Chapter 1

Dedicated to one of the closest friends/family members I have:

Taylor Little.

I adore you, I love you, and I appreciate all you’ve done for me. My life would be so boring without you. I’m so glad you can finally be the 

real

you.

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”

~ Helen Keller



I heaved, clamping my chest, staring intently into the demented green eyes. There was a cloud of darkness behind them—anger, frustration, and a menacing glare.

Those eyes frightened me every night, yet I’d dealt with it for years. His deep voice grumbled something I could hardly make out because of the

blood racing around in my skull. His voice was toxic, deadly.

Through the darkness, I adjusted, but I could see her watching eyes, her partial, wicked smile from the bedroom door. I lay on top of the rough carpet and stretched out my arm, begging her to help me. Instead, she stared, watching as he picked me up from the floor and shoved me against the nearest wall. I winced, trying to keep myself steady, but instead I collapsed against the carpet again, burning my knees and the palms of my sensitive hands.

“Mama, please.” My voice was raspy from my previous yelling—from the excruciating pain he provided. The severity of his wrath left me bruised, tattered. My head hung and my cheek smashed against the carpet. For a moment I felt safe as the room became quiet and spun around me.

Finally

she

spoke up, her voice almost a whisper. “I’m sorry, Liza, but you knew this was important. When we need money, it’s not a joke. Should’ve done what was asked of you.”

A tear escaped from beneath my swollen eyelids and then I opened them, watching her turn around quickly. I called after her desperately, begging her not to leave me alone with that bastard. More tears fell, cigarette smoke drifted into the room, and then he yelled for me to get up, yanking on my arm.

My knees buckled again and my face slammed into the floor. Blood spilled from my nose and my forehead burned from scraping against the carpet. He threatened that if I didn’t get up, he was going to make the punishment worse, but I couldn’t. I was weak. I didn’t have the strength within me to move anymore. I was blank, nothing, like a thin sheet of paper. Unmoving unless blown by the wind or picked up by someone.

I wanted to dissolve into dust and blend in with the floor to become anything—anyone—but Eliza Smith.

I prayed and wished it would stop, but as he chuckled eerily and muttered something threatening beneath his breath, I knew it was coming. Heavy leather stung the backs of my legs, my hips, my back, my arms, and even my face countless times. I cried out repeatedly, digging my fingernails into the carpet with thick tears streaming, hoping soon I would numb to the pain.

I did eventually.



Gage Grendel…

There were only a few words that could describe him: hot, mouthwatering, and way out of my league. He

and

his band were out of my league, but apparently not my dad’s. He was their manager, and this summer things were really starting to kick off for them.

I remember exactly how my dad announced the tour to me:

“You need to start packing. We’re going on tour with FireNine!” he said over dinner.

I looked at him, a frown taking hold of my features, before digging into my mashed potatoes. “You mean

you’re

going on tour. I’d rather stay home.”

“Why? You

need to get out and have some fun, Eliza.”

My dad’s personality made me feel so boring. He was spunky, hip, great taste, young-at-heart, all the above. When I’d moved in with him, he took me shopping first thing. He literally ran me to the mall because he said I looked “terrible.”

Apparently he didn’t approve of my sweatpants and the brown T-shirt I’d gotten from summer camp when I was twelve years old. I admit, by the age of sixteen it had gotten a little small on me, but I didn’t mind. I was twenty-one and would still wear it whenever I could because it was my favorite tee. It was a summer I was free of the hellhole.

“Come on, Liza Bear,” he begged. “It’ll be fun. I know you get tired of this house. You do the same thing every day. Eat. Draw. Paint. Sleep. You aren’t tired of that routine?”

“Not really.”

His brown eyes scanned me and then he smirked. “I

think I know what it is.” He placed his fork on the table and tucked a lock of his perfectly trimmed hair behind his ear. My dad and I had the same natural platinum-blond hair. The fact that my skin was paler than a blank sheet of paper didn’t make it any better for me. He’d told me once before that I could pass for an albino if my eyelashes and eyebrows were a paler blond.

My dad

pulled it off, though. He classified himself as “HOT” and I agreed. He worked out every day and had straight white teeth; his hair, parted at the crown of his head, just touched his shoulders. He naturally had more fashion sense than me, which was quite embarrassing sometimes.

“What do you mean?” I asked as he crossed his arms.

“It’s Gage, isn’t it?”

Hearing Gage’s name caused me to tear away my gaze. “What about him?”

“I notice the way you practically run to your room to hide when he and the band come over to practice now. You’re such a little girl.”

“Am not.” I stuck out my tongue and he laughed.

