Protective Secrets (The Protective Series, Book 3)

Chapter Two

Protective Services released their first album, Sunday Morning, on the 4th of June 2013. By that point, we were in our prime; well and truly accelerating on the path towards fame and glory. Everywhere we went, people recognised us just by the mere mention of our name, and that year we sold over 9 million copies of the album.

They released their second album, Three, on the 15th of August, 2015, and since then it has gone five times platinum across the globe. Both albums were a complete hit, but where was my name mentioned in all of this? It seems that as soon as I walked away from Asko that day two years ago, they've all forgotten me, and what purpose I brought to the band. They used to call me the backbone; supporting everyone with unwavering, unrelenting strength. But now, I felt more like a dried up autumn leaf crunched underneath someone's foot as they walked home from work; brittle; serving no purpose other than to be a nuisance.

There was no place for me in this world anymore, but the question remained: why was I still here?

Two simple words always come to mind, just when I am on the edge of giving up my life to the good Lord above.

Janne Jukarainen.

He was the only thing keeping me going in this twisted world, even if only in spirit now. Every time I itched to pick up that razor, I heard his strong voice of reason and persuasion at the back of my mind, begging me to think through what I was doing, and telling me that he wouldn't have wanted me to be this way. He wanted me to be happy, just as I always was in his presence.

I glanced down at the iPad fixed between my thighs, pumping out the heavy, melodic death metal guitar riffs and drumming patterns to Relentless Reckless Forever. I used to head bang to this song at every given opportunity, but now I couldn't even manage to twitch a muscle. I simply slumped against the cold plaster wall and gazed absentmindedly down at the darkened screen, attempting to keep all of the negativity from entering my mind.

My depression and anxiety had been on the downlow, but sometimes certain things could trigger an unprovoked episode. Just the other day, someone had asked me one too many questions about the most obvious things and I had cracked like a shell from a boiled egg. I had bared my clenched teeth and raised my voice at them over and over again, until they were in the corner of the room cowering in fear with their knees drawn to their chest, their arms wrapped around their legs as they rocked themselves back and forth.

"Are you ready, bro?" Jevan asked, seeming to materialise out of nowhere. "Jed! Are you listening to me?! Take your earphones out."

With a sigh, I yanked on the thin white cord resting against my black Relentless, Reckless Forever t-shirt, pulling the EarPods out of my ear canals. "Are we walking or driving?"

"Why?" Jevan asked, twirling his silver key ring around his index finger and curling the rest around the keys. He only had about three hanging off it.

"So I know whether or not I have to put on shoes," I murmured in response, wriggling the rainbow toes of my knee-high socks. "I only just got these yesterday, and I don't want to dirty them."

"Brothers," Jevan muttered to himself, shaking his head disapprovingly from side-to-side as he tisked at me. "It's good to see that some part of you is still inside, somewhere, even if it's only a little tiny fragment for the time being."

The smile that had been forming on my face instantly disappeared, replaced with the haunting memories looming at the back of my mind for what must have been the thousandth time. I exhaled a shaky breath, pulling myself to my feet with minimal difficulty.

"Are you seriously going to see Corrie half-naked?" Jevan asked, cocking a thick eyebrow at me. "Put on some pants for goodness sake. I can see your package, oh and we're walking."