Knife Called Lust (Hollywood Undead/Avenged Sevenfold)

“Johnny, could you pass me the sweet n’ sour pork?” I asked my brother.

My name is Haley Reagan, which got me the stage name Haley 3 Tears, yeah, original I know, we got lazy when it came to mine. My brother Johnny is in a band called ‘Hollywood Undead’, yeah, Johnny 3 Tears. I’m eighteen and he’s twenty-four but we’ve always been really close, in fact contrast to popular belief there are actually seven members to Hollywood Undead, I’m the seventh member and we go on tour in two days for six months. So for the past three months J Dog (Jorel), Deuce (Aron), Funny Man (Dillon), Da Kurlzz (Matt), Charlie Scene (Jordan), Johnny and I have been living off of Chinese take-outs whilst perfecting our new version of our debut album, ‘Swan Songs’.

“Oh, sorry Hales, Matt just finished it off.” Johnny replied.

I threw Matt my infamous ‘you better watch your back’ look.

“It’s tasty too.” Matt said, holding a piece of pineapple up to show me before shoving it into his mouth.

“Right, that’s it!”

I stood up to tackle Matt but then Dillon went to his defense. Long story short if the Funny Man tells you ‘no, you back off immediately. I slowly retreated to my seat and Johnny put his arms around me.

“Aw. Dylan you scared Haley. It’s okay Haley, Johnny will come to his baby sis’ rescue.” Johnny said sticking his chest out like Superman.

“Johnny, bro’, I love you but I honestly think that Funny would pulverize you.”

“I know that’s why I’m not ACTUALLY going to come to rescue you from Dillon.”

“Oh gee, thanks. Love you too.”

We sat there for another ten minutes laughing until our manager, Jon, came in and made us get back to work. It was my turn in the recording booth while everyone else worked on lyrics. I grabbed the headphonesand ­the sound tech guy started the tracks for me. Each verse of this song had a lot of meaning to each of the guys, but for me, the only person that I had ever lost was my Dad. I only got to know him for thirteen years and t was far too short a time to know someone as amazing as my Dad.

I noticed my voice getting thick and I soon became unable to sing properly, motioning for the sound tech guy to cut the music I ripped the headphones off of my head and then stormed outside, wiping away the tears with the back of my hand furiously but no matter how hard I tried, the tears just kept coming.

I just wanted to get out of the building, away from everyone’s gazes, to be alone for a minute or two, just to have some time to pull myself together. Time for a cigarette. I slid down the wall to sit on the ground and lean against it before lighting up and taking a drag.

Johnny and I grew up in Hollywood where we both went to the same schools. Our Mom had died giving birth to me and so we were raised by solely by our Dad. When I was thirteen, my life turned upside down. Johnny was going through a lot of problems with his girlfriend at the time’s family and our Dad got a new job with Kat Von D at her tattoo shop.

Within six months we had moved out of the dingy one-bedroom apartment the three of us had shared my whole life and into a larger, new, house on a better side of town. However, fate had obviously decided I didn’t yet deserve to be ‘sleeping on a bed of roses’ and so when things went wrong at the school I had gone to for years, I had to move to a school nearer to where we now lived. It was a school where all of the kids were stuck up and teased me about how I wrote lyrics in-between classes, how I barely spoke to anyone, I had maybe one friend there, and also how I usually turned up in my brothers hand-me-downs. They didn’t like that there was a girl going to their school that had grown up in the hood.