The video has a million views before we even pack up.
***
Atlanta
It’s my birthday. Twenty-two. And it’s our biggest show yet.
Sold out. Packed.
Our name flashes on a marquee. A real marquee.
The promoter hugs us like we’re old friends.
We play as if we’ve been doing this forever, but inside, I know it’s the last show of the leg. And something’s shifting.
We’re not the same band we were back in Rutland.
Fame is starting to stick.
So is fear.
Just before midnight, Chase finds me on the lumpy bench seat, the belt buckle digging into my hip and my head pressed against the window like a makeshift pillow. He wraps a coffee-stained quilt around me. Pulls it up to my chin. Brushes a strand of hair out of my eyes.
“Happy birthday, Annie,” he whispers.
I turn to thank him.
But he’s already gone.
Beside me is a notebook. New. Blank. Bound in soft brown leather with a violet ribbon tucked between the first two pages.
There’s a note slipped beneath the cover, folded once.
For what comes next.
—C
Chapter 40Annalise
The hotel lobby smells like citrus and money. The kind that gets you rooms with blackout curtains, velvet armchairs, and showers the size of a studio apartment.
Rock spins slowly in place, taking in the upper-class clientele and the giant Christmas tree that nearly reaches the ceiling. “This place has robes.”
“And real pillows. Not those travel ones shaped like deflated doughnut failures,” Kenna mutters, tugging her suitcase with one hand and filming a slow pan of the crystal chandelier with the other. “No more sleeping on amps.”
It doesn’t feel real yet. That we belong here. That this isn’t some fluke.
It all started a month ago with a call from Crowley.
“You’re going to want to sit down for this,” he told us as we assembled around the video call while packing up the van to head home from Atlanta. “A booking agent out of New York saw your video at The Soundproof and tracked me down. Said he hasn’t seen this much traction off a first tour since The 1975 hit the road.”
That agent—Carter Vale, who reps two other chart-topping indieacts—signed us within the week. He’s young but sharp, has perfect white-blond hair, and a Rolodex of contacts that stretches from Brooklyn to Berlin.
Carter quickly negotiated guarantees and got our Spotify numbers boosted. Then a few days later, some pop star with forty million followers reposted our clip with the caption,Real music is still alive.
The internet lost its mind. Streams skyrocketed.
Suddenly, we weren’t just a garage band with a loyal TikTok following. We were on everyone’s radar.