“Besides, they’ve only been here twice.” A smile touched my lips as I slid away from the table, grabbing my plate. I took his as well, then made my way toward the kitchen. Our house was nice and somewhat simple. The kitchen was always clean. We had tan marble counters with grey and silver flecks, dark-brown cabinets with brushed nickel knobs, and an island in the center, surrounded by six bar stools.

I remember Gage sitting on one of those barstools and since then, I haven’t touched it. There’s just something about his presence that makes me nervous.

My dad stepped into the kitchen as I dropped the plates in the sink. “You really aren’t going to come with me, Liza? I want you out of the house. You’re twenty-one, and you spend every summer trapped here. It’s time to get out and live a little, don’t you think?”

“I’m sorry, Dad—”

“Ben,” he corrected. That was one thing he couldn’t stand. Being called “dad.” It supposedly made him feel old, and he was the type who would rather feel like a brother than a father.

“Well,

Ben

,” I said, rolling my eyes and plugging the sink, “I don’t think going on tour with FireNine will be such a great idea. It’s just a bunch of guys on a bus, drinking beer and doing God knows what else. That’s not my kind of crowd.”

“What is your crowd, exactly?” he asked, narrowing his eyes and leaning his elbows on the counter.

“I’m my own crowd.” I winked over my shoulder. I rinsed the suds off the plates and placed them into the dish rack as he laughed.

“All right, let’s make a deal.” He clasped his hands. “If I give you a gift card to a

bookstore, buy you some cute clothes, and even take you to get your hair done, will you go?”

I shrugged.

“I like the bookstore part. As for the clothes and hair, that was kind of a downfall.”

“Well, shit! You can get all the books you want. Just please come, Eliza. I swear it’ll be worth your time. We’re making tons of stops during the tour so there’ll always be something to do. It gets boring here in Virginia after a while, and you know it.”

I could agree with him there. There wasn’t really much to do in Suffolk unless someone had a party of some sort, but parties weren’t really my thing. Nothing was really my thing. I stayed cooped up in my house so much I think I missed out on most of the fun as a teenager. Even while enrolled in college, all I did was go to class or hide in my dorm. My roommate was trashy so I hardly ever saw her, which was a good thing most of the time because I couldn’t stand her.

“Okay.” I sighed as Ben’s large brown eyes looked me ove

r. “I’ll go, but I don’t wanna be on the same bus as the band.”

“Oh, sweetie, you won’t be,” he assured, stepping around the counter to stand next to me. “You’ll be on a separate bus with me. You’ll have all the alone time you need. I wouldn’t put you on a bus with a bunch of boys like them. That’s just… ew. Gross. The things those boys do. Ugh!”

“Okay, okay.” I giggled, lifting my hands in surrender mode. “I’ll go—mainly because I do like their music and because I think it’d be cool to watch the cities go by. I can snap a few pictures or something.” I shrugged, sighing. “Why the hell not?”

“That’s my Liza.” He kissed my cheek and then pulled me in for a hug. I hugged him back quickly before pulling away to get to the dishes again. “Tomorrow we’ll go shopping.”

“Cool.”

The doorbell rang a few seconds later and Ben grinned as he braced himself, wiping his hands on his peachy button-up shirt. “Oh, great. The boys are here.”

My eyebrows knitted as I stared out of the kitchen. “The boys?”

“Yes. FireNine. They’re practicing in the garage tonight since their producer’s out of town. They have a new song, and I’ve been dying to hear it. Perks of being the manager, huh?”

I swallowed. “Um… yeah. Sure.”

Winking, my dad trailed out the kitchen, but I pulled my hands from the dishwater, dried them off with a dishtowel, and then dashed for my bedroom in a heartbeat, shutting my door behind me. I hated when they made random appearances, especially when I looked like complete trash.

As I stepped forward, I kneeled down on my knees and pulled out one of my sketchpads from beneath the bed. I then grabbed a pencil and sat at the desk in the corner of my room. Deep voices echoed through the hall, and I tried to concentrate, but it was extremely

difficult. The hardest part about it was hearing Gage Grendel’s deep, bedroom-like voice. It was humming through me, almost luring me in his direction. At one point, I had to fight myself to not get up and steal a peek at him. His voice was completely irresistible.

“I’ll be in there onc

e I find the bathroom,” Gage called. His footsteps sounded heavier than normal and my pencil stopped sketching as he got closer and closer to my bedroom. The bathroom was a door down from mine and knowing how one could confuse the two doors scared the shit out of me. I knew it was coming. I knew

he

was coming.

