The Paradise Prophecy Read Online Free Page B

for the limousine to be brought around back. He was in fine spirits tonight, but Gabriela often worried about him, feared that she had broken his heart.
    It was easy to admit that she loved him, but there were things about her that Alejandro could never know. A secret she couldn’t reveal. And the closer she had gotten to him, the more she had wanted to share that secret.
    So she had stepped away. Just as she had stepped away from the streets. And the parties. And her addiction to Poeira do diabo.
    Devil dust.
    They veered left, taking an adjoining hallway, and Gabriela was surprised by this. She had played this venue many times before, yet the layout seemed different somehow. Backwards. She could’ve sworn that the last time she was here, it had veered to the right, following a straight line to a set of double doors that led to the loading dock.
    But not this time. And it occurred to her that either she was crazy or she was simply confused by the many weeks of touring and the hundred other backstage passageways she had traveled.
    Up ahead, the fluorescent lights were flickering, and Gabriela was suddenly struck by the memory of a much darker time in her life. A time when she and her best friend, Sofie, would get high in a gas station bathroom, the light above the cracked, graffiti-laden mirror flickering endlessly as they shared a pipe.
    It was Sofie’s death that had brought Gabriela to God. And every night, when she spoke to Him, she made sure to include a prayer for her lost friend.
    She was remembering one of their better times together (riding their bicycles on the streets of the favela ) as she and the others passed under that harsh, flickering light.
    Then something odd happened.
    Gabriela felt a short, abrupt tug, as if she’d been hooked to a wire and yanked forward. For a moment she thought she was still wearing the harness she donned at the top of every show—the one that allowed her to make her entrance by swooping over the audience liked a winged angel as she sang the opening bars of “Paradise City.”
    But that made no sense. She had discarded the harness by her second number and had gone through six costume changes since.
    Yet she felt the pull of that wire as plainly as she had felt the squeeze of Alejandro’s hand. And without warning, she stumbled forward into sudden darkness—seemed to be drowning in it—only to emerge on the other side to find herself alone. Standing in yet another dim corridor.
    Gabriela stopped, whirled. “Alejandro?”
    But Alejandro wasn’t there. Neither were any of her bodyguards. One minute she had been surrounded by them, listening to their voices reverberate against the walls—
    —and now, nothing.
    The corridor was empty. Silent.
    What was going on here?
    They would do anything for you.
    Anything at all.
    The thought again. Slipping without warning into her brain. But like the corridor around her, it was different this time. She couldn’t be entirely sure that the thought was her own.
    She felt her forehead. Warm.
    A fever. She was definitely coming down with a fever. She needed that bed more than ever now.
    “Alejandro?” she called again, wondering for a moment if he and the others were hiding somewhere and this was some kind of prank. Retaliation for all the times she’d slipped away on her own.
    But, no, Alejandro would never do such a thing. Could never be so cruel. Even after she rejected him, he had continued to stay loyal to her. Always kind. Always loving. Always supportive.
    Alejandro was her rock.
    He would do anything for you.
    Anything at all.
    Gabriela stiffened, her gut tightening. She was no stranger to voices inside her head, but they always came to her in moments of prayer—not like this. This one wasn’t friendly. A voice she thought she recognized.
    What have you done for him, Gabriela?
    And what did you ever do for me ?
    Sofie. It was Sofie .
    Not the young, vibrant Sofie that Gabriela had met in middle school, but the raspy-throated