Review: Falling Under

Falling Under by Gwen Hayes

My rating: 5 of 5 stars







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Deleted Chapter from Undone

This short chapter was somewhere just after the middle of my story, and was basically just a recap of Nicky's life after Gable left and up until he met Walker. However, whilst editing, I decided it really didn't add anything to the story and wasn't at all needed, and it kind of repeated a bunch of stuff that had already been said so I cut it out. But here it is for those of you who are interested in learning a little more about Nicky :)

Nicky 

For months after Gabrielle disappeared, she was all anyone could talk about. Everywhere Nicky went, her name was brought up in hushed tones, like they were talking about somebody who was already dead. News that she had run away from her uncle's house had spread like wildfire, and they all had their own theories – drugs, gangs, pregnancy. Nicky just wished they'd all shut the hell up.

School was the worst. His classmates would stare at him as he stomped through the halls, looking thunderous and angry and downright miserable. They all seemed to want answers from him, as if he had any more of a clue than they did. Where was she? Why did she run away? Was it true that she'd died her hair blue and ran off with a lion tamer from the circus? He'd only been outed as her boyfriend for one damned day, but they all seemed to think that was enough for him to be an expert on the subject of all things Gabrielle. And when he yelled that he didn't fucking know where she was, they'd glare at him like he'd kidnapped her and dumped her body in the river.

It all came to an end when Nicky overheard an idiot jock casually joke about what a loss Gabrielle's fine cheerleading ass was on the field. After Nicky punched him clear across the room and dislodged a couple of his teeth, no one dared mention her name in his presence again.

Without Gabrielle's kisses to make his days go by faster, school became an unbearable form of torture for Nicky, and he couldn't wait to scram. He graduated with surprisingly good grades considering how little he'd studied, thanks to this natural smarts. But instead of going to collage like his parents had hoped, he packed a bag and he and his drumsticks moved to New York City so that he could pursue his dream of drumming in a band.

For him, NYC was the obvious choice to chase music, and only the smallest part of it had to do with how he hoped he might find Gabrielle there; she'd always talked about how much she wanted to live there, ever since they were children.

The change in culture was a huge shock to Nicky, who had never really travelled anywhere before, and to his horror, he soon discovered that the shadows he'd thought he'd imagined as a child had returned. The more time he spent in the city, the greater in numbers they became. He worked hard at pretending they weren't there, unwilling to go through therapy again. This time, he wouldn't make the mistake of telling anyone he could see them.

He was incredibly frustrated when he didn't immediately find a band to play with – he'd kind of just assumed that as soon as he got to New York, all of his dreams would automatically fall into his lap. But the talent was a lot higher than he'd expected, and the competition was fierce. Soon, he had to get himself a bar job to help pay his rent, even with the money his parents sent him on a regular basis. Life in the city was more expensive than he'd thought it would be.

Nicky had been working at Jackson's Bar for about a year before he met Ebo, Chim and Hadley. They made up three quarters of a small time rock band. So small in fact, that Nicky had never even heard of Puddle of Cat before. Puddle of Cat were using Jackson's to hold auditions for a drummer after their fourth member had quit for collage. Nicky auditioned, and he was in.

He once asked Chim why they were called Puddle of Cat, and his band mate had given some nonsensical answer about the time he'd seen a dead black cat on the side of the road and mistaken it for a puddle. Nicky never did find out if he'd been lying or not.

They practised day and night for months, and they were pretty decent. Decent enough to land gigs in clubs and bars all over the city. Nicky was finally living the life he'd wanted, his time filled with parties and women and great fucking music.

It was around that time Nicky first started experimenting with drugs. Chim and Ebo encouraged him; told him that his music would be better, that he'd have more fun, that he'd see life in a whole new dimension. But honestly, he didn't need much encouragement. He wanted to be a rock star, and rock stars were wild, right? And then, to his absolute delight, he realized that when he was riding high, he couldn't see or feel the shadows at all, and he didn't even have to try to block them out. Life was awesome again, until he inevitably came down and it was harder than ever to pretend the shadows weren't there.

Puddle of Cat developed a name for themselves around the city. People began requesting them, girls threw underwear at them on stage, threw themselves at them back stage. Everyone wanted autographs. They had freakin' groupies. Every fucker wanted a piece of them.

For Nicky, Chim and Ebo, it became less about the music, and more about the sex and drugs. Their performances got sloppy, and rehearsals were rare. Hadley tried his best to get them to buck up their ideas. He was serious about only his music, and begged them to clean up their acts so they could get back on track. He was the one thin piece of string holding them together, and so when he eventually gave up on them and left to pursue his musical career elsewhere, the band fell apart.

Puddle of Cat was no more.

Not that Nicky, Chim or Ebo even cared. Or noticed.

Nicky's life was consumed by drugs and women. Three years passed by in a haze of expensive highs and violent lows. On the rare occasion that he didn't take anything, the shadows would bombard him and literally drive him crazy. He'd scream and pull his hair out and smash furniture until he could get his next fix. The people in his life were in no better condition than him, and they didn't think anything of it when he yelled at invisible shadows to leave him the hell alone.

