Page 6 of Wild

Barry heads off and she steps out of the room for a quick round with the security team, making sure they know who she is and where she's stationed — because experience at other events has taught her that when something happens, the seconds lost showing credentials are seconds that can cost a life.

"Tobby," says the man she introduces herself to, extending his hand before checking her name against the authorized personnel list and asking for her credentials.

Tobby sticks a yellow sticker on her badge and walks her out to the corridor, then leads her to the side of the stage to show her where she and her partner will be positioned.

"Good luck, Doctor," Tobby says before heading back to his post.

At seven-thirty on the dot, Erin is standing at the side of the stage next to a metal column that supports part of the lighting rig, arms crossed over her chest, eyes fixed on the platform, which is still empty and covered by a black curtain. Barry is a couple of yards behind her, sitting on a piece of technical equipment and staring at his phone with a bored expression. On the other side of the curtain, the voices of thousands of people waiting for the show to start rise in a wave. Erin thinks about her sister Brooke, who's probably out there on the floor right now, buzzing with excitement to see the singer — while she's here, one step away from the stage itself. A lopsided smile creeps onto her face, which she immediately kills, feeling guilty just for having wanted something her sister would give anything for.

At seven fifty-eight, the lights go out and the roar of the crowd swells so suddenly that the hair on her arms stands up.

"God, I never get used to that," Barry says, appearing at her side and rubbing his arm with a shiver. "You think performers ever do?"

"I don't know — maybe some do and some don't. I honestly don't think I ever would."

The curtain drops all at once, and from the darkness a low, slightly raspy voice sings a cappella for a couple of lines before the drums kick in. The lights burst on in a white flash that makes Erin blink, and Mia Wilder appears before her.

They didn't see her walk out — she probably came in from the other side of the stage, or during the blackout. Erin has known a lot of charismatic women in her life, and in her opinion people tend to confuse charisma with attractiveness, but to her they're two different things: charisma is the ability to make everything revolve around a person without any effort on her part, and attractiveness is simply that — someone who's pleasing to look at.

Mia Wilder is both. She's standing at the center of the platform in a black jumpsuit open to the middle of her sternum, arms covered in tattoos, lavender hair loose and tousled, gaze lifted toward the upper tiers — and she's so striking that the doctor, just for a moment, holds her breath as something tingles beneath her ribs.

She tightens her arms across her chest and shifts her weight from one foot to the other, brushing the odd jolt off as adrenaline — probably just the rush of being this close to something that moves people on that scale — and refocuses on why she's here.

For the first six or seven songs, everything goes fine. Mia moves along the runway like the stage is the only world she's ever known and she's completely at home on it. She steps to the edge, drops to her knees, rises again, and triggers waves of uncontrolled reaction. She sings with a slightly raw edge on the choruses and clean through the bridges, and Erin can't stop marveling at the capacity of her lungs.

It's during the eighth song that the doctor notices the first detail that catches her attention. Mia leans against the mic stand, and to Erin it doesn't read like someone taking a casual rest — she leans into it as though holding herself upright is costing her something, and then she simply keeps moving like nothing happened. In the next song, the singer brings her hand to her left temple and makes a slow circular motion that fromthe crowd might look like something sensual, but it makes Erin uncross her arms and go on alert, because that gesture doesn't look like someone working the audience — it looks like someone who's been dizzy for a while and is doing her best to hide it.

"What is it?" Barry shouts in her ear when he picks up on his partner's unease.

"I'm not totally sure," she answers, without taking her eyes off Mia Wilder.

In the next song — one with a strong choreography that the singer performs alongside her dancers — she loses the beat twice and covers it by raising the mic to get the crowd to sing.

"I think she's dizzy," she tells Barry.

He fixes his eyes on the singer, but he doesn't see anything off.

"You sure? She looks fine to me."

"She's not. Watch her," she says, and leaves Barry standing there as she turns around to go find someone with authority.

A technician points her toward a suited man in his mid-forties who's watching the artist closely.

"That's her manager."

Erin doesn't even say thanks and, in two strides, she's in front of him.

"Excuse me," she says, getting his attention.

Jude looks away from the stage and looks her up and down, not sure why this woman is bothering him.

"I'm Dr. Dooley," she says. "Your singer has been showing signs of pre-syncope for the last few songs. You should stop the show for a few minutes so I can evaluate her."

Jude stares at her, eyes wide, processing what she's just said — and in those few seconds, and in that dark stare, Erin reads exactly the kind of person she's dealing with.

"It's just exhaustion. Do you have any idea how much she sweats up there with the heat from the lights and theadrenaline?" Jude asks. "What she needs is to drink more water — she forgets sometimes."

"It's not the sweating," Erin pushes back, barely able to hide her disbelief at the man's incompetence. "She's leaning on the mic stand like she can barely hold herself up, and she's already pressed her fingers to her temples twice."