AllFreeNovel
Share Us
People aren’t dancing anymore.
I’ve met the guy right in front of Bryony’s face. His name is Cory, and despite the tattoos and the green hair and the studded leather jacket, he might be one of the most mild mannered people I’ve ever met. So it surprises me when he encroaches on her space. Bryony is a pro and she knows him too, so she flashes him a smile and puts the mic up to his face.
It does look as if he’s going to start singing with her for a second.
He doesn’t.
He grabs the mic cable instead, pulling it away from her. Bryony is taken aback for a second, her eyes widening as she tries to grab it back. “Cory, what the fuck?” I say into my mic, stopping the flow of the song as the rest of the girls sing a fucked up harmony.
I manage to think that’s why we need bouncers. I scan the deck for Devon, but he’s not here. This is why we don’t do these guerrilla gigs anymore, but Cory hasn’t ever been like this.
He yanks the mic off the stand, pulling it away from Bryony. She takes a step toward him and tries to yank it out of his hand, but she isn’t fast enough.
Cory looks at me. Maybe it’s my imagination, but for a second, it looks like his eyes turn yellow.
They’re a weird yellow, stoplight yellow, and it’s completely artificial. The color also covers the white of his eyes as well as his irises, his dark eyelashes contrasting with it.
Then he snarls–his teeth are pointed, large, extremely white. He doesn’t look human.
He looks fucking terrifying.
My heart drops as I realize that this is about me. This isn’t about Bryony at all, but all the girls are in danger because of me.
“Yo, what the fuck?” Sierra asks. But it’s too late.
Now it isn’t just Cory. There are a bunch of people surrounding us, all of them getting closer and closer. Someone yanks a cable out of an amp and the speakers start squealing. The crowd covers their ears while the girls look at each other, as if any of them is going to have an answer.
They don’t have an answer.
I barely have an answer.
I want to tell them that we have to run when I notice that the exorcists–and Malon–have formed somewhat of a protective barrier around us, but everyone else is still closing in.
Rei has his hands in front of himself, trying to say something to them, but the sound from the amp is too piercing.
And then Cory swings.
It takes me a split second to realize it’s happening. He grabs the mic and tries to smash it against Bryony’s face, but Bryony manages to protect herself with her arms.
It isn’t enough–he still smashes the front of the mic into her forearm. It makes her scream. Before he can do anything else, Misha is between the two of them, twisting Cory’s wrist back.
But then there are a bunch of people around us, closing in on us, and the exorcists aren’t going to be enough to stave these people off. Not with how hungry they seem to be to get to us.
And it’s all of them.
Their eyes all shine different colors–crimson red, semaphore yellow, halloween orange–and they seem to look at nothing. Their only purpose seems to be to get to us.
I’m too busy worrying about the other girls to notice that someone grabs the neck of the bass and tries to pry it off me. When I turn my head to look, it’s a skinny girl with a short undercut. I’ve never seen her before now, but I don’t need to know her to know what she wants.
She’s trying to get to me. I’m trying not to let her.
She’s much stronger than me, though. We’re battling over this fucking bass–which isn’t even mine–as she yanks it hard enough away from me that the strap bites into the back of my neck. It burns.
I try to keep a wide stance as I do my best to disengage from Undercut Girl, but it’s genuinely pointless. She is considerably smaller than me and I’m pumped from the adrenaline of the gig and whatever this is, but fuck, she’s not budging at all.
I take a step back, barely managing to take the instrument out of her grip. It’s almost enough to make her fall backwards, but she manages to keep her stance.
Just barely.
