Read My Heart's Beat (Hard Love & Dark Rock #2) for Free Online

she said, the haunted look coming back into her eyes.  "Honestly, I was starting to think about quitting.  But tonight… tonight gives me hope."
    She put her hand on my bare knee.  It felt as cold as ice.
    "And I think you're the reason for it."
    "M-me?"  Suddenly my throat felt painfully dry.  I licked my lips and swallowed, trying to moisten it.  "Um, why?"
    "Do you know what happened to the band a year ago?" she asked, leaning in a little.  There was an eerie, intense look in her eyes, and she stared into me, unblinking.
    I shook my head, feeling my heart start to accelerate.  I'd been curious for ages, and part of me was desperate to know.  But, suddenly, another part of me was terrified of what Sara Sounding might tell me.
    "No," I whispered.
    She leaned in just a little farther, her eyes boring into mine, still unblinking.
    "My sister," she said, "Trace's girlfriend… she died of an overdose."
    A sudden thought flashed into my mind: the reporter from the SF Chronicle, asking me how old I was, mentioning Trace's other girl.
    "She was in bed with Trace when it happened," Sara said, her words slamming into me like quiet bombs.  "He woke up next to her dead body.  And then he tried to kill himself."
    A sudden, whirling vertigo took hold of me, the room spinning.  Sara's eyes were the only thing I could see, her low voice the only thing I could hear.
    "He slit the artery in his wrist, the one you touch when you're checking someone's pulse."  Her voice was nearly a whisper.  "Every beat of his heart made him bleed, pumping more of his blood out through that cut.  When the police got there, the bed was soaked with blood—both Trace and Lucy were covered in it.  He almost bled to death."
    The rumors I'd heard were true.  And somehow—now that I'd shared a momentary intimacy with Trace, now that he'd lain in bed with me —it made it all more terrible.
    "Trace loved my sister," Sara said.  "And I thought that love would kill him.  He hasn't admitted it, but all the music he's written in the past year, all the songs we've been playing, have been about Lucy.  And every song is darker than the last.  I felt sure that darkness would eventually overwhelm him, and then not only would my sister be dead, she'd be a murderer too."
    For a moment her eyes seemed to shine, manic light glowing within them.
    "But now you're here," she said, her hand clutching my leg.  "And Trace has a light in the darkness.  For the first time since Lucy died, he looks like he's got something to live for."
    She patted my knee, smiling.  I felt another shiver run through me.
    "You want to hear a secret?  There's this look Trace used to get, this look in his eyes.  They'd seem darker, bigger—I'd look at his face and his eyes were all I'd see.  When Trace was with Lucy, I saw that look on his face all the time."
    She leaned in even closer.  Or maybe her own eyes got bigger, until the blue of her irises seemed as enormous as a desert sky, ready to swallow me up.  Her boney fingers clutched at my knee.
    "And now I see it when he looks at you."
    Oh.  God.
    Before I'd even realized it, I was on my feet, stumbling for the door.  My heart was thundering in my chest, my eyes had filled with tears so that my vision was all a blur.  More than anything else, my mind was possessed by a single thought: escape.
    I caught a glimpse of Becca in the kitchenette, chatting with Sergio, giving him a coy smile.  After all that had happened tonight, she looked just as ready to party as ever.
    I didn't stop for her.  If she wanted to stay, let her.  I just knew—with an urgency that bordered on panic—that I needed to get out of there right away.
    I yanked the door open, the tears spilling over my cheeks, and sprinted down the hall toward the exit.
     

Chapter 6
    Trace
     
    Bernstein's doctor friend was a little guy with wire-rimmed glasses and tight, curly hair.  He did a quick examination on Joey, deciding that the seizure had probably