Christopher McAllister and I were born to destroy each other. At least, I always swore that was the reason why we'd never been good at doing anything else. Once, lifetimes ago, he told me that there was no such thing as true love and happily ever after for people like us. He was wrong then, but I didn't think he was wrong now, so many years later. People like us; people who did the dirty, reprehensible, awful deeds that had to be done in order for everyone else to be happy and safe. People like us saw too much to really ever be happy living. Our reward was death, sick as it was.

In any case, he and I worked well together for a time, until we really came into our own. I saw it early on, that we'd be bad for each other. I just didn't realize how bad until it was already too late. It had taken a great act of love for me to force him out of my life years before. I should have known that by then he'd already become too addicted to stay away.

I saw him the second I hit the stage for that night's hidden concert and involuntarily felt my heart skip and then speed up dramatically. Keeping my eyes on him, I forced myself to laugh into the mic and shove my hair over my shoulder while I introduced us.

"Hey, guys." I said it with a quick wink and another laugh, waiting for sound to die out before smirking at them. I loved the stage, really it was the only place I could breathe well, the only place that I could feel free to be me, in a twisted way, because I could disappear into an act, be what I wasn't. No different from theater, really. No one ever believed that the person you were on stage was the person you really were. Still, I didn't take my eyes off of Christopher for too long, no matter how comfortable I felt.

"Most of you have heard us before, but some of you are new and some of you are just stupid." I paused for the laughter to die out again. Most of the people in this crowd were the same sycophants we went to school with. They didn't actually get my humor and they didn't actually think that was funny, they just wanted me to remember they'd laughed so I wouldn't tear them a new one at school on monday.

"So we'll go over this again. This is fight-club. If you don't get the reference, listen closely: the first rule is that you don't talk about this. ever. Also...go rent a fucking movie." Seriously. Who didn't know fight club? I rolled my eyes when there was more laughter. I hand't been kidding. I would have told them to read a fucking book if any of them would have believed that I actually read. Or if I believed that even half of them were capable of it.

"Anyway, we're going to sing some songs for you, and since you're not going to talk about us our names don't matter. what we play doesn't matter since it'll change up through the set, with the exception of our drummer, who is musically retarded and can only seem to beat on things."

Leighanne threw a drumstick at me and I winced and rubbed the spot she'd hit on the back of my head before laughing and shrugging it off. Quickly, I turned and stuck my tongue out at her, playfully, before cuing us into an intro that was upbeat, fast and surprisingly catchy. It'd taken us weeks to get it just right, but now that we had I was ridiculously proud of it. Our sound was unique, but that wasn't why people flocked to our underground performances.

The cynical part of me always believed it was because on a sheltered boarding school campus for all the children of the elite, everyone wanted to believe they were part of some kind of awesome secret. It didn't hurt that we had tiny little Adrienne, who was just charm personified; who was beautiful and natural and kind, but could out belt the proudest of divas. She had a clear, strong voice that could move you to tears, literally, but came in the form of a petite blond cheerleader who might have weighed 98 pounds; soaking wet. She could still shop in the children's department of Macys.

Her little sister, Shari, was only slightly bigger. Still a double zero in the junior's department, she tended to fade into the background around me. She didn't take the disappearing thing well, but I didn't give a shit. If she didn't write such damned good lyrics and if we didn't need a pianist for some of her songs, I wouldn't have continued to put up with her. She and Adrienne could have been twins on the outside, but they couldn't have had more different personalities.

And then there was me. We shared time as lead vocals, passing back and forth between sets and songs and even lyrics. And somehow it worked. Adrienne was charm and innocence personified while I was unapologetically sex. I was addictive and we all knew it. We mainly did blues, and we both did it well, but we'd added a pop/rock element that was as hard to pick out as it was addictive. Somehow, we made ourselves mesh seamlessly, in a way that didn't make any sense at all logically. It shouldn't have made sense. But then, neither should our friendship.

