Chapter Ten
I should’ve known better than to get my hopes up.
I woke up at an ungodly hour, buzzing with ideas about what to write—for Immaculate Conceptions.
Running off no sleep and the barely palatable bargain coffee I regrettably bought in bulk, I put together three pitches for John.
It’s not what I’m supposed to be working on, but I’m inspired, feeling like myself again for the first time in far too long.
The Final piece feels too big, and dipping my toe into IC may be just what I need to work up the courage to dive headfirst into Final.
At least, that’s how I’m going to pitch it to John.
The office is a ghost town. Most of the writing staff don’t roll in until a bit later; only the accounting and executive teams are quietly milling about. As such, John hears my footsteps approaching, glancing up before I rap my knuckles against his open door.
Despite my not-at-all-manic practicing in the rearview mirror on my way to the office, I don’t know what I’m going to say to him.
“Sloane, good—you got my email.”
I did not.
Correctly interpreting my raised eyebrows, John smiles softly. “Or not. Grab Robb, will you?”
My stomach turns as watery as my morning coffee, and I nod before heading in the direction of Robb’s office in the back corner. I find her halfway there, mug of break room coffee in hand, her laptop bag hanging off one shoulder.
“Why is John calling us to his office?” I mutter under my breath, hooking my arm through hers and steering her in the new direction.
Robb blinks at me from behind her glasses, as if she hadn’t been fully awake until that moment. “Oh, goody,” she mumbles.
We file into John’s office, sink into the whoopee cushion leather chairs, and wait for him to finish hunt-and-peck typing.
“Donavan,” he says suddenly, turning his attention to us and pointing to me, as if saying my name weren’t enough. “If you didn’t get my email, I assume you already know?”
I glance uncertainly at Robb, whose eyes go wide.
“Know what?” I ask.
John frowns, as if he expected better of us. He turns his laptop around, and my stomach drops.
The Offbeat website is on his screen, an embedded YouTube video on the page: “Drop the Mike (Song) Vlog #42” The video’s still is of Dax from last night, back arched as he held that note, mic pointed to the ceiling. It’s a great fucking shot and I wish it and the article were mine.
How the fuck is Mike so fast from halfway across the country?
The need to justify myself, to prove myself, has the words tumbling out of me before I can think them through. “I… I was there—with Final. I have some pitches ready, could have you a draft by the end of the day,” I promise wildly.
John’s brows rise, and Robb’s hand slides onto my knee, squeezing in silent warning. I shut up before I can dig myself deeper, not entirely sure what I’ve said wrong.
John peers over the top of the laptop screen, dragging the red dot in search of his desired timestamp.
The still of Dax disappears, replaced by Mike Song, in what I know to be his office, a wall of framed vinyls behind his desk.
The perfectly lit video shifts, a seemingly last-minute addition to his weekly vlog, Mike now bathed in moonlight.
John hits the play button, and my stomach is in knots.
“Last night, Final Revelations came out of the woodwork to perform with their predecessors Immaculate Conceptions. Now,” Mike says, pushing his clear frames up higher on his nose, “we haven’t had anything new from Final in years, and I’m delighted to report that a source close to the band exclusively confirmed they’re back in the studio.
I’d wager we’ll have new Revelations by next summer—if their dueling frontmen, long rumored to clash behind the scenes, can put their egos aside long enough to finish the album. ”
The video cuts back to the previously recorded bit, and John hits the space bar to pause it. How is my former mentor still ruining my career from the other side of the country?
“A rumor he gave birth to and nurtures like a favorite child,” Robb grumbles.
John turns the laptop back around, thank god. It’s too early in the morning for Mike’s smarmy mug. “Welp,” he says with a pop of the p. “Cat’s outta the bag.”
When neither of us speaks, John leans in as if he’d just missed what we didn’t say. “How is it that we have the story of the year, one of the biggest metal bands in our backyard, and Mike Song is the one breaking the news from San fucking Fran?”
“He has ghostwriters,” I say on an exhale. “Someone must have been there.”
John waves this away. “I don’t care about the IC show. I care about the album.”
Robb sighs heavily. “I mean, it takes a lot of people to make an album. Anyone could’ve let it slip. The studio, their friends who know—I think this is a good thing, actually.”
John turns his owlish eyes on her, sitting back in his swivel chair and gesturing for her to continue. I stare at her with equally wide eyes, pleading. If she can spin this, I will kiss the ground she walks on for the rest of my life.
“This will only leave their fans clamoring for more information. Anyone can announce a new album, but not just anyone can get Final Revelations to give their first interview in eight years.” She gestures to me like I’m some savant and not just stupidly lucky.
“We should announce we have the article coming. Let people know where to go for all things Final.”
My eyes prickle, and I blink rapidly, refusing to cry. So this is what it’s like to have a mentor who fights for me instead of robbing me.
“And where are we at with the article?”
I stare at my ratty Chucks for a moment, composing myself before meeting their expectant gazes. “I’m working on it.”
John raises his eyebrows. “And what does that mean?”
“We’re trying to find the right angle,” Robb supplies, giving me a reassuring nod despite having said my last draft read like a book report I didn’t want to write.
“Is it that hard to find?” John asks with a humorless laugh. “This is Final Revelations we’re talking about here. There’s a million saucy angles—the rivalry between Dax and Marcus, the drama with their label, the Reverie Fest fiasco—”
“That’s kind of the problem,” I hedge, halfway abashed that I actually said that out loud and not just in my head like I’d meant to.
