Tell My Father {COMPLETED}

Chapter Thirty: Tell My Father

Chapter Thirty

Tell My Father

The following morning, Jade received a text from Amber telling him that he was expected to show up at the tech building that morning to meet the other Eclipse members before leaving for the tour. Jade had forgotten about the tour, and remembering it hit him with unexpected encouragement. He would leave home, then. Maybe, if he so chose, he would go on one more tour before he did away with himself. One more reckless endeavor to get some pleasure out of life. It didn't matter what would happen this time. It didn't matter if the other Eclipse members hated him by the end. This would be the last trip he went on with them.

Nonetheless, Jade found himself half-hearted towards the idea of getting ready for an Eclipse tour. He didn't feel like dressing up the face and body he could hardly bring himself to even call his own anymore. Taking a shower, putting on makeup, and getting dressed felt more like preparing a dummy than a real person. But Jade did it anyway, refusing to let himself notice the bite marks on his neck as he hurriedly covered them with foundation.

The seventeen-year-old told himself he should eat something before he left. He was weak with malnutrition, but the mere thought of food made him feel even sicker.

So, when he had gotten together what he needed from home, Jade walked outside. He didn't say goodbye. He didn't tell Jenny or his father that he was leaving. They would know he had gone, Jade decided, when they saw clips of his concerts on TV. Maybe he would never come home. Perhaps that backward glance Jade made as he pulled away in his Mini Cooper was the last look he had at that crumbling old house. It mattered little. They wouldn't miss him. And if he never did return...he would be unable to miss them.

* * * *

Jade was too hopeless, too depressed, even to think about what would happen when he walked into the Tech Building later that morning. His body felt light, his head was dim, and his heart was beating with a numbing pain. But he had sense enough to silently pull his sleeve down tightly over his cut arm as he yanked open the door to the front entrance and entered the building.
However, Jade stopped short when he met Kayaeshie Taljiea just inside the door. The easterner was standing in the hallway, leaning against the wall with his cracked smartphone in front of his face. He looked up and grinned at Jade, his dark eyes staring out between the dark locks of his overgrown mohawk. "You going to ask me where 'they' are again?" he asked, cocking his head, the movement marked by his shifting dark hair.

Jade watched the raven black threads slide across Kayaeshie's smooth dark forehead. Why...hadn't he been born looking like the behind-the-scenes worker? Kayaeshie's athletic body and skills in street fighting described a person who could have laid out a drunk man within moments. Mathew may be slightly taller than Kayaeshie, but his movements were clumsy when he was drunk. And Jade had no doubt the feared Kie Tal would have little difficulty dealing with Mathew even when the man was sober.

"No," Jade said tonelessly. He blinked once or twice, then silently pushed past the behind-the-scenes worker.

"Where you going, freak?" Kayaeshie asked with a smirk. He jerked his thumb in the direction of the stairs that led down to the basement. "They down there."

Jade stopped, turned back slowly, then lifted his pretty eyes up to Kayaeshie's face.

The tall easterner was grinning, but the amusement drained unexpectedly from his face. He lowered his phone and straightened against the wall. "You been smoking?" he asked, his dark eyebrows, barely visible under his cascading Mohawk, arched into a frown.