Sound check went okay for the NorthEasters. However, it was brief for them as the sound engineer spent more time with Roxy, since she is the headliner of the show. Still, Chantel had to admit that Roxy’s singing skills rival to Linda’s. When the NorthEasters exited the stage for The Hexes to go next, she saw Roxy, standing to greet Linda. Trenton just waved to her and moved away quickly.

Chantel went to observe Linda when she faced Roxy. The two faces looked calm. She focused on Linda’s face as blank as a piece of paper. Roxy treated Linda like she had been her old friend.  Watching Roxy, the girl hugged Linda, full of smiles of sunshine on her face. While Chantel moved over to where Linda is, Roxy gasped and went to hug her, which made her feel more awkward.

“Chantel, so you have met Roxy?” Linda raised her brows as Roxy grabbed Chantel’s shoulder, pulling her in for another hug.

“Linde, we met each other a month ago! It was at a cafe.” Roxy answered in her cheery tone, then she let go of Chantel’s shoulder. She guessed that was the cover to not tell Linda about their little meeting at the complex. “Oh, I want you to know, your singing sounded flat. Maybe you need to work on that.”

Wow, backhanded compliment.

Chantel looked at Roxy when she said that. Fire ignited in her as she tried to open her month to spoke, but Linda spat some chilling words first.

“I don’t know why you’re worried about my singing when you should worry about yours.” Linda told the woman, crossing her arms before Roxy got closer to her.

“Oh, I’m just being a good friend here. I’m just impressed that you formed a band. You don’t strike me as a person to be in the attention. You can’t be a good front woman if your singing skills are so flat.” Chantel knew Roxy’s words were meant to get Linda angry.

“Since you are being such a good friend, I want to comment that you cracked your voice on the last note in the song.” Linda threw her music knowledge in Roxy’s face.

Still, Roxy remained posed and commented, “I did no such thing. My, Linda, I suggest you should look at your own shortcomings before you comment on mine.”

“And here we go… Just like old times again. You know, I love to sit here and chat about the good days, but I have to focus on my band performance tonight. Lovely talking to you, Rox.” Linda walked off, but not before she told her last words. “Oh, and don’t ever call me, Linde... ever.” She said, leaving Chantel and Roxy.

“This is so awkward…” Chantel thought when she watched the conversation.

Watching this conversation was like watching a scene of a movie that took place in a high school. Whatever happened during Linda’s time with Roxy, it must have been pretty serious. Chantel moved away from Roxy around the same time. She headed backstage; watching the other performers rushing around to get ready. She suddenly bumped into The Hexes’ guitarist, Nick, who is searching around for something.

“Hey, have you seen an olive green guitar? I could’ve sworn it was right in the room my band is hanging out at.” Nick asked.

“Um… no... uh, I...” Chantel then sees an olive green guitar, standing near the black brick wall with a bunch of other instruments.

That was strange: Weren’t all the other instruments supposed to be with the backstage crew or their owners?

Chantel pointed the guitar out to Nick and he went to get it. He nodded a thanks to her and hurried away. However, it wasn’t too long before Chanel heard another person shriek, “Who threw that ashtray at my head?!”

That voice was no other than Leticia, who is always the loudest person in the room. Chantel casually passed by the Apple Queens.

The girls bickered a little at Leticia’s question and Dakota’s voice spoke up, “It wasn’t me. All the smokers are not allowed to smoke here! Who would be dumb enough to bring an ashtray and smoke inside?!”

Chantel struggled to keep moving. It was probably nothing important as she continued to find a way to another part of the backstage. She oddly heard other sounds such as loud cracking while bumping into some stage props in places they weren't supposed to be. Chantel shrugged this all off with rational thinking. Nothing to be concerned about.

When she arrived at the other side of the backstage, she saw her friend Jesse run up to Chantel, then shook her shoulders. The power of Jesse’s strength of shaking Chantel’s shoulders made her jump. She put her hand on his chest, directing him to stop.

“Sorry, Chantel, I can’t find my good luck necklace! My mom will kill me if it’s lost!” Jesse told her frantically.

Chantel took a deep breath as she thought to herself how annoying Jesse depended on this silly family heirloom for good luck in anything. Jesse would always wear it all the time, from when he played basketball in high school to performing at their gigs. Despite her annoyance with him trusting his luck on an object, that silly necklace meant something to him. Plus, she knew very well that Jesse’s mother’s wrath was like a dragon spitting fire from what she witnessed many times. The two went off to look for a necklace which it was hard to look in a dark backstage for a good luck necklace.

Jesse and Chantel looked high and low for it as they almost about to give up until they ran into Darren.

“Darren, can’t talk. We need to find Jesse’s necklace fast.” Chantel said, until Darren pulled out a gold, chain necklace in front of her.

“I found it on the ground.” Darren said. 

Jesse grabbed the necklace from Darren, then put it on himself. He fist bumps Darren and Darren does the same in return after the “find the necklace” mission is a success. Despite Chantel being happy that she is with her band, she wasn’t happy with events going on at home before the concert. Her decision to get the device out not only upset her father, but her own mother. Chantel closed her eyes to remember just before she headed to Underwood when she received a call from her mother.

The anger rose within herself when she heard her mother’s words, “You don’t need to be like them. Stop with this silly mission and just go back to being normal.”

Normal? Her life was never normal when she had constant headaches. Her life wasn’t normal when her father still refused to discuss anything about his past! What her parents hoped to achieve was to lock her powers away? That life she had before wasn’t normal.

Chantel rubbed her temples from thinking about all the stress she had to deal with at home. Hopefully, this gig would take things off her mind. She looked up at Darren to see he was wearing a black and white beaded choker. Darren usually wears nothing on his neck normally. She smiled at him and commented, “Nice choker.”

