"Do-nothing," Alfie repeated, testing the weight of it. "That sounds... impossible."
"It’s punk," I said, standing up. "It’s the punkiest thing we’ve ever done."
I looked down the corridor toward the blackout curtain at the back.
"We wait," I said. "Until she opens the door."
I grabbed a roll of gaffer tape from the table.
"And until then," I muttered, "I’m going to tape down every bloody fixture in this venue so I never have to grab her without asking again."
NINE
Zia
The venue smelled like a wet penny held in a sweaty palm. It was a cavernous beast of a room, older than the band performing in it, with acoustics that hated clarity.
I stood at the Front of House console, the only island of order in a sea of chaotic reverberation. It was 4:00 PM. Soundcheck was in twenty minutes.
"Kick drum sounds like a cardboard box," I muttered into the talkback mic, my finger hovering over the low-mid EQ. "Kit, hit it again. Harder."
On stage, Kit grinned, teeth white against the gloom. He spun his stick, taped, always taped, and brought it down.Thud.
Better. Still muddy, but I could carve that out.
"Again."
Thud.
"Snare."
Crack.
My hands moved across the board with muscle-memory speed. I lived for this part. The calibration. The moment before the adrenaline of the show, where the math met the art. It was safe here. Just frequencies and physics. No feelings. No biology.
I reached for my water bottle, unscrewing the cap with one hand while I adjusted the gate on the floor tom.
Then the world tilted on its axis.
It started low in my belly, a heavy, hot coil of wire tightening suddenly. My vision blurred at the edges, turning the venue’s dark corners into vibrating vignettes of shadow. The smell of the venue, stale beer, damp concrete, ozone, suddenly sharpened, became violently, aggressivelypresent.
I dropped the bottle cap. It clattered plastic-bright against the riser.
"Zia?" Alfie’s voice from the stage. He was testing his vocal mic, handheld, pacing the lip of the stage like he always did. "You alright? Dropped something?"
"Fine," I rasped. My voice sounded wrecked. Wet.
I gripped the edge of the console. The metal was cool under my palms, but my skin felt like it was blistering.
Breath. Four in. Six out.
I tried to inhale, but the air was thick. Too thick. It tasted of them.
Blackberry and burnt sugar. Alfie.
Toasted oats and steam. Cal.
Espresso and molasses. Kit.
