Strung (Seaside)

Strung

a Seaside Prequel

by Rachel Van Dyken

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.

STRUNG

Copyright © 2014 RACHEL VAN DYKEN

ISBN: 978-0990579311

Cover Art by P.S. Cover Design

To my AWESOME
Rockin’ Readers
group on Facebook,

who inspired me to write
Tear
from Alec and Demetri's POV
.

CHAPTER ONE

Alec

THE CROWD WAS
fierce. I rubbed my palms together and took a few deep breaths as the sound of the music rumbled across the stage.

“Is everyone ready?” Kane yelled into the microphone, “I can’t hear you!”

The screams were piercing. I shivered a bit and looked at my watch. Our start time had been getting later and later recently. I bit my lip and closed my eyes.

“Ready man?” Demetri hit me across the back and popped his knuckles in my ears.

I opened both eyes and looked at him — really looked at him. “You planning on going out there with coke on your face?”

“Shit.” He wiped his nose and pulled Visine out of his tight leather pants, splashing a bit in his eyes before blinking the tears away.

“You gonna make it?” I asked teeth clenched.

“You mean am I ready to go sell my soul?” He sniffed. “Yeah.”

We stood there, side-by-side, breathing in and out, but not really experiencing anything but the drone of the voices and the hype of the music as it got louder.

“We can’t keep going on like this. You know it. I know it.” I shook my head and wiped my face with my hands.

“You chose this.” Demetri sneered. “Deal with it.”

“I don’t have to deal with shit!” I grabbed him by the shoulders. “I’m your older brother, I’m all you have.”

Demetri jerked away from me and rolled his eyes. “Stop being dramatic, man, it’s our last concert for that very damn reason.”

“Let’s give a huge shout for AD2!” Kane’s voice was so loud, so deafening, that I had to fight the wince on my face as I ran onto the stage and was handed my guitar.

Demetri went to the drums and started counting down with the sticks. “One, Two, Three, Four.”

We always started with our most popular songs.

“I’m breaking out,” I sang, “Breaking in. Fading in so many places my mind is nothing but endless races. Shake me, move me, make me feel.” I grabbed the microphone as the pyrotechnics team did their thing making the stage look like it was on fire.

Ripping open the front of my shirt I knelt on the stage in front of a group of girls. “Make me bleed, make me feel, if only I could touch you and see you’re real. I’d touch your skin, feel your sweat, baby I’d do things you’d never forget.”

The girls’ screams made me want to run in the other direction.

It wasn’t real.

None of it.

I smirked and offered a wink as I slowly licked one of my fingers and dipped it into a girl’s mouth.

She passed out into her friends’ arms as the other girl yelled, “Bitch!”

The music stopped, and then Demetri’s higher voice joined in, the entire sold out stadium went quiet as he left the drums and walked slowly towards the middle of the stage. His leather pants and ripped green t-shirt made him look like he’d just gotten into a fight. The makeup crew had drawn blue lines down his temples made to look like tears a bit. Mine were red.

Then again the tour was called “Bleeding blue and red.”

“I’ll do things,” Demetri sang, walking past me and kneeling in front making a rocking motion with his hips like he was screwing the stage. “You’d never forget. Oh baby, believe me, you’ll be screaming until you’re hoarse. Believe me when I say, you’ll finally live, on that day.”

More screaming commenced.

Demetri pulled off his shirt and threw it into the crowd.

Then turned to me and smiled.

I stopped in my tracks almost missing the dance sequence when the background dancers jumped on stage and started bumping and grinding against us.

All because of that look on my brother’s face.

Empty.

He was so freaking empty. And it was all my fault. I’d done that to him — to us.

With a smirk he pulled one of the dancers towards him and licked her face, then set her back on her teetering feet.

I’d created a monster.

Then again, what else could I have created? When I was the one he looked up to? When I was doing the exact same thing last year?

Death has a way of screwing with your head.

You either try to become a better person.

Or you do what Demetri does.

And try to forget the pain.

“AD2!” the crowd shouted over and over again, “We love you Alec!”

“Marry me Demetri!”

I swallowed and finished the song, my gut sinking with each note, knowing that if we didn’t get our shit together in Seaside — there would be no hope.

Demetri’s future was a drug overdose.

And mine was death by guilt.

I wasn’t sure which was a worse way to go.

CHAPTER TWO

Demetri

“WELL, SHIT.”
I blinked a few times then put on my sunglasses. “At least the sun’s shining.”

I really shouldn’t have said that.

Because in that instant, it started pouring rain.

“You were saying?” Alec snorted and pulled open the door to the beach house that we were going to be staying at for the next few months.

