Chapter Six
Vic
Three weeks after the Louisville triumph, the high was gone.
It didn’t disappear overnight. It eroded slowly, like water wearing down stone—small cracks at first, then bigger ones.
The first obvious signs appeared during a gig in Cincinnati. Jax forgot the second verse of their strongest original and tried to cover it with a cocky grin and some improvised screaming. The crowd still cheered, but Vic felt the shift in the pocket. The magic was starting to fray at the edges.
By Indianapolis, the arguments had become routine.
Vic sat on a rickety folding chair in yet another green room that smelled like stale piss and spilled beer, listening to the same fight for the fourth time in two days.
“You’re fucking up the tempo again!” Riley shouted, jabbing a finger at Jax. “We sounded like shit tonight because you were too busy trying to fuck that redhead at the rail instead of remembering the setlist.”
Jax laughed, but it was an ugly sound. “Maybe if you didn’t speed up every chorus like a goddamn meth-head, I wouldn’t have to drag your ass back.”
Trey just shook his head and cracked another beer, staring at the floor. Nova stood off to the side, arms crossed, looking like she was one more screaming match away from walking out for good.
Vic stayed quiet, elbows on his knees, spinning a stick between his fingers. He’d tried to play peacemaker during the first few blowups. It hadn’t worked. The fire that had made Klatmatch Ends dangerous and exciting onstage had turned inward and had started eating them alive.
He could feel the band fracturing in real time.
***
The final implosion was spectacular.
It started with money. The bigger crowds and better slots meant bigger guarantees, but somehow there was never enough left after Jax’s “business expenses,” Riley’s new gear habit, and the endless parade of party favors that showed up in every green room.
Then came the missed sound checks, the blown tires on the van that no one wanted to pay to fix properly, and the promoter in Indianapolis who refused to pay the full guarantee after Jax got into it with security.
Tonight in Columbus had been the final straw.
They’d played their asses off for forty minutes to a packed house, the kind of sweaty, shoulder-to-shoulder crowd that usually fed Vic’s soul.
The energy had been electric at first—Riley’s guitar snarling through the opening riffs, Trey’s bass anchoring everything, Nova’s keys adding that eerie shine that made their sound unique.
Vic had driven it all from behind the kit, pouring everything he had into every beat, every fill, every transition.
For a while, it felt like the old magic was back.
Then Jax got wasted.
It happened mid-set, with him accepting a fan’s gift of a tray of shots.
He emptied half of them right as they launched into “Bleed Out,” their strongest song, the one now getting radio play in five markets and the closest thing they had to a hit.
Jax stumbled on the first verse, slurring words, then completely blanked on the second.
He tried to cover it with a sloppy, over-the-top scream and some half-assed stage banter, but it was obvious.
Painfully obvious. The band tried to hold it together.
Vic pushed the groove harder, willing Jax to find the lyrics, but their frontman was too far gone, grinning like it was all part of the show.
The crowd roared at the end because the raw energy was there. Bodies were moving. Fists were in the air. But Vic felt a sickening lurch in his gut, like the floor had dropped out from under the stage. The magic wasn’t just fading anymore.
It was splintering.
He could see it in the way Riley’s shoulders tightened, in Trey’s quiet disappointment as he unplugged his bass, in Nova’s exhausted expression as she killed her keyboard.
They’d fought so hard to get to this point of bigger crowds, better slots, actual momentum, and now Jax was pissing it away one sloppy set at a time.
Vic wiped sweat from his face with the hem of his soaked shirt, the high from the first half of the show already curdling into something bitter. Another night. Another crack in the foundation.
And he wasn’t sure how much longer he could pretend it wasn’t happening.
After the show, the fight spilled from the stage into the green room and showed no signs of stopping.
“You’re a fucking liability,” Riley snarled at Jax. “We finally get some momentum, and you piss it away every night chasing tail and expensive blow.”
Jax shoved him. “At least I’m out there giving them a show. You stand there looking bored half the time.”
Trey tried to step in. “Guys, come on—”
“Stay out of it,” both of them snapped at once.
Nova finally spoke, voice cold. “I’m tired of this. All of it.”
Vic stayed quiet, watching the four people he’d started to care about tear one another apart. The same pattern he’d seen with his dad’s bands. The same pattern that had followed him from Domatella’s Abyss to here.
