2-Kit
Tangy stage paint fills the too-small SUV.
I slump into the back seat, my long cloak bunching awkwardly.
Louanne folds down the seat and squeezes behind me, a frown prevalent under her Duae mask as of late.
Silver trails after their twin, folding their lanky frame into the third row.
They unclip the Tria mask from behind their ear and sit, lips pressed while they fiddle with the mask’s leather strap.
Seth’s obsidian gaze is flinty and restless, red-rimmed through his Quatour mask as he shuffles beside me. Greg plops into the front passenger’s seat with a grunt, immediately bouncing his knee. He’s properly fuming, and I’m about to take the brunt of it.
It’s that bloody Zach. She strung herself into Somnium’s life by her viral edits and sneaky back-alley pitches with the label. The damned woman burrowed her way into my dreams far before that, but I’m not ready to face what this means.
“I can’t believe you turned up to this meeting half-cut and had the audacity to shut Richard down,” Greg says for the eightieth time since we left the conference room.
“They could cancel the entire tour over this. You signed a contract. You need to fulfill it. If they even try to muck about with the anonymity clause, we’ll sue their arses off, but I’m telling you, Jude, if they catch you slipping, it’s going to put a target on your back. ”
Every clause reminds me that fame isn’t freedom.
It’s a debt I’ll never stop paying. I built Somnium to stay hidden, but I’m being dragged into the light by my ankles.
I only meant to take the edge off. Just enough to breathe.
It’s the only way I can stand the feeling of being watched.
And the more the stiffs want from me, the more I drink to dull it when they carve their pound of flesh.
“This tour’s gonna be stress enough without eighty cameras an’ fifty punters in our faces every time we wipe our arses.” Seth leans forward, poking his head between the front seats as he reaches for the box.
“Come on, you know it’s not like that.” Greg rubs his forehead like he can massage away the migraine we’ve turned into as an Eagles classic plays through the speakers.
When the last album went viral in fifteen-second clips, we got a new record deal. Sold-out shows. A nationwide tour. Everything we’d asked for.
But my personal life went pear-shaped.
There’s speculation—rumours and theories about us under the masks, and it’ll only get worse the more we show our faces. I don’t need my past crawling its way into a present I’ve sacrificed so much to build.
“Actually,” I bite out, “we don’t know anything because we’ve never done this. I kept my band anonymous so shit like this was never a possibility.”
“Look, kid,” he says, and that’s worse than Jude, “you wanted the arena tours, best-selling records, and views. You got it. And this is the price you pay for it.”
My hand twitches toward the bag at my feet, needing relief. Control.
“You little wanker,” Greg snaps, grabbing my wrist with a bruising grip before my fingers even brush the zip. “That’s it!”
He releases my wrist only to snatch up his phone, thumbs flying across the screen in a manic sort of energy. “We’re stopping here, Marco.”
Marco, our driver, and part of Yensil’s hand-picked security, peeks at the screen. He yanks the wheel into a U-turn so sharp the tyres squeal. I lurch sideways as Louanne slams a hand against the window, her bracelets jingling.
“What the bloody hell?” Louanne sounds like she’s two seconds from tearing someone a new one.
“I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this, but either we drop him off at this meeting, or I call the head and void the contract right now.
” Greg shoots me with a cutting glower that strips me bare.
“You think I’m taking the piss? Just watch.
I’m not putting up with your bollocks anymore. Not with this much at stake.”
We fall into a heavy silence. My mates’ collective worry presses between my shoulder blades like a physical force. Lou’s gnawed fingernails relentlessly drum against the tiny, triangled window behind me.
“You look like shite.” Seth leans his head on my shoulder.
“Fuck you all,” I mutter, slumping back into the seat as we hit traffic.
They’re going to side with Greg. Of course they are. I can’t blame them. Greg’s been holding this band together with his bare hands for years, and I’m a fissure that keeps widening.
Like those old, generic nineties cartoons, red fills me from toe to head. But it’s not spicy heat.
It’s raging guilt.
I take out the near-empty bottle and fuss with the cap, my shaky hands too weak to press the lid.
Seth curls his tattooed hand around the plastic and flings it from my grip.
It clatters against the dashboard, pills rattling inside the tube.
No one speaks; afraid one wrong exhale will send ‘mad’ me off the rails.
The city blurs past, and I’m stuck wondering how every payment toward this debt has gone to interest. This isn’t just mine, either. Every time I slip, my mates pay. I’ve made us collateral.
Disposable.