Fireworks 1 and 2

Jungle: Chapter Ninety

    Instead of being paranoid about the fact that he can kill someone and act like it never happened, I should look forward to the day that I can be that casual, Mia thought, watching Drake stand from the couch and bump knuckles with the local hip hop artist that would be opening for them tonight. That was her baby, always putting another artist on when it was within his power. She knew from experience.

    He slung an arm around the brown-skinned kid's shoulders. His grin was bright enough to light up the room. "Are we ready to put on a show?" he called out.

    His boys around him shouted and hollered.

    "I said, 'Are we ready to put on a show?'" Drake shouted at the top of his lungs, swinging his gaze over to Mia. His smile stretched even wider.

    There were more familiar faces, more cheery greetings. Mia plastered a smile on her face, even though she didn't feel like smiling. Then the room was clearing out, and Drake was headed towards the door to the dressing room.

    "Wait," Mia said to him.

    He turned. The smile on his face faltered, and then dissolved altogether.

    She rose from the couch and crossed the room, her pink heels clicking on the uncarpeted floor. With her eyes locked on his, she came to a stop in front of him.

    "What is it?" he asked her. "Are you okay?"

    Wordlessly, she raised her hand to his face. Her eyes searched his; she didn't know what she was looking for until she found it: evidence of pain and remorse, lying in the depths of his eyes. They were buried deep, but they were there. For some reason, seeing that made her feel better. He's not some emotionless killer, she thought. And I knew that. I knew that he wasn't, but I had to see that. He told me that he didn't regret killing Trevor, which isn't something that he could be blamed for even if it were the truth. But there is a part of him that regrets having to kill someone, even if it were someone as psychotic and dangerous as Trevor was. Her doubts, paranoia, and fear all dissipated.

    His brows drew together. "What's wrong?"

    "Nothing. I'm ready if you are."

    Still looking concerned, he slid his arm around her waist and pulled her close to him. "Let's tear the roof off."

                                                                            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    The crowd reacted with shock and excitement when Drake walked out onto the stage.

    Mia stood to the side of the stage, gripping her microphone in her hands. She watched her boyfriend dominate the stage while waiting for her cue. When her cue came, she strutted out onto the stage, nearly knocked over by the explosion of screams and applause from the audience. There were so many lights in the place, it was hard to make out any of the faces in this particular venue. She sang while working the stage.

    FutureThePrince transitioned from one song to another, a song that had a lot of banging sounds hidden beneath layers of other music.

    Mia's pulse quickened as she moved across the stage.

    The banging sounds grew louder.

    She whipped her head around and stared at Drake's DJ. Her fingers trembled around the microphone.

    Drake was standing near the front of the stage rapping.

    From what they'd rehearsed, she was supposed to go over to him and sing along with him while he was rapping, but she couldn't move. The banging sounds were peeling away at layers of her entertainment persona, peeling away the face of her alter ego.

    Drake hopped up and down a few times, then angled a look towards her. The look in his eyes was inquisitive, but he had a show to put on. He couldn't come right out and ask her if she was okay. So he raised his microphone to his mouth and directed at the audience, "I think my baby Mia is a little shy tonight. Maybe you all can help her out a little?"

    The crowd started to chant her name. Her gaze moved from Future to Drake to the audience, most of their faces lost in bright beams of light. Mia stumbled forward, holding the microphone awkwardly in one hand and raising her other hand to shield her eyes from the bright stage lights.

    More loud banging sounds came from the speakers on and above the stage. The final bang was the loudest. It was so loud, that it made Mia stop in her tracks. The sound took her back to that bathroom stall, to the moment that Trevor had burst into her stall and pulled her off of the toilet. She fought to make it back to the stage, fought to clear the memories from her mind, but those memories were stronger than she was. The sound of the audience was drowned out by the sound of Trevor's raspy voice whispering the dirty things that he wanted to do to her. Her microphone slipped from her grasp and landed on the stage with a loud thud that echoed from the speakers.

    "You can't hide from me. I'll always find you. Always. Mia."

    "Mia! Mia! Mia!" the crowd screamed.

    "Beautiful Mia. Sweet Mia. Sexy Mia. You're too much woman for him. Drake doesn't know how to handle you. You think he knows how to handle you?"

    "Mia! Mia! Mia!"

    She blinked past the memories and stared out over the crowd. Faces became visible through the bright beams of lights. Fans, younger and older, repeated her name over and over again. Out of desperation not to return back to that fateful night, she clung to the sounds of their voices. She tried to remember each and every face that her eyes came into contact with. But one face made her blood run cold.

"You think that little light-skin boy can make you feel as good as I can? Huh?"

    Trevor's face. Out in the crowd. His lips moving in sync with the rest of the crowd as they chanted her name.

    She closed her eyes, then opened them again.

    He hadn't moved. He was still standing there, front row. Only, now a trail of something thick and dark was leaking from his nose.

    It was as if someone had sucked all of the oxygen out of the room, because Mia couldn't breathe. She started to hyperventilate, overcome by dizziness. Then she was falling to her knees in front of an audience of twenty-thousand people. The last sound she heard was the thunderous sound that came from Drake's Timberland boots as he ran towards her.