  “I can’t help what I saw. This is a one-way street, bro,” said Peg. “Not literally,” he added to the driver.

  “We could hop the train,” said Audrey, pointing toward the train line opposite the cab. “Trains are fast.”

  “Yes, trains are fast,” Thorne said, rolling his eyes. “That’s why you don’t hop them like some sort of hobo.”

  “It’s not hard,” Audrey told him. “Even short people can do it.”

  Koko got the giggles again.

  “I’ll do it,” said Peg. “I’ve always wanted to test my skills, man against machine.”

  Audrey thought he’d be disappointed with the reality.

  “We have much more chance of being seen if we hop a train,” Thorne said, protesting even as he got out of the cab with the rest of them, giving the driver a generous tip for his trouble.

  They sprinted for the train line, wanting to get ahead of the people leaving the concert. Even with her funny sideways run, the catsuit was no longer comfortable.

  Audrey led them down a side street, toward the train station. The station wasn’t as big as the one she’d lived at; it was just an outside platform. She hopped the fence and crouched in the shadows beneath the platform. She’d expected the others to follow, so when they didn’t, she looked back. The three of them were still on the other side of the fence.

  “The train is approaching,” she told them, parroting what the overhead announcement had just said.

  “Feral cat,” Thorne mumbled.

  “This is not what I imagined,” Peg said, taking hold of the fence to haul himself over.

  “I actually have a train pass in my wallet,” said Koko. “I could just go in normally…”

  The three of them got over the fence just as the train pulled into the station. Audrey stepped out from the end of the platform and up onto the end of the train carriage, holding on to the train door for balance.

  “This really isn’t a challenge,” Peg said, stepping up beside her. “Machine isn’t even putting up a fight.”

  It was a bit of a tight squeeze with the four of them standing in the tiny caboose, but easy enough to hold on once the train got going. After a moment, a station flashed by them.

  “Wait, is this an express train?” Thorne yelled into the wind rushing past them. “Where are we going?”

  Audrey didn’t know. All she knew was that they’d gotten away. As long as the four of them were together, she thought maybe everything would be okay.

  Chapter Twenty

  When they finally got back to the house, Audrey expected to see it all lit up, maybe with some sirens and helicopters flying with searchlights out to look for them. There was none of that. The house looked like it did every other day.

  “Maybe Agnes decided not to tell the president,” Peg said as they approached the main gate.

  “Did you explode into your dream?” asked Thorne. “You know you’re not meant to take the song literally. Reality is where we are now.”

  “Sometimes good things happen,” Peg told him. “You don’t have to always be such a grumble guts.”

  Audrey snorted. “Grumble guts,” she repeated. “Nice.”

  Thorne scowled at her, then stepped up to the gate to wave at the security guard. The guard looked shocked to see them, or maybe just by their disguises. He talked quietly with Thorne while Thorne explained.

  “I don’t see how any of this has helped,” said Koko. “Your vision was a bit useless, Peg. Good concert, though.”

  Peg shrugged. “It’s strange that I don’t remember it. I’ll talk to my grandmother about it. What do you think, Audrey?”

  Audrey held up her hand to look at the ring. “Something happened,” she said. “I don’t know what.”

  “My grandmother might know something about those rings too,” Peg said, leaning in to get a better look at it. “It really lit up, didn’t it! I wonder what those markings mean. If it’s okay, I’ll send her a picture of it.”

  Koko wandered over to see what was taking Thorne so long to get the gate opened while Peg tried to take a picture of the ring. No matter what angle or filter he tried, the picture wouldn’t come out. It was either a black screen or too blurry to show any detail.

  “Must be some sort of magical barrier,” he said. “I’ll just describe it to her.”

  Even though Peg seemed interested in the ring, Audrey didn’t see how it could help her against the alpha. It wasn’t like it could shoot laser beams or something. Still, she appreciated his help, even if his vision had been a bust.

  “She might not respond till tomorrow,” Peg said as he sent the message. “She sleeps early.”

  Finally, the gate began to open, and Thorne and Koko came back over to them.

  “He had to call the president to verify our identities,” said Thorne. His tone said everything they were feeling. It was over. The option of pleading ignorance was gone. There was no way they could pretend the president didn’t know what they’d done. There would be consequences for this.

