There it is, in the middle of the hustle and bustle of kick-out time. A small portion of the cut visible between the shoulders of other people. I can’t see his face, and there are no legible partsof the cut that will tell me who the fuck this belongs to. But I’ve been around long enough to know that this is a biker cut.
My hands curl into fists as anger bubbles in my chest, coiling tighter with each thud of my pulse. I pinch the photo on my screen, zooming in, memorizing every stitch, every crease, and every detail. I will find this motherfucker.
“Find every fucking MC in the country if you have to. Match their cuts to this one,” I say, my pulse quickens. “Call me the second you find a match.”
A quick affirmative from Cain before he hangs up the phone.
I pace the office, dragging my hand over my face. Cigarette smoke curls lazily around the light of my laptop screen. I light another, the ember glowing bright as I inhale, imagining the moment I find this guy. I’ll make sure he knows exactly who he’s fucked with.
When I find out who this is, I will unleash Hell.
As I sit back down, staring at the photo again, my thoughts drift to Kat. The memory of her, of the last week. I grind my teeth in a mix of anticipation and frustration. She’s in this city somewhere right now, oblivious to the danger lurking on the streets. For that reason alone, I don’t have time to waste. Rage and desire blur together, dangerously close to obsession.
She is mine.
No one will get in the fucking way of that.
Twenty-Four
Kat
Mama I’m Coming Home – Ozzy Osbourne
The bell above the door chimes as I walk in, the warm air of the record store giving me a pleasant shiver. It’s late afternoon, the sun well on its way to setting, and the store is quiet.
The door creaks closed behind me, the murmur of the street reducing to a light hum. The neonOpensign buzzes in the way old neon signs do, casting a red glow that bleeds across the front window and spills over the first few rows of vinyl, making the plastic sleeves shine like wet paint.
Steve’s Spinners Record Store is one of my not-so-secret pleasures. When I first moved here and had any form of stable money, this is where I spent it. Now I come here whenever I want to get away and quiet my thoughts. Today is one of those days.
Stepping into this little shop is like stepping into another decade—like the outside world gets muted the second the door closes. The space is narrow and deep, stretching far back from the street. You’d never guess how big this shop is from its small, unassuming storefront. Shelves line the walls, and multicolored baskets dot the floor, all overflowing with records.
It’s empty, save for the cashier and a couple at the far end of the room. They seem to be arguing about whether to buy an Ozzy or Black Sabbath album, each of them holding up their respective choices as they bicker. I bite my cheek to keep from laughing. I’ve heard this exact debate in this exact shop at least three times before. Metalheads are nothing if not predictable. Ozzy era. Dio era. Sabbath versus solo. The arguments never end.
Always Black Sabbath.
I make my way over to the huge rock and metal section. My fingers brush the tops of the records as I flip through them. The smell of dust, cardboard, and a hint of damp hits my nostrils as the albums thud together. There’s something almost meditative about flipping through records like this. The soft swooshing of the cardboard sleeves, the crinkle of plastic protectors rubbing against each other, the split-second excitement when you flip to a new cover. Streaming never feels like this, it’s hollow in comparison. We’ve traded convenience for soul.
I’m looking for any copy ofNews of the Worldby Queen; I don’t even care what edition it is, just something about that album sounds perfect on vinyl. I’ve been saving every spare penny from tips and the small amount of money Ryland lets us keep from our Headstone gigs. I don’t take each treat for granted. The memory of sleeping under the freeway in my patchwork tent is not as far in the past as it sometimes seems.
I have a small collection in my apartment, about thirty records. They sit on a cheap shelf beneath my record player, which I got for free from Craigslist. Each of the thirty vinyl’s are cleaned and sleeved meticulously. They’re my prized possessions aside from my guitar. Before, I had hundreds. Stacks of them. Milk crates filled to the brim, sitting on shelvesmy dad built for me that bowed slightly under the weight. I used to spend entire Saturdays lying on my bedroom floor, trying to decide which album was my favorite, and then spending entire Sundays learning my favorite songs from the album on guitar. My parents never once complained about the noise.
That life feels like it belonged to someone else now. I guess because it does.
I stand up straighter, willing the memory back down as I continue to flip through the records, my heart fluttering every time I hit a Queen album, but continuing when it’s not what I’m looking for. Queen has gotten me through some of the darkest times in my life. When I was on the bathroom floor, considering ending it all, Queen and Freddie Mercury were there for me.
Freddie.
I swallow hard. Fuck, I miss that cat.
My chest constricts as my thoughts drift to my best friend. My little orange ball of fluff, and how he used to greet me every single time I came through the door. How he would curl up under my chin when the world and my life got too heavy, like he was sharing the burden with me.
Tears sting the back of my eyes. I take a deep breath, my muscles loosening as I push them back down.
I’ve reached the end of the section, with no copy in sight. Turning on my heel, I grab a post-it note and a pen and write the album and my phone number and slip it into the “requests” box on the counter.
“Kat, hey!”
The greeting cuts through the quiet of the store, making me jump.
