“Yeah, who knows. Well, that’s pretty much what they told me too,” I fudged.

I’d thought Kieren looked pretty good, a little drunk, but handling the situation well, and then his face crumbled. His voice went up in pitch as he told me, “You’re a good friend, ya know that?”

He pulled me into a sloppy, overly dramatic hug. I didn’t fight it.

“Kori loved you. And you probably don’t know this, but you saved her,” he said into my ear.

I jerked out of his embrace. “I didn’t save her, Kieren. I didn’t.”

He took hold of my wrist and tried to look me in the eyes, but he was starting to have trouble focusing. “Listen, you did. She was in bad shape. Before she met you. She met you and everything changed.” His words were slurring into one another, making it hard to hear over the music and the noise of the crowded bar.

I leaned in closer, barely catching his last words. “She told me you were her protection. You protected her. Tha’s what she said.”

He patted my arm. Hard. Then he was heading toward the restrooms, and I stood there a little stunned.

“There you are,” Shay said from behind me. “Who was that drunk guy?”

“Hey. Um, that was Kori’s brother. I better get backstage and let the band know I’m here.”

The black walls at the back of the club were plastered with the band’s flyers. “Bleeder Valve? That’s the band?” Shay pulled one off and looked closer at it. “Are those metal spikes pierced to the drummer’s skull?

“They really called you?” Shay paused to give me a once over. I was dressed in Kori’s clothes, but there are just some things you can’t fake. “To sing with them?”

He so wasn’t helping my nerves.

“Um, maybe it’s better for me to talk to them alone. I’ll be right back.” No need for him to see me grovel.

I found the band easily—just followed Mary Jane’s perfume; and while they welcomed my groupie-like approach of crashing their dressing room with my shirt unbuttoned, they weren’t exactly welcoming of my plan to sing with them.

“Where’ve you been? When you missed all the rehearsals, we sort of wrote you off.” The lead guitarist—Marc, I think—stroked his black goatee into a devilish point. It didn’t dissuade me.

“Yeah, I know. Look, here’s the thing, I’m not Kori.”

“You’re not Kori?”

One of the guitarists looked up from where he’d been half-asleep on the couch. “Whoa man, that must be some wicked shit I took.”

“Kori died a few weeks ago. We were best friends. This meant a lot to her. I just, I don’t know … I want to finish this. For her.”