He finally stood up.
“I’m done.”
The room went quiet.
Jax turned on him, eyes glassy. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means I’m taking a break.” Vic kept his voice even, though his chest felt tight. “This isn’t fun anymore. It’s just the same shit my old man went through, except none of us are having a good time doing it.”
Riley scoffed. “You gonna bail like the last guy?”
Vic looked at each of them—Jax’s reckless charisma now looking desperate, Riley’s sharp talent edged with bitterness, Trey’s quiet disappointment, Nova’s exhausted resignation—and felt a strange sense of calm.
“Yeah,” he said simply. “I am.”
***
He packed his kit in near silence while the others kept arguing around him. Nova helped him load the last case into the back of a rented van without saying much. When they were done, she gave him a tight hug.
“You were the best thing about this band,” she muttered against his shoulder. “Don’t disappear completely, okay?”
Vic nodded, throat tight. “You either.”
He climbed into the driver’s seat and pointed the van toward the interstate. In the rearview mirror, the venue lights grew smaller until they disappeared entirely.
***
The same faded blue shutters. The same lopsided porch swing. The same lemon-polish and old-house smell when he stepped through the door at two in the morning.
Grams was waiting up anyway, wrapped in her housecoat, a cup of decaf tea cooling on the table beside her recliner. She looked even smaller than the last time he’d come home—like the house itself was slowly swallowing her.
“You’re back sooner than I expected,” she said softly, searching his face with those sharp, knowing eyes.
Vic dropped his duffel and crossed the room to hug her. She felt painfully fragile in his arms. The realization settled heavy in his chest, heavier than the disappointment of another band falling apart.
“You know how the music industry goes,” he told her, keeping it simple. “Figured it was time to come home for a bit.”
She patted his back like she had when he was twelve years old and came home crying because his dad forgot to pick him up after a gig. “Well, the guest room’s made up. Your room, I mean. And there’s leftover pot roast in the fridge if you’re hungry.”
He helped her back to bed, then stood in the hallway for a long moment, listening to the familiar creaks and sighs of the old house. The same sounds that had once meant safety now carried a different weight.
Nothing had changed.
The posters of his father’s old band still hung on his bedroom wall. The twin bed still groaned when he sat on it. The same crack in the ceiling stared down at him when he lay back.
He was twenty-seven years old, back in the same room he’d slept in as a teenager, with the same uncertain future stretching out in front of him.
Vic closed his eyes and let out a long breath.
Home hadn’t changed.
But maybe...maybe it was time he did.
***
The house felt too still these days. Too full of memories and not enough life. He could hear the faint tick of the grandfather clock in the hallway and the soft, occasional rustle of Grams turning a page in her crossword book.
Vic had been home less than ten days when his phone rang.
The sound cut through the heavy quiet of Grams’ living room like a crack of thunder. He was sprawled on the old couch, one leg hanging off the side, staring at the ceiling fan turning in lazy circles overhead.
He glanced across the room at her. She was dozing in her recliner again, the half-finished puzzle resting in her lap, pencil still clutched loosely in her fingers. Her profile was blurry, looking somehow smaller than she had this morning. The house looked smaller too. Everything did.
Vic’s chest felt tight. He’d come home looking for peace, but the quiet had started to feel like drowning. Every creak of the floorboards reminded him of his father. Every silence reminded him of everything he’d lost—and everything he was still running from.
His phone rang again.
He picked it up without checking the screen, grateful for the distraction.
“Montrose,” Meg’s voice came through, crisp and no-nonsense, the same tone she’d used since she first started booking him years ago. “I’ve got a few full days of tracking at Blackbird Studios next week, and my usual guy just bailed. You free?”
Vic sat up slowly, swinging his legs off the couch. Blackbird. The familiar smell of the studios, the hum of creativity, the chance to lose himself in someone else’s music for a while. It sounded like salvation.
He looked over at Grams again. She stirred slightly but didn’t wake, her breathing steady and shallow.
The quiet pressed in on him from all sides—the kind of quiet that gave his thoughts too much room to spiral.
He gave way too much thought to every failure in his past. The way the road had started to feel like the only place he knew how to exist.
“Yeah, Meg,” he said, voice low but decisive. “I’m free.”