“I hate this place already. It smells,” I grumbled popping my knuckles and stuffing my hands in my front pockets, only to fidget with the few pills I kept on me just in case.

You know, just in case I fell off a building.

Or got attacked by a shark.

Or felt… sad.

Scratch that — just in case I felt anything. Even happy.

“So,” Alec licked his lips, “We should probably get going.”

“Uh?” I looked around. “We just got here?”

“Right.” Alec didn’t make eye contact. Instead he coughed and opened the fridge. “I kind of signed us up for school.”

I froze. My heart damn near beat out of my chest. “How do you
kind of
sign us up for school? When you say
kind of
do you mean you thought about it and then laughed your ass off for even having that thought?”

“Don’t worry. I gave you easy classes.”

“Are you shitting me?” I roared.

“No.” Alec’s jaw flinched. He threw me a bottled-water and took a swig of his own. “I’m not. Now put on some jeans that don’t have rips all the way up to your ass and try not to make a complete fool out of yourself.”

I shook my head. “Your insane! We’re going to get mauled!”

“Nah,” I shrugged, “It’s Seaside. Check it, they still have a video store.”

“I’m sorry I really don’t know what that means.” I muttered.

“VHS,” Alec said slowly, “Tapes.”

“Like as a joke?” I scrunched up my face. “Why the hell would someone watch — oh God, are they Amish?”

“Who?”

“The townfolk!” I threw my water-bottle onto the couc., “Do we have to grow beards and shit?”

Alec’s stern face broke out into a smile. “Yeah and they deliver milk to our front door every day. But don’t worry if you run out we can just milk the goat out back.”

“We have a goat,” I repeated. “Is it tame?”

“Yeah.” Alec shrugged. “I named it Billy.”

My eyes narrowed. “Does it live under a bridge.”

He smirked.

“We don’t’ really have a goat do we?”

“No, but it is Seaside, anything’s possible.”

“Next you’re going to tell me it’s like Disneyland and this is where dreams come true.” I grunted and picked up my tossed water-bottle and started playing with the paper so I wouldn’t reach into my front pocket and take my second pill of the day. If I was going to be going to rehab I needed to stop being so dependent if I had any dream of graduating the program and moving back to LA. I wasn’t that addicted anyways — I could quit for a few months. It wasn’t like I needed drugs to live or anything.

Yet my hands still shook.

And I still wanted that happy feeling.

The one that was so damn fake it made my chest ache — because at least then I wouldn’t have to think about everything else going on.

“They can’t possibly be that naïve,” I grumbled. “We’re on every magazine in the country not to mention we were trending on Twitter for an entire week. A week dude.”

“But” — Alec held his hand into the air — “They won’t expect it. Besides, if things get crazy we hire security. Our fans aren’t like Bieber’s.”

My body shivered involuntarily. “Scrappy little monsters.”

“Older.” Alec shrugged. “We have older fans, it won’t get that crazy.”

“Famous last words,” I grumbled. “Let me go change out of my pants then, seems we have a super fun day of going to actual school to look forward to.”

“That’s the spirit.”

I nodded, forced a smile, and did what I always did when my brother pissed me off. I grabbed the little white pill and chewed the bitter pieces — my tongue was already going numb.

In a few minutes the rest of my body would follow.

As I ran up the stairs and changed out of my jeans, I caught a glance of myself in the mirror.

Dark circles were under my glassy eyes. I looked like hell.

Well great, going to high school sure seemed like hell. I’d fit in just fine.

“Hurry up!” Alec shouted from downstairs.

“On it.” I grumbled and put on a pair of pants that wouldn’t get me arrested.

The drive to school was way too short.

“Do we really have to do this?” I watched in horror as kids, normal kids, piled into the large run down building. Some had backpacks, others carried books. “Hell, its like someone’s dropped us into a lame teen movie.”

“Hmm” Alec turned off the Mercedes — “You’d think after taking a pill this morning you’d be in a happy mood.”

Caught. Damn it. “Alec, look, it was only one—”

“Honestly man. I don’t wanna hear it. I really don’t.”

He got out of the car and slammed the door behind him, leaving me blanketed in the silence of my own guilt.

With a curse, I got out of the car and followed him through the parking lot.

Nobody stared.

Seriously?

Huh, who would have thought?

We walked through the doors and went straight for the office where one teacher promptly fell into a chair and started fanning herself, the secretary swallowed her gum.

And the principal beamed. “So you made it.”

“Yeah.” Alec nodded. “We did.”

“Your schedules.” He handed a folder to each of us. “And you let me know if there are any issues. I’m still convinced you won’t be able to pull it off, but good luck.”