My doorknob jiggled and, slowly, the door creaked open. I tensed, but I kept my gaze down and focused on my

sketchpad. “Oh, damn. Wrong room.”

I glanced over my shoulder, bracing myself before taking in the full sight of him. His attire was nowhere near preppy or perfect. His casual demeanor suited him. He had on black

Chuck Taylor’s, a black tank top that clung to his firm upper body, and a pair of near-skinny, dark-blue jeans. His hazel eyes were smiling, specks of green and yellow sparkling within. I could make out the hints of colors in his irises from a mile away. His silky, dark-brown hair had been trimmed to a messier look, curly in a few untamed places, and defined him even more. A sleeve of unique tattoos smothered both his arms—some were tribal ink, a few names, and even some Bible verses were written in cursive. There was even the band’s name right below his neck.

“You look familiar,” Gage said, snapping me out of my admiration.

“Probably because we went to school together,” I said.

Oh shit, there goes my sarcastic side

. I was glad he disregarded it.

“T

hat so?” He raised a suave eyebrow and I nodded.

“Yeah. You graduated three years before I did.”

“Oh. Explains why I can’t remember you… but you do ring a bell. What’s your name?”

“Eliza Smith,” I said, as if it were going to actually ring his bell.

Surprisingly, it did.

“Holy sh—no way!

You’re

Benny’s daughter?”

“Yes,” I said defensively. I wasn’t sure if he meant it insultingly. “Obviously,

if I’m in a bedroom of his home…”

“That’s pretty awesome. You’re hotter than I expected you to be.” His tone was absurdly nonchalant. “Benny talks about you nonstop. Why don’t I ever see you around?”

“We’re opposites I guess.” I shrugged. I turned around slowly and began sketching again, but I could still feel Gage scanning me from across the room and I was starting to wonder why the hell he wasn’t leaving. “The bathroom is the next door down, in case you’re wondering,” I said without looking back. I couldn’t look back. If I did, I would have dragged him into my room and locked him in with me.

“Cool,” he said. “Thanks,

Eliza

… Actually, I think I’ll call you Ellie. Just came up with it. Sounds better. Fits you.”

“But that’s not my na—”

The door shut quickly and I was glad because hearing Gage say my name like that nearly caused me to melt inside, and him leaving saved me from embarrassing myself.

Ellie?

I’d never been called that before.

It was hypnotic. Gage saying my name and even giving me a nickname was like vanilla ice cream, and the addition of his deep, bedroom-like voice was the drizzle of warm fudge that completed it and made me totally devour it. He’d created a freaking ice cream sundae with extra-hot fudge just by uttering

my name

.

Gage was beyond the word hot. He was sexy but extremely deadly toward any girl’s emotions. He could break a girl’s heart in two and not care about it. It was always that way in high school. He’d hook up with a girl one day; the next she’d come into class with smeared mascara. That was one thing that

agitated me about guys in rock bands. It seemed as if they were all the same—all aiming to have sex and then forget about it the next day.

I didn’t want to be a witness to him or any of the other guys bringing countless girls on and off their bus, but a part of me wanted to finally get out. Ben was right about living it up. I wanted to do it for myself, even if it were something new to me. It was time for me to challenge myself. Time for me to open up.

Ben gave me a makeover and I guess Gage noticed. Even though I was the only breathing organism in the room, he actually looked at me as if I were a person. In school, when he was around, I always wore my hair in a ponytail. I never wore makeup (unless someone would consider lip balm makeup), and I wore nothing but T-shirts and jeans every day and maybe a hoodie when it was cold, but when I moved in with Ben, he stopped me from wearing my—as he put it—“ugly boy clothes.” He made sure I dressed to impress. He never allowed me to wear a T-shirt with jeans again unless I was staying inside the house. Too bad I started looking nicer after Gage graduated. Maybe he would’ve noticed me in school.

I moved in with Ben during the second semester of my junior year, when I was seventeen. I

was recognized by others for my looks and the drastic Ben-makeover and it was an odd feeling, so I always rejected the guys who came along. It never felt right to date anyone when things were just starting to make a little sense in my crazy life.

High school just seemed too young to start anything official and so was college—not that I wasn’t looking. I just wanted something playful. Nothing serious. I didn’t have much time for anything serious. I guess that was another reason I wanted to actually go with Ben. Because I wanted to possibly meet someone on the road who had the same interests as me. Someone who loved to absorb the feel of creativity and just breathe it. Someone who could be just as free and down to earth as me. Someone who didn’t care about anyone’s opinion but his own. Someone who knew how to have fun while also keeping his feelings to himself.

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