Chapter 6
six
CASS
Tonight’s crowd is the perfect combination of drunk and devoted that makes Frank’s cash register sing.
I can read them from up here—the true believers moshing up near the front of the stage, the voyeurs safely pressed against the walls, and the drinkers at the bar running their own cost-benefit analysis on whether another beer is worth the bathroom line.
We’re tearing through the middle chorus of “Broken Teeth,” one of our most reliably crowd-pleasing numbers, and the mosh pit near the front is opening up in that violent, circular bloom that signals we’ve got them exactly where we want them.
This is the high.
The reason I do this.
The moment I don’t feel like an imposter.
Joel’s bassline is a low, steady thrum I can feel in my ribs, a pulse that syncs with my heartbeat until I can’t tell where the music ends and my body begins. Milo’s drumming is relentless, precise, driving the song forward with mechanical efficiency that makes it look effortless.
Against this backdrop of their near perfection, my fingers fly across the fretboard of my guitar, hitting the chord changes with automatic precision, and the vintage amp behind me is singing—a warm, slight growl that makes every note feel alive.
I adjust my stance, boots planted wide on the stage’s scuffed plywood.
For a few bars, everything is exactly as it should be. I remember a show last year—different venue, same energy—where the crowd was this responsive, this alive. We’d finished the set to actual cheers, not just polite applause, and for one night, I’d felt like we belonged.
Like I belonged.
My gaze snags on the back corner near the bathroom hallway, and I realize with immediate irritation that I’m looking for him. For that unmistakable 6’4” frame that belongs to the giant, stammering boy who’d saved me from getting groped and then fled from my apology.
But he’s not here.
Of course he’s not here. Why the hell would he be?
I hit the next chord hard, bending the note with my whammy bar until it wails in a mimic of my own frustration.
I know the disappointment curling in my chest is small and ridiculous, but I can’t seem to shove it down, which is a problem because I don’t need any distractions when I’m playing a song this difficult.
But distraction comes in the form of the energy in the room shifting.
I feel it before I see it, that subtle change in the crowd’s temperature, the way the air gets sharper, meaner. I’ve played—and attended—enough gigs to recognize the vibe shift instantly, and it immediately gets my body more tense and alert than it had been before, even as I keep playing.
The mosh pit near the front is getting more aggressive, the collisions harder, the shoving more deliberate. One guy goes down, and nobody helps him up. Two guys near the edge are squaring off, their chests puffed out, their faces flushed with booze and testosterone.
I give it about a fifty-fifty chance of popping off between them, because there’s always a lot of bullshit in the pit, which means there’s just as likely to be fists as there are hugs and apologies.
But then one of them shoves the other, and he stumbles back into a group of girls who scatter with annoyed shrieks.
“Shit,” I mutter, though the word is lost beneath the roar of my amp.
I keep playing, my fingers moving on autopilot as I sing the verse, but my focus is split now. I’m watching the two guys, willing them to knock it off, willing Frank’s bouncers to materialize and break this up before it escalates into something that’s going to ruin the night.
This is part of the job, managing the volatile energy of a packed bar, riding the line between controlled chaos and disaster. Except tonight, the line snaps. The shove becomes a punch, and the punch becomes a full-blown brawl, a chaotic vortex of swinging fists and flailing limbs.
The fight consumes the entire pit in seconds. Bodies pile on, friends jumping in to defend friends, some strangers fleeing and others jumping in because they’re drunk. The crowd scatters, pressing back against the walls and the bar to get out of the way.
I grit my teeth and play on, trying to project a calm I absolutely do not feel. My heart is hammering against my ribs, and my palms are slick against the neck of my guitar. The music feels useless now, a soundtrack to violence I can’t control, but stopping would be worse.
Stopping would be admitting some sort of fault.
And then it spills over the edge.
A large body—one of the brawlers, a guy in a stained white T-shirt with a shaved head and neck tattoos crawling up the side of his skull—is shoved onto the stage. He crashes into Milo’s drum kit with a sickening, metallic crash that reverberates through the room.
The music dies.
I stop playing entirely as cymbals topple, and a tom rolls off its stand and hits the floor with a hollow boom. Milo scrambles back, his sticks still in his hands, his face equal parts shock and fury as he looks down at the asshole who put a wrecking ball through his kit.