“Thanks. Mark gave it to me to remember Millie and Jasper by, they gave it to him on his birthday once. He said it would bring me good luck.” Darren replied.

Rolling her eyes at the good luck comment, Chantel remembered Jasper. Mark’s jerkish former bandmate, who was the leader of Midnight Force, he died in fire in his apartment within days before Millie’s death. Still, it was just so odd that Mark was being so nice to him. Why give your brother old gifts of his dead bandmates for good luck? That was just an odd gift.

The show is about the start as everyone got in their place ready. Chantel peeked outside the curtain to see people packing in the house. Most of them came for Roxy and probably would not care about the rest of the bands performing before her, but the NorthEasters would take any crowd, considering its good exposure. The performers and the crew people are ready to open.

It’s showtime.

-----

After the Apple Queens finished with their performance, Chantel watched them quickly go off stage. Leticia looked a little happier and less stressed than she was at her band’s performance at Rockwick. The freedom of not having that damn device in their body brought nothing, but calmness while going to work. The NorthEasters passed the Apple Queens with the other band whispering, “Break a leg” or other messages of encouragement to them. Chantel went to the keyboard on the stage where her two friends, Jesse and Darren, as her band mates, took place where their instruments are.

The curtain opened with her band on the stage and Linda greeting the audience before the band dived into their first song. Everything was going smooth during the performance. No one was missing their cue and everyone was staying in rhythm. At least, everything went fine in her eyes, until the stage lights flickered. Chantel took a glance then shrugged it off.

The show must go on. The band continued to chug along as normal, but the performance went south: A spew of tech problems such as the sound being shut off randomly and Chantel not being able to hear her other bandmates through her in-ear monitor all the sudden! She tried to continue playing what she could, but it was hard to overhear everything over Trenton’s drumming. More trouble started mounting when Chantel looked at Darren and realized he stopped playing.

“What the hell was going on?” She thought.

Chantel cursed herself, in both English and Korean, while she was still continuing to play. This cannot be happening! They were fine when they did the sound check. This made no sense! The lights suddenly went out as the band stopped playing when a stage light nearly fell on Linda!

“Linda, watch out!” Chantel heard Darren’s voice booming across the stage.

She saw a purple grow around the stage light as it stopped falling, then it was thrown to the other side of the stage. Chantel looked around the stage, trying to figure out who stopped the stage light from falling on Linda. She saw from the side of the backstage that Gabriel’s eyes and hands glowed lavender. Chantel knew that he must have used his powers to save Linda. In quick motion, he put his wristband back on before anyone else could notice what he did. The curtain closed as the audience gasped and screamed in panic.

Some people headed to the doors to flee from the chaos.

“Millie?! Jasper?!” Chantel heard Darren yell and tried to locate where he was yelling at.

Some lights started to explode as Chantel got down on the floor, under the piano. It was like a fireworks show as she searched around to see where the rest of her band mates were. The fireworks started a fire on the stage! It was too smokey and dark where she stood. She couldn’t breathe with the smog cloaking her face.

The best thing she could do was to crawl until she could get to a clearer place to find her way out of the stage. While on the ground, she saw a shadowy figure of what it looks like a young woman and a young man, standing at the front stage in a clear part of the fire. The exploding lights on stage flashed across some of their appearances, which Chantel noticed the young woman’s face showing despair and the young man's face tense that nearly scared her. For a short observation, the young man’s burnt body had ashes all over his skin and tattled ripped clothes. This man’s body is almost unrecognizable other than his face, due to the burns!

The young woman’s body, however looked pale as white and had needle marks all over her body. The woman stared at her with tears filling her eyes, while the man touched the woman’s shoulder, looking in Chantel’s direction in fury. She stood there, frozen, looking at these people, until she felt a tug on her arm.

“Chantel, we got to go!” Jesse had crawled over to where she was at and held her arm.

He pulled her away, guiding her to leave the stage quickly. Chantel took another glance at the figures again, but they disappeared. Who were they? This can’t be! Chantel must have been seeing things, but there was no time to wonder who they were when she needed to get out!

Chantel and Jesse finally met up with the rest of the group backstage. She saw Darren standing at the side stage and met up with the two of them. Chantel ran up to Darren and said, “Darren, thank god! You are okay?”

“Millie. Jasper… They are haunting us, but why?” Darren spoke in a hoarse tone to Chantel.

There is not any time for the friends to wonder what was going on when they had to run. The place is heating up fast, and the smoke is spreading. The three friends then rush to find an exit out of the building, Chantel can feel her body temperature rising, due to the fire. She figured out that Darren must have seen those figures too! Millie and Jasper?

The figures were them? That’s impossible, since Millie and Jasper were supposed to be dead!

Chantel overheard loud voices of the audience behind the stage curtain. Some voices screaming “We’re being attacked!” and yelling “We gotta get out here!”

An ominous voice then rang in her ears, while she held the arms of Darren and Jesse, who guided her to the backstage door:

 “Liars! Beware, you’re nothing, but disposable to them! We will burn their empire down to the ground!”

Jesse pushed open the door as the three friends ran out into the chilly outside where the rest of their band mates and other people were. Linda was with Trenton as she had cuts and bruises all over her face. The leader hugged the three of them and their manager, Robert, who is also next to her.  Chantel was relieved that all of them made it out  of the building safely. The sound of emergency vehicles roared from a distance down the street. It didn’t take too long for the paramedics to come to the venue.

Chantel held her arms, still completely shaken by what just happened. Everywhere around her, she overheard the cries of young girls and women among the panic and witnessed people hugging each other. Chantel wanted to close her ears to shut off the surrounding noise. She could have died tonight! The NorthEasters had been through terrible gigs before, but never something like this in their musical career.