Her footsteps faded down the hallway, leaving Nash alone in the flickering blue light.
Turn.Turn.Turn.
Dead. Dead.Dead.
Chapter Three
Camerasflashed.
Parents called out to their kids, waving.
It was the last week of school before summer break, and Clifton Ridge Central had dragged out every folding chair in existence to cram into the dingy gymnasium.The old bleachers groaned under the weight of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and younger siblings.Box fans rattled in the corners, doing little against the heat.
The gym smelled of sweat and whatever meal had been cooked last in the cafeteria down the hall.One of the basketball hoops hung crooked, the scoreboard overhead blinked red, stuck at 88–88.
And right in the middle of it all, wedged between the brass section and a kid wrestling to keep his cello from sliding, stood thirteen-year-old Cassie Berry.Her violin tucked under her arm, she scanned the bleachers for Connor.
He'd promised he'd come.
But he hadn't shown up yet.
Ms.Delaney tapped the mic on the school’s aging PA, making it squeal.“And for our final solo of the evening,” she said, “Cassandra Berry will be performin’ Wayfaring Stranger.”Her mouth pressed into a thin line, still regretting Cassie’s choice.
“It’s a funeral hymn,” she’d scolded.“Too dark for a school recital.”
But Cassie didn’t care.She’d chosen it because every other kid picked something happy and bright and utterly forgettable, and the last thing she wanted was to be like everyone else.Even Connor had called her emo for choosing it, which only made her dig her heels deeper.If she was gonna play, she was gonna play something worth a damn.
The room fell quiet as she stepped forward, her dress shoes squeaking on the floor.She raised her violin and drew her bow, the first note coming out too sharp, then wobbling before breaking altogether.
A few kids giggled, but Cassie only shot them a glare and reset her stance.Bow lifted, she went to try again—
The gym doors slammed open.
Connor strode in, a half dozen Kings trailing after him.Some in coveralls, a few shirtless under leather vests, all of them tracking dirt across the floor.
“Well?”Connor called, stopping at the front, arms wide.“You gonna play, or we all just come here to sweat together?”
Half the gym cracked up.Ms.Delaney looked like she might stroke out.
Cassie grinned, raised her bow again—
And this time, the song unfurled.Low and aching at first, then building, stretching, bending beneath her hand until it was no longer Wayfaring Stranger but Hurt by Nine Inch Nails.Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ms.Delaney step forward, finger raised, but Cassie ignored her.Her bow grew bolder, sawing across the strings, rough and ragged, slow and sharp, before winding the notes back into the mountain tune.
Back and forth she played—shifting between the old hymn and Hurt—until they were woven together into something new.Rawer.Slower.Notes stretched impossibly long, vibrato rolling, until the final jagged resolution.
When the last note sang out, Cassie finished with a flourish.A breath of silence…then the gym erupted in applause, Connor and the Kings loudest of all.
“Take a goddamn bow, kid!”Connor roared between finger whistles.
Grinning ear to ear, Cassie dipped low, dragging her bow out theatrically before straightening—
And freezing.
The bleachers were empty.
The Kings gone.
Connor…gone.