I freeze, my fingers still on the fretboard, the last chord hanging in the air like a held breath. The feedback from my still-live amp starts to build, a low, menacing hum that fills the sudden, awful silence, like the musical backdrop to a horror movie.
The guy scrambles to his feet, disoriented and furious. His face is flushed, blotchy with rage, his eyes wild and unfocused. He’s stumbling, drunk or concussed or both, and he’s looking around like he’s trying to figure out where the hell he is.
And then his eyes land on me.
I take a step back, then another, and my instincts scream at me to move, but there’s nowhere to go. The stage is a mess—cords and the remnants of Milo’s kit everywhere—and the pit is currently a flailing mess of meatheads trying to kick each other’s teeth out.
I’m trapped.
The guy lurches toward me, like I’m the one to blame, his hand shooting out to grab my bicep. His fingers dig into my skin hard enough that I know there will be bruises tomorrow—a constellation of purple and yellow fury mapped onto my body.
“Get the fuck out of my way,” he snarls, his voice a slurred growl. His breath washes over my face, hot and sour, reeking of beer.
He’s not trying to hurt me; he’s trying to move me, like I’m a piece of furniture. He’s like every other guy in my life, treating me like an ornament or a fetish or an obstacle rather than a person, and the realization sends a jolt of fire through my veins.
This isn’t some drunk fan copping a feel in the pit. It’s a direct assault, and I don’t know if it’s going to get worse—a fist to the face—or if he’ll shove me off stage, into the crush, where hands will grab, pull, and take because I’m down and vulnerable and they can.
My fight-or-flight instinct kicks in.
And I choose fight.
In a single, desperate, fluid motion, I swing my guitar. I don’t aim. I don’t think. I just react, the Fender Telecaster becoming a club of wood and steel that will get him off me. The heavy body connects with his shoulder with a sickening, solid thwack.
He howls, his grip releasing as he stumbles back. His face twists into something ugly, pure rage and shock, and for a split second I think he’s going to come at me again. My hands tighten around the neck of my guitar, my entire body braced.
But then the bouncers finally arrive.
Two of them plow onto the stage, massive guys in black T-shirts. They grab the guy by both arms, hauling him back, even as he struggles, swearing and spitting. A third bouncer is already on the floor, wading into the remnants of the brawl, pulling guys apart and shoving them toward the exit.
The music is dead.
In the ringing silence, I stand there, panting, my knuckles white around my guitar’s neck. My hands are shaking. My legs feel unstable and weak. The feedback from my amp is a high, piercing whine now, filling the empty room with a sound that feels like my own scream externalized.
I set my guitar down on its stand before my trembling hands drop it, then sink onto the edge of Milo’s wrecked drum riser. My bicep throbs where the guy’s fingers dug in, and I watch as the bouncers continue to haul patrons to the nearest exit.
But even though the fight is over, I’m still shaking, the adrenaline crash hitting me in waves. My hands won’t stop trembling, and I press them flat against my thighs, willing them to be still. And I’m not the only one shaken, because Milo’s crouched beside the wreckage of his kit.
“Is it—” I start.
“Fucked,” Milo says, his tone flat as he picks up a cracked cymbal, examines it with the detached focus of a crime scene investigator, then sets it aside with a soft, resigned exhale. “The floor tom’s cracked. Snare’s dented. Half the hardware’s bent.”
Guilt twists in my stomach, sharp and immediate. “Milo, I’m really sorry. I—”
He looks up. “You didn’t throw the guy into my kit, Cass. He threw himself.”
Joel’s still on stage, coiling his bass cable with sharp, angry movements, wrapping it around his hand and elbow like he’s strangling something. His jaw is tight, his silence louder than any accusation, because he knows how close this came to disaster.
I know what he’s thinking. I know what they’re both thinking. That this is a huge setback for us, because Milo’s kit is fucked, and we’ve got maybe two hundred bucks coming from tonight’s gig, and that’s not enough to fix what just broke.
I stand, my legs still unsteady, and grab my backup guitar. Because I’m not done yet, and if this is my last night I’m going to play on this stage, I’m not going to let my guitar slamming into that asshole be the final note. So I plug back into my amp, and it comes back to life with a low hum.
Milo looks up, confused. “Cass?”
“What are you doing?” Joel asks.
I don’t answer. I just start to play.