But no going back now. “Every time I pick an angle, all I can see is everything I’m not getting to use that readers would eat up.
How do you condense an entire career—most of which they’ve never spoken about publicly—into one article?
I’m a fan, and as their fan, I would want everything—everything they’re willing to share—and they’re not holding back with me.
” Well, except maybe Dax, but I’m trying to dig myself out of this hole, not deeper.
John takes off his readers, twirling them between his thumb and forefinger as he swivels back and forth in his chair, thinking, probably enjoying the anxious silence far too much.
“Well, this is a first,” he says at last, tossing his glasses onto the desk. “I brought you in here to scold you for getting scooped, and you’re going to leave with a bigger feature and an extension.”
I stare at him unblinking, convinced I’ve heard him incorrectly.
“You’re right,” he concedes with a sigh, like it pains him to admit it.
“It would be a shame to not use everything—but I want you to get everything, Donavan. There’s no room for friendship in journalism.
I want every rumor, every bit of Final Revelations gossip addressed.
I want articles to be written about this article it’s so juicy.
I’m going to push this back from the November feature to December and make this a two-parter, the second half out in January.
Let’s get their photo shoot scheduled ASAP, and we’ll release a vlog after they headline the Halloween show, letting people know we have the exclusive. Mike Song can kick rocks.”
Robb and I exchange a glance, her face equally as shocked as mine.
“Thank you,” I manage.
“We’ll go brainstorm—right now,” Robb rushes out, her hand grasping my biceps and dragging me from my chair, the leather squeaking fartily.
It’s like she expects John to take back the offer if we linger too long, which, given how many promises he’s made her and not followed through on, she isn’t entirely off base.
Once we’re safely behind the closed door of Robb’s office—which I’m pretty sure is a repurposed closet—we stare at each other, open-mouthed and silently screaming.
Robb stomps her feet and shakes her nonexistent hair, victory-punching the air.
I wrap my arms around myself and try not to fall apart at the seams.
While I desperately needed this extension, making the article bigger only adds fuel to the fire of my imposter syndrome. “Please tell me I can do this,” I say pathetically.
Robb ceases her celebratory dance, placing both hands on my shoulders, shaking me. “Sloane,” she says, beaming. “You can do this.” She enunciates each word slowly, giving them time to sink in.
“How do you know?”
After last night, my emotional walls haven’t had time to refortify, and I don’t have it in me to pretend I have it together. I feel five years old right now, the wound of my mom splitting still fresh, wondering if maybe it would’ve turned out differently if only I’d been better.
Robb fixes me with a sad smile, guiding me to sit in the worn chair. It’s so cramped my knees hit the front of her desk when I plop down. She shimmies through the small gap between her desk and the wall, sinking into her fraying chair.
“I know you can do this, because—” She bends over, sliding open her file cabinet and rifling through it.
She slaps a copy of The Offbeat down in front of me, flipping to a tabbed page.
She looks at me meaningfully. I recognize the article.
It’s one of the first ones I “worked with” Mike on.
When I don’t say anything, she fishes another volume from her file cabinet, this one also tabbed, flipping it open to another one of my articles with Mike’s name on it.
“You’re not the only one who knows about Mike Song’s ghostwriters.”
I blink, and this time I’m not able to stop the tears before they fall. Wiping them off on my shoulder, I take a shaky breath, rubbing the scar on my finger to ground myself.
“Funny how his writing got a lot better two years ago. And then not so great again a few months ago, when you came to work for us.” She ducks her head, forcing me to meet her gaze. “You can do this. You’ve already done it.”
I nod, but all I can think is how I don’t want to be that writer anymore. That was me writing as Mike, and yes, I was good at it, but I’m not proud of it. I’m writing as me now, and I want to be proud to have my name on this.
“Don’t worry about Mike. He’s a scourge upon the profession. He cannot scoop you, no matter how many ‘sources close to the band’ he has. No one else can get what you can get, and just think about how positively fuming he is about it.”
That gets a watery laugh out of me. It does make me feel better, picturing Mike’s face when we announce the exclusive, that I’m the one writing it, while he ferrets around for scraps about the band he burned a bridge with to make a name for himself, incorrectly predicting they’d be a flash in the pan and not one of the biggest bands of the decade.
I rake my hands through my hair, trying to muster a semblance of confidence. “Thank you,” I say sincerely. “And I’m sorry. I know I’ve been floundering. I shouldn’t have gone to the show last night—”
Robb waves this away. “Going to shows, networking—all of that is part of the job. They’re letting you tag along, so tag along. Wherever they go, you go. You never know what you’ll uncover just by being a fly on the wall.”
I let out an involuntary gasp, nearly having forgotten in the midst of everything.
A Grinch-like smile curls the corners of Robb’s mouth, her Monroe piercing twinkling in the yellow light. “What did you find out?”
“The album they’re recording,” I begin in a whisper, “is their seventh album.”
Her brows pinch together, and she taps each of her fingers against her thumb as she counts, mouthing the names of each of Final Revelations’ albums. Sacrament, Covenant, Shadow Psalms, Prodigal Son, Purgatorium.
She counts again, and I wait for her to confirm what she already knows: that they’ve only released five albums. “What happened to number six?” she asks.
When I smirk, she matches it. Pushing back from her desk, she takes an eraser to her whiteboard, wiping it clean before picking up a dry-erase marker and uncapping it with enthusiasm.