The show was fast, it was hard, and I never forgot for one second that Christopher was standing in the crowd staring at me. It was rough having him there, staring at me, after two years of silence from him. I would take that over having to keep both eyes on my depressed best friend any day though. Thankfully, the show was enough to distract her temporarily from the pain of a broken heart. I smiled when it was my turn to solo, when my song came up and I covered Seth Horan, briefly shoving aside the matter of Christopher and his appearance after two years of nothing.

As soon as we were done though, I put my guitar down and jumped off stage and onto the grass, shoving my hands in my pockets and strolling over to where I'd last seen him. He was gone, which didn't really surprise me, and Brennan was there instead, staring at me a little blankly, which also didn't surprise me.

"I thought I saw.." he frowned.

"Chris."

I sighed, shrugging and then shoving aside the little bit of disappointment I felt at his disappearance. Just because I didn't want him there didn't mean I didn't want to see him again. It was complicated, but then, little in our lives wasn't, so I picked up my guitar and slung it across my back before collecting Adrienne and concentrating on something that wasn't complicated.

Sneaking back onto campus had gotten a lot easier since our freshman year of high school. It might have been the fact that the dorms we lived in were in the back of the property and our suite faced the woods behind them. Then again, it was more likely that we just didn't care as much anymore. Sneaking in and out had lost the thrill that it had held back then. Now, if we got caught, Adrienne just batted those big blue eyes of hers and we were off the hook.

Either way, by the time we made it back to the suite, Brennan had Adrienne on his back, piggy-style and we were joking and laughing tiredly as I shoved my way into the door of our suite. Instantly, my laughter and feet both stopped, blocking the others from our room.

"Kay?" Adrienne mumbled tiredly.

I couldn't form a response. I couldn't even really breathe. All I could do was stare and force myself to fight the ridiculous tears. There was no reason for me to cry at the sight of Christopher--tall, dark and brawny--being in my living room, lounging in my favorite chair and drinking my whiskey out of a crystal juice glass.

"Fuck, Kay, like, what's your fucking problem?" Shari bit out behind me.

It jolted me enough that I tore my eyes from his and just shrugged, moving fluidly so that Brennan could see his half brother and no one else could. Shari didn't normally talk to me if she didn't have to. It was the best sort of pact that we could come up with to avoid hurting her sister. Not that it was an easy agreement to keep to, with her dating Brennan and me being her sister's best friend, but it worked most of the time.

"Shari, do us all a favor and go try desperately to get Andrew Delphinius to fuck you. The grownups have to play now and frankly, you're not wanted." I smirked, grimacing at Brennan when he darted a glare in my direction.

I never agreed to play nice if I didn't have to and we all knew that Shari'd been hot for Drew since she'd first seen him. We all also knew that Drew wouldn't touch her if she were on fire and needed to be patted out. She was his sister's best friend and if that didn't automatically count her out, she was bitchy, narcissistic and merciless. She was self-serving and offered herself too easily and on top of it all didn't even pretend to like him as a person. If that didn't seal it, she was Adrienne's sister. There was just no way he'd ever go there. What made it painful for her was that I had fucked him off and on since he and his ex had broken up the year before.

I wasn't above using things like that to make her go away, and I wasn't above getting joy out of her added misery and humiliation right then and there. She was hurting my best friend, my family, and that I just didn't allow without a little bit of revenge. Still, I grimaced an apology to Brennan for saying it all in front of him. He shrugged back and I knew we were cool. Things were simple like that between us now. He didn't care that I hurt his girlfriend because he understood me better than anyone. Shari sniffed disdainfully at me and muttered the word Bitch in my direction before stomping off to her room. I snorted; like I cared.

Leighanne was always good at knowing when she was wanted, so she disappeared with Shari, leaving with barely a smirk in my direction. Whatever; I rolled my eyes at her for her show of privacy. It was really just that: A show. We all knew she'd know what was happening before the night was out. Still, we pretended that some things could be secret from her and stepped into the common room, closing and locking the door behind us.