Violinist (CENTURIES series: Book #4)

17

Being scared was a state of mind. An illusion. It was a conviction inside our mind that blocked our subconscience like a clot in our veins.

Dan was scared of losing me. I was scared of how deep Tony's rabbit hole went. He was scared of what he might find at the bottom of it.

Fear made our limits go around.

Dan was afraid of losing me, but perhaps he had to. Perhaps he was hanging on to me so he wouldn't have to attach himself fully to Kyle. Only the brave dared to love.

I was scared of the tunnel Tony was carving his way through, but at the same time I couldn't look away. I was a passenger with a blind driver and I couldn't get myself to blink. Any second I awaited the moment he'd drive off the road and end up in the ditch.

And then there was Tony. For years, he had been searching for answers. Now, he was finding them. He would stop at nothing to get them, but his methods could end up killing his mind rather than restoring it. He was hacking away at the violin, roving his lips against mine, fighting with his mind to release even the slightest of memories. Blue eyes.

Only the insane looked their fears in its eyes and danced with it everyday. Insane was also the harshest word for bravery. Who the fuck went into a fight with nothing but bravery—insanity—just for a chance of what laid on the other side of their sufferings would be better?

A soldier, that's who.

Tony was a soldier. Both out of war and in. His uniform might've burned up, but he was still fighting. Still roaming the battlefield for victory. His memories.

I had never held a gun in my life, but I wasn't afraid of taking a shot. For him. His persistence, his stubbornness to not give up was giving me the bravery—insanity—to follow after him into the crossfire.

I was fighting with insanity to find his sanity.

Walking the dark streets of New York, there was only one place I could go to. One place I had found him before, one place I knew where to look. If these streets were his war zone, then this was his foxhole.

I was determined as I walked through the maze of tents, awnings and make-shift dry roofs of the Veteran's Place while trying not to bump my cargo into any sleeping bodies. I watched my step and kept my hood up as the rain drizzled down in unforgiving thick droplets. Finally, I found the person I was looking for.

Phil Vercas, the homeless man who had helped me find him the last time, was sitting under an awning with a woman. They were keeping warm together while Phil was talking his usual string of incoherent memorabilia. The woman had dreadlocks and appeared to be around my age. They was nursing a bottle, no doubt their only heat source besides each other.

When I crouched down in front of them, Phil's eyes, swimming with haze, cleared up as they saw me, and a large grin spread on his lips. "The bird's back! They always fly south when things get too cold at home."

I hadn't expected him to remember me, but I couldn't deny the warming feeling I felt when he gave me a crooked-toothed grin and held out his hand.

"Hi," I smiled back and took his hand, then looked at the woman who gave me a smile too. "I'm Melody."

"Riff," She let me shake her hand as well.

"What brings you backstage this time 'round, sweetpea?" Phil hummed and started finding a scrap of dry cardboard from the depths of his pockets. "Autograph, autograph!"