“I said no such thing. Someone please shut him up.”
Grace tugged on my arm. “We better get to our seats before the stadium goes dark and we have to stumble over people.”
“Hold up,” Quinn said. “She still needs to wish me luck.”
He swished me into his arms and dipped me back. His lips pressed into mine, first soft, then insistent, and finally aggressively sucking on them as his tongue circled around mine. I sank into the kiss, reflexively moaning, completely oblivious to the helpless onlookers.
“Is anyone else as uncomfortable as me right now?” Mike asked, raising his hand. “Anyone?”
“I don’t like it all that much,” Matty admitted. “But only because it makes me look so bad.”
“Okay.” Tucker grabbed the back of Quinn’s shirt and pulled him away. “Fun’s over. Let’s go.”
Once he was gone, I followed Grace out the door, unconsciously trailing my finger along my swollen lips, smiling. If only I could wish him luck all day long.
* * *
From the darkness, a single spotlight rolled over the stage, and all that could be heard was the low, rolling beat of the drums, soft at first, then growing with intensity until I could feel it in my throat.
The spotlights stirred, the stage was lit, and Sketch Monsters came bursting to life. I wasn’t sure anyone in the stands was prepared to be rocked the way those four boys shook the stage. Song after song, each one better than the last until it was all brought to a screeching halt. Sketch Monsters had arrived at their showcase song—Grace’s breathtaking ballad, “Promises.”
This would be the first time she’d hear it put to music and played live, and I could feel both her excitement and apprehension. She needn’t worry. Grace’s song was always going to be the shining star of the show, and somehow the crowd knew it. Phone flashlights rose to the skies as Quinn stood in a single spotlight with only the strum of his guitar and the hypnotic melancholy of his voice, prompting the listener to want to break from the pack and go save him.
Gradually the tempo increased as Quinn was joined first by Brandon on the drums and then Mike on the bass, and finally by Matty on the guitar, where he made those strings scream until they reached a soaring crescendo. And then suddenly nothing: empty air until Quinn’s voice rose from the shadows and he sang the song’s final, sorrowful notes.
So mesmerized was I by the performance, I hadn’t felt Grace gripping my arm until the audience erupted in applause.
“Did he just…” Grace couldn’t even form the words necessary to express what had happened on stage. It was a masterpiece, pure and simple, a song with the capacity to live on. This was why Quinn had wanted her here: to witness the moment their song took its first breath.
“I don’t know what he just did, but it was amazing,” I yelled over the melee.
From his place on the stage, Quinn sought me out. Sought Grace out. He placed a hand to his chest, then pointed her way. A tear rolled down Grace’s cheek. Whatever meaning she’d placed on Quinn’s gesture was enough for her to seek my shoulder to cry on… not Elliott’s. The moment did not go unnoticed. Elliott looked on, troubled.
Quinn launched into their final song, a rock anthem that would bring the hearts he’d just broken back to life. I watched, amazed, as he expertly controlled the crowd. This wasn’t something that could be learned. You had it or you didn’t. And Quinn had it. The day we met, I’d suspected he’d be a star, but actually being here to watch it happen went beyond my wildest dreams.
As excitement mounted, the crowd surged. Screams filled the night sky. The popping sounds. The music. The confusion. The panic.
“Jess,” Grace cried. “Jess!”
* * *
Sketch Monsters would go down in history—just not as they had planned. See, while it was true that, after tonight, no one would ever forget their name, these four deserving guys would never get their moment of glory.
They would never get their triumphant bow.
What the band didn’t know, what I didn’t know, what most of the eighteen thousand people in the stadium didn’t know, was that the first shots had already been fired.
31
Quinn: Run for Cover
I’d dreamed of this. But that was all it had ever been—a dream. Tonight, on this stage, the guys and I had come together like an industrial-sized magnet, sucking everything into our core. Life was about to change for us. I could feel it.
The beat dropped at a spot in the song it wasn’t supposed to drop. No, it didn’t just drop; it stopped. I looked back to Brandon for answers just as an unknown force slammed into my shoulder. I stumbled, falling backward onto the stage.
It was only then I heard the pop of gunshots. And the screaming.
I lay there for a second, the breath knocked out of me, as I tried to clear my head. What was happening? Everything was moving in slow motion, like an illusion. I stared up at the ceiling. Wait, no ceiling. I was outside—on my back. On the stage. I looked down at my body, wondering why it refused to move. At my guitar, her elegant white wood splattered in blood. Wait, whose blood? And why did it suddenly feel like a brick was lying upon my chest?
