Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 40635 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 203(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 135(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40635 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 203(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 135(@300wpm)
As far as the world is concerned, I'm Priest Alcalde, 31 years of age, born on May 18th. The age is bullshit. I don't know how fucking old I am. The rest is more or less true, though. I was born again on May 18th, six years ago when I woke up in Alcalde Hospital in Guadalajara. And the staff named me Priest.
But fucking hell. Being here with an identity doesn't make me feel any better. If anything, I'm more unsettled than ever. The feeling doesn't have anything to do with the number of people milling beyond the stage. Doesn't have anything to do with the fact that I'm supposed to be on said stage in a few minutes, either.
It's this city, and the restless anxiety clawing at my soul. I've felt it since I stepped off the plane. Everything here is so goddamn familiar. Yet none of it makes any sense. It's like my instincts are screaming at me, but I don't know what the fuck they're trying to tell me.
I should remember… but I just fucking don't. I walk around, see buildings, and get this sense of…déjà vu. My goddamn throat feels tight. My chest aches. But I don't remember why. It's infuriating.
The only thing that's familiar is the fiery redhead who haunts my dreams. She's haunted me every damn day for six years, but since I came back here, it's constant. I can just be standing there, and I can almost hear her laugh. I feel her hands on my body, remember the searing heat of her mouth around my cock. But I don't know who she is, either. That pisses me off because my heart knows her even if my mind refuses to cooperate.
Is she waiting for me somewhere in this fucking city?
Does she wonder what happened to me?
I don't fucking know.
"You good man?" Memphis asks, his eyes narrowing on my face.
"Yeah. Fuck." I shove a hand through my hair, exhaling a breath. "Same shit as always."
"The girl again?"
I jerk my chin in a nod. I'm not sure why I told him about her. Guess I needed someone to know something real about me. She seems like the realest part of my life. Everything else, I built from the ashes of what was left. But she's the one thing left over from before. Her and the guitar.
I forgot my own damn name, but I didn't forget her face, and I didn't forget the music. Apparently, the motherfuckers couldn't take either of those from me.
Memphis clamps a hand down on my shoulder. "You'll find her, brother," he says, holding my gaze. "And the best way to make it happen is for you to keep getting up on that stage and blasting your ugly mug all over the city. If someone is looking for you, eventually, they'll recognize you."
I dragged myself onto every stage in Mexico, trying to accomplish that. Didn't work. When Winter offered me a spot in her band, I snatched the chance. She plays all over the world. Her band does music videos, interviews… I need in on that. I need my face everywhere. If my girl is out there, I need her to see me, to find me. Because I don't have the first goddamn idea how to find her.
I'm not even sure if she's real or just a figment of my imagination—something I made up because I needed something to cling to, something about my life that felt real. I desperately want to believe she's real but after six years…Christ, I'm afraid to hope at this point.
I just appreciate Winter for giving me the opportunity. She could have said no. Shit, in her shoes, I probably would have. Asking a motherfucker who doesn't know who he is, where he came from, or what he might have done to join her band? It's a big risk. But she took it.
I owe her. Big time.
I just hope like hell it pays off for all of us.
Fifteen minutes later, I step out onto the stage with my goddamn heart in my throat. I feel like I'm preparing to play for the first time. Only…I don't remember the first time I played.
I remember picking up an old, battered guitar in the hospital after they removed the bandages from my hands. Remember being shocked as hell when my fingers found the strings and seemed to know what to do. And I remember when the right chords just rolled from the instrument like I was born with a guitar in my hands.
But the first time I played? Don't remember that shit. Don't remember learning to play. Don't remember the lifetime of fuck ups it took to get where I am today, either.
Shit. I guess they did steal the music from me, too. They left me with the skills, just not the memories. The doctors said that's usually how it works—people with amnesia remember the skills they acquired, just not the memories that go along with said skills.