  They headed to their rooms with only a nod to each other. Audrey peeled off the catsuit and took a shower, but after five minutes of sitting in her room alone, thoughts of the impending punishment chasing themselves around her brain, she left to go find the others. She headed for Thorne’s room. Because it was closest, not because she particularly wanted to see him. The other three had already gathered there, showered and dressed in their pajamas.

  “See, Audrey will tell you it’s not so bad,” Koko said, waving Audrey into the room. She was lying on the bed behind Thorne with her chin hooked over his shoulder, reaching around his side to scroll through his phone.

  “That might not be true,” Audrey said as she sat on the floor near the bed. “Everything is so bad.”

  Thorne passed the phone over to Audrey. For a moment, Audrey’s heart seized in panic, thinking it would be a report of another attack by the cult, then she caught sight of one of the pictures.

  It wasn’t worse than an attack. Nobody had been hurt or killed. At least, not yet.

  The pictures were from a gossip site, of Supernova fleeing from the Tempest concert. The headline on the site was: SUPERNOVA IMPLOSION AHEAD OF SCHEDULE, and underneath, in smaller letters, “Cross-dressing, cosplay and clownish behavior – how new Sparkling Gems group Supernova fit an entire career’s worth of meltdown into one night.”

  Audrey looked up at the others. “It’s so bad,” she said, then went back to reading.

  There weren’t many details, just a lot of “seems like…” and “could there possibly have been…” type of speculation, but there were photos taken by onlookers. At least the photos were blurry. It was hard to see any detail. It didn’t look as if Sullivan Snell had weighed in yet, but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. He was probably waiting for the best time to strike, like a hungry snake.

  The worst part of the article was the comments. Most of them weren’t even true, and they were all mean. Audrey couldn’t stop reading, even though she knew it didn’t do anyone any good. She shut her eyes and thrust the phone away, but it was still there, calling to her. Maybe she should read just one more page. For research.

  “Well, it’s not as if we could’ve gone against the vision,” Koko said, wriggling around on the bed to sit up. “What if something bad had happened?”

  “Worse than this?” asked Peg. “Our song hasn’t even been released, and already we’ve caused a scandal. Remember when Owen Jarvis was caught underage drinking, and the president sent him to Argentina to make a documentary on shelling peanuts? He never came back, and that was at the peak of his career. What do you think she’ll do to us?”

  “She’s not going to invest any more money in us, that’s for sure,” said Thorne. “We didn’t just break our contracts, there’s evidence of us doing it. Everyone saw it. She’ll have
no choice but to make examples of us.”

  Audrey stared up at him. The comment she’d just read said his eyes were too close together, but Audrey had never noticed that before. She leaned forward a bit, trying to get a better look.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, reaching out to flick her in the forehead.

  She drew back, scowling at him. “People on the internet tell lies,” she said. His eyes seemed adequately spaced to her, and she didn’t know why someone would write that.

  “That doesn’t matter. There are photos,” said Thorne. “People will fill in the blanks with whatever they want to believe.”

  Audrey handed the phone back to him. “Well, I don’t like it.”

  “At least most people agree you look hot as a girl,” Peg said to Thorne. “Most of the comments about me say the clown mask matches my personality, and they’re some of the nicer ones.”

  Koko snorted and pushed Thorne off the bed. “Have a good cry about it. It’s an internet gossip site. People don’t go on there to spread goodwill and cheer. If that’s what you want, go look at pictures of fluffy puppies, not Buzzington Feed.”

  Even though Audrey wasn’t used to the whole “being around people” thing yet, she had the vague understanding that the others were just talking for the sake of it, saying anything to distract themselves from thinking about what would happen when the president caught up with them.

  “Do you think the concert will be cancelled?” Audrey asked.

  Koko shook her head. “She’s already put the money into it. I think we’ll have the concert, put out the song, and then we’ll gradually get less and less work until everyone forgets who we are and we fade away.”

  “You probably won’t get your dragonfire, either,” said Thorne. “She’ll find some loophole in your agreement that means because of this incident, Section A of Paragraph 14 clearly states you forfeit all rights…”

  “Even if we win?” Audrey asked. “Can she do that?”

  Thorne shrugged. “I wouldn’t bet against her.”

  “Our souls,” Audrey said. “She’ll keep them forever.” She wondered what the president would do with their souls. Eat them? Trade them for a new pink jumpsuit? Or just keep them around to look at, and maybe occasionally set them on fire for a laugh. “This is all my fault.” There were a million reasons why, and all of them were valid. She was starting to wonder if she was cursed.