“But first,” says Hannah, holding up a finger. She bends down and pulls out a handle of vodka from behind an amp. The crowd roars as she refills her empty water bottle.
I whip back to Bowie. “I saidno alcoholonstage.” Has there been vodka in Hannah’s water bottle the entire show? Is that why she kept taking sips after every song? This fucking band. Just when I thought we were getting somewhere.
My face must look frightening, because Bowie shakes his head. “I don’t know where it came from, I swear. I told the crew to do a sweep.”
“You know this is a problem.”
“I do.”
I swivel back to the stage just as Hannah strums the blistering opening of “Family Fruit.” The song they didn’t finish writing yesterday because of their fight.
“How?” I demand, but as sympathetic as Bowie might be, he’s not giving them up.
“When we were young, you were the apple of their eyes,” Hannah sings. “I just wanted them to like me. But you were a bolt of lightning.”
Ripper does his kickflip thing again, jamming his strings, and Kenny slices across his drum kit. The crowd jumps faster to the music.
“It sounds good, though,” Bowie says timidly. My hands form fists by my side.
“Now you’re gone, and they want to slice me into pieces.” Hannah’s voice is cutting. “They say they want to eat me up.” She rips at her strings and shouts into the mic: “But they can’t have me, ’cause I’m rotting, I am wasted.”
Ripper and Hannah launch into a duet, feeding off each other, a new part of the song that didn’t exist yesterday. I’m too livid to be impressed by it, or by the way they follow it up with the bridge, stretching it like I suggested, until the crowd’s foaming at the mouth.
Kenny comes in with a crush of drums, hands flying, and Hannah sings in a rapid-fire clip, each word like a punch: “I am empty, I am nothing, please just end me.”
Kenny pounds the drums three swift times, shoving his whole body into the strikes, and then the song is over, as fast and furious as it started, practically a three-minute assault. The crowd screams its approval. Hannah grabs her waterbottle and wipes the sweat out of her eyes, Ripper blows a kiss, and Kenny’s chest rises and falls as he tries to catch his breath. My own heart pounds unnaturally fast. The song was brutal, but good. I don’t know how they pulled it off in such a short amount of time.
The band heads offstage, reaching down to slap fans’ hands as they leave. Hannah crouches to high-five someone, leaning farther than she should, and—like a slow-motion scene in a horror movie—loses her balance. Her body is immediately swallowed by the crowd.
The entire venue gasps—hundreds of people sucking the air out of the Sunset Theater.
I’m already halfway across the stage, my heart in my throat, Bowie flying behind me, when a massive security guard cleaves through the crowd and lifts Hannah out, tossing her over his shoulder. She laughs, waving like nothing’s wrong, her messy hair hanging like a curtain. The crowd cheers in relief as the guard pushes through the barrier of people, carrying her backstage.
I hit Bowie on the shoulder and we double back to intercept.
But the instant we’re backstage, the owner of the Sunset Theater storms up to us, red-faced. “She was drunk up there,” he shouts, jabbing his finger. “Everyone saw it. If you try to sue me, you’ll lose. It’s your liability!”
“Hey, man, everything’s okay.” I use my soothing voice, hands up. “No one’s going to sue you.” So much for Kenny’s harmonious-energy crystals.
I catch Bowie’s eye and he nods, taking off to collect Hannah. Then I swallow an exasperated sigh and call on every one of my people-pleasing skills.
Forty-five minutes later, by the time I’m finished walking the owner back to his office—after letting him hug me and get choked up about how litigious musicians are these days—backstage has grown eerily quiet. I jog down the hallway,ducking my head into room after room, looking for anyone. But no one’s here, and neither is the band’s equipment.
I run to the double doors marked Exit and punch them open to the parking lot. The Future Saints’ new tour bus—the oneIgot them to replace their shitty van—is turning onto the street.
“Hey!” I shout, waving and running. “Wait!”
A window drops open near the back of the bus, and Ripper leans out. “You just got Ripped!”
Kenny leans out of a second window. “Enjoy your walk!” They’re both cackling.
I stop running and try to catch my breath, hands on my hips like the uptight hotel manager in Bonita Vista. But I don’t care how much it looks like I have a stick up my ass. Our next gig is inSan Francisco.
I’m going to kill them.
Unless—and this is a very real possibility—they kill me first.
Chapter 11
