Cassidy shrugged loosely and felt another weight lift from her shoulders. “Yeah, sure, that sounds great.”
Since signing with the Black Burns label, Ama’s band had changed. They now called themselves Rico Pinqueens and the only other original member was the rhythm guitarist, Drew. He picked Cassidy up when he hugged her, and she noticed he’d gotten a lot taller and lost weight since the last time she’d seen him. The other two members of the band introduced themselves as Terry, the drummer, and Roxanne, the bassist. The rest of the band was hanging out in an area separated from the chaos by sheets hung up on rope and secured with heavy duty plastic clamps. All they had in their space, aside from their instruments, were some folding chairs and a little blue drink cooler.
“Cassidy is, like, the reason anyone has heard of us,” Ama told the newer members. “Gosh, it’s so cool that you’re here! I’m so sorry about your dad, though.”
“What’s wrong with your dad?” Drew asked.
“He’s just not feeling well. I mean, he’s not, like, dying or anything, but I really just need to be with him right now, and I’ve had a really hard time with making phone calls off the island.” Cassidy bit her lip. “Like, I dunno, maybe it’s just my phone not working right, but it seems like we’re super isolated here.”
Roxanne grabbed a bottle of water and twisted the top off, then sat back down on one of the folding chairs. “That’s the point of having an island fest, right?” she asked, then took a swig with her whole mouth on the bottle top.
“Yeah, but … What have you heard about the festival?”
“Just that it’s amazing and everyone is having the time of their lives seeing all these amazing bands and swimming in the ocean every day,” Ama said.
“So, you didn’t hear about Ryan LeHane?”
“Who’s Ryan LeHane?”
“He’s like a YouTube prankster kid, but he fell off a waterfall and died the first night and like no one is talking about it,” Cassidy said. Ama’s jaw dropped.
Terry sat hunched over with the wind blowing through his muscle tee, but Cassidy’s comment made him sit up slightly straighter. “Someone fucking died the first night everyone was here, and no one is talking about it?”
“So, like, no one is reporting on it or something?” Ama asked.
“If you haven’t heard about it, then it seems like not. And like, my friend also went missing and they won’t help me find her, and I don’t think we can make phone calls to anyone off the island,” Cassidy said, all the facts just rushing out of her. The band looked like they didn’t know what to make of any of that, but Ama was completely shocked.
“It’s like you’re being held hostage here!” she said. “Oh my god, we should do something. We should tell someone!”
Cassidy’s face grew hot as the tears gathered in her eyes. “I would actually love it if you could tell someone, because I’ve tried and no one is doing anything.”
Ama gave Cassidy another hug. The other band members stood and joined in.
“We’ll tell someone, okay? And we’ll get you home,” Ama said. She pulled away from Cassidy and the five of them stood in a circle.
“When does your plane leave?” Cassidy asked, wiping away tears with the back of her hand.
“Three in the morning, something like that,” Drew said.
Cassidy nodded.
Music rose up so loud it sounded like nothing but noise.
“The opener is starting!” Ama shouted. She led Cassidy around backstage to the side of the performance, where they stood among the guitars and monitors and were both given a pair of ear plugs.
The band wasn’t fantastic, especially stage left where the mix favored the bass and Cassidy barely heard anything else. She stared out into the crowd of expectant faces and hoped that Apricot was still among them. Then, she noticed something that made her blood run cold. A woman stood completely still in the crowd of moving bodies and stared directly at Cassidy, and the woman looked like Daisy. Cassidy stepped forward, ready to leap off the stage and crowd surf to her if she had to, but a roadie stepped in front of her. She stepped around him, but when she searched the crowd again, Daisy was gone. Cassidy began frantically searching the crowd for her, but when she stepped out from behind the informal line of the wing, Ama put her hand on her shoulder.
“Hey, let’s stay back here, okay. Do you see your friends out there or something?”
Cassidy stepped backwards and tried to pull her eyes away from the crowd. “No. I guess I just thought I did.”
RosetoldEdiesheneeded to either lay off the drugs or share the good stuff if she honestly couldn’t remember going to the Temple of Silence the day before. Edie knew better but said nothing. It was Rose’s memory she was concerned about, especially regarding herself.
That Apricot chick forgot about her friend. Those medics forgot about us.
Unfortunately, anything Edie could have used to convince Rose that something weird was happening only served to prove Rose’s version of events, and Edie couldn’t convince her to deviate from whatever plans Rose thought they had in mind. So, she found herself getting ready for that night’s show, terrified of letting Rose out of her sight.
When they showed up to the stage area that evening, they noticed that the turnout was significantly reduced from previous nights. There were maybe 500 people in attendance.