His parents constantly begged for him to get help. They offered to pay for treatment, promised to be there for him every step of the way. But Nicky didn't want help, and he cut them out of his life completely when they kept pushing at him.

He was surrounded by messed up people just like him, and he had never felt lonelier in his whole life.

Without the band or his parents, Nicky was soon out of cash. He went back to Jackson's Bar for a time, but he'd become kind of a mean little bastard and he caused too many fights, and Jackson ended up firing him out of sheer necessity. Being barred from a seedy, run down criminal hang out like Jackson's was a whole new low. He did the only thing that, in his fucked up mind, he could. He started selling drugs.

Obviously he was arrested. He was too dumb and careless to be smart about what he was doing. He was sentenced to seven years in prison, and it wasn't until he heard his mother's anguished sobs that he realized how badly he'd screwed everything up. His life, his career, his relationship with his family.

He hated himself; he wished he was dead. Everything would be better if he was dead. He'd stop disappointing his parents, stop hurting them. God, he wanted to die.

And then he was given a second chance at life. He was put into some government programme, told he had a year to become a new person. He took the chance with everything he had in him, even if he didn't understand why it was happening.

His parents visited him as often as they could, and he was incredibly humbled by them. After everything he'd put them through, after every agonizing thing he'd said to them, they still took his hands in theirs and told him they loved him more than anything. They vowed to stand by him and support him as he turned his life around, and they were excited to see the kind of man he would become.

Hadley was a surprise. Nicky had never expected to hear from his old band mate again, let alone receive regular visits from him. He was thankful to know that he had salvaged one truly great friend from the wreckage of his past. Hadley was doing well for himself as a solo artist, and had even appeared on small time television once or twice. He'd worked his ass off and he deserved every bit of success that he got. Nicky was genuinely happy for him, and was left in awe when Hadley promised his support also.

Of course, Chim and Ebo never visited, and Nicky was glad as hell. They were stark reminders of the life he wanted to leave behind, and not the kind of people he needed around him when he was working to get better.

He was given the option of quitting drugs cold turkey, weaning himself off them slowly with medical help. He knew that neither option would be easy, so he went turkey, which almost killed him. The shadows returned with a vengeance, and he had to concentrate twenty four hours a day to ignore them – he was constantly watched by guards and he didn't want to make them suspicious. It was hard, exhausting, and made getting better that much more difficult, but he didn't want to risk one of the doctors catching on to his little secret and having him committed to some no good mental facility. He'd never taste freedom again.

At the end of his year, Nicky was assessed and deemed fit for release. He was driven to the centre of New York City and handed a wad of cash for somewhere to sleep. He asked questions, but the tight lipped driver wouldn't answer him. Instead, he was given a half assed cryptic warning about not leaving the city, and then he was on his own. Confusion wasn't even the word.

However, he took the warning to heart, so instead of moving back to LA with his folks like he'd planned, he crashed on Hadley's sofa while he figured out the next steps to his ultimate goal – making his parents proud.

Two weeks later, he noticed Stalker Babe for the very first time.

Excerpt of Undone

A short excerpt from Chapter 10 of Undone

 Zebb's head shot back and cracked into Nicky's chin. Nicky stumbled and Zebb threw himself forward, knocking the both of them to the ground. Zebb gripped Nicky by the hair and smashed his head into the cement, once, twice. His vision went dark for a moment and pain sliced through his cheek. The tangy, bitter taste of blood exploded in his mouth, and then Zebb's hands were on his throat, choking him, depriving him of oxygen.

He clawed at Zebb's hands but they were unrelenting, getting impossibly tighter, and for maybe the first time in his life, Nicky really wished there was a shadow nearby to help him. His vision blurred, and the world around him began to grow dark.

And then a body smashed into Zebb, knocking him away from Nicky. He took in great gasps of air, spluttering when the pain in his throat peaked.

When his vision had finally cleared and he was able to breathe normally – albeit painfully – again, he sat himself up. Charles had rendered one of his opponents unconscious, and tossed the other into Zebb – saving Nicky's life in the process. The two men had become a tangle of limbs, and were yelling at each other as they tried to stand. Charles pulled out his gun and pointed it at them. “Don't move,” he ordered. They stopped struggling immediately. Nicky didn't blame them; even without the gun, Charles had a lethal vibe going on.

Walker and Zay's own battles seemed to have simmered down into nothing. Zay limped over, cradling his arm, and Nicky spotted the man he'd been fighting handcuffed to a car door nearby. Walker was dragging a seriously pissed off Uang along with her in a headlock as she too joined them.

“Guess we won this round,” Zay said with a grin, helping Nicky up with his undamaged arm.

“Guess again, blondie.”

Nobody saw her coming, and none of them had any time to react. A woman stepped forward from the shadows and in one fluid movement, she had kicked the gun from Charles' hand and elbowed Walker in the face, allowing Uang to scramble away. Before anyone else had time to reach for their own weapons, a dozen more of Pablo's men approached, and they had the Guardians restrained in less than a minute.

Two men gripped Nicky's arms and no matter how hard he tried to shake them off, they wouldn't budge. And then he stopped even trying, because the woman had brushed back the hair from her face and everything inside him went hot and cold, all at once.

“Gabrielle?” he breathed.