I’m there just after him, my hand on the knob, when Sara catches my arm. “What’s going on?”
“Get Chris. Kace needs him. Your foreshadowing is tonight. Alexander, I don’t know if you know who is—”
“I do. He’s here?”
“He is and he just told me a lot of things in front of Kace. Bad things. Things that had no business here in this room tonight.”
She pales. “Oh God. Yes. I’ll get Chris.” She rushes away.
I enter the performance room and the stage and seating area are empty. Kace is missing. I run toward a door by the stage and exit to find a huge hall on the other side, and a guard by the door. “Where did Kace go?”
He bristles with the demand. “Who are you?”
I try to explain, but he refuses to let me go after Kace without a certain kind of security pass. I end up arguing with him until finally, Sara saves me.
“They gave you the wrong card,” she says, handing me a different pass and when I hold it up, the guard finally, begrudgingly concedes and says, “He’s in his dressing room. North Hall.”
Sara points me in the right direction and we start walking. “Chris is with a big donor,” she explains. “He can’t shut him down right now, but they perform in fifteen minutes. You need to get to Kace before he goes on stage.”
“I don’t know how he’s going to perform,” I say. “You don’t know how upset he was.”
“He won’t let the charity or Chris down. He’ll perform.” She opens another door that is like a giant room with dressing room doors. She points to a door that has Kace’s name on it. “Good luck.” She disappears back into the main hall.
I hurry to Kace’s door and I don’t knock. I just enter. I find him standing in the center of the room doing nothing. Just standing there, his handsome face all hard lines, his eyes wrought with shadows. I shut the door behind me and lean against it.
“Kace—”
“I told you to run,” he says. “You didn’t listen.”
The door I just shut opens behind me and one of Kace’s band members, Marvin, pokes his head in. “We need you on stage, Kace.” He must sense my presence because he peeks around the door and eyes me. “Oh hey, Aria.”
“Hi,” I say. “He’ll be right there.”
“Yes, but Mark—”
“We need a minute, Marvin” I insist and my voice is as fierce as I have ever heard it. “Okay?”
Marvin grimaces. “Right. Yeah. Okay.” He mumbles a, “Woman,” comment and then disappears. The door shuts and Kace walks toward me or maybe the door. I step in front of it again. He leans on it, hands on either side of me, but he doesn’t touch me.
“I need a violin in my hands right now, Aria.” His voice is low, taut, vibrating. “I need you to understand that.”
“Yes, I—” My hand presses to his chest. “Kace, I—”
“Aria, listen to what I am saying to you. I need a violin in my hands right now if I’m going to be able to perform.”
“Yes. Yes, okay.” It hurts, it hurts so much, but I step aside and without any hesitation, he leaves.
I follow him out of the door and Sara’s waiting on me in the hallway. “Well?”
I give a grim shake of my head. “He won’t talk to me.”
“You have to make him.”
“He has to perform.”
“He needs to go on that stage knowing you aren’t leaving.” She snags my hand and leads me to another long hallway like the one behind the stage at Riptide. “He’ll come back here before he performs.”
“Thank you. Can Chris talk to him?”
“He’s still working on that massive donation. He’s trying to get free.” She leaves and I’m left alone in the hallway.
And so, I pace and pace and wait. When finally, the band returns to the hallway, Kace isn’t there. “Where is he?” I ask Marvin.
“He said he needed a few minutes alone.”
My heart sinks. He must think I’m back in his dressing room and when I’m not there, he’ll think I left. I run down the hallway and burst into the larger hall, to run to the dressing room area. Once I’m in Kace’s room, he’s not there. I text him: Where are you?
I don’t wait for an answer. I exit the room and a guard swears he’s in yet another room with water and refreshments. I go there. He’s not there and I’m losing my mind. I give up the hunt and head back to the hallway behind the stage. Thank God, he’s there with his band and crew, but no one is near him. They seem to know he needs to be left alone. He’s facing the wall, his hands on the hard surface, head low. “Five minutes,” someone says over an intercom. “Kace and Chris, you have seven.”