Finally, amazingly, the band steps back out.

Jezz and Patrick wave. Jezz grins; he does a little hop, clicking his heels together in midair. Patrick smiles. They know how incredible tonight was. They feel the thing in the air. The strange, flammable, crackling thing.

Anders crosses slowly in front of them.

His back is straight. The guitar hangs loosely from his shoulder. Emotions glance off his face, trying to break through the smoothness. He leans toward the microphone. Smiles with one corner of his mouth.

The light in him is dim. It’s almost gone.

“I guess you guys want some more,” he says in that deep voice.

The screams explode.

Anders leans toward Jezz and Patrick. They whisper. Nod.

They turn around. Assume positions. Then they whip into a cover of Prince’s “I Would Die 4 U” so hard and hammering that the tables beside me vibrate.

There’s more screaming when they’re done, but this time the band doesn’t reappear. The crowd is delirious. Shouting. Laughing. Shoving.

I crane through the bodies toward the woman. Toward the spot where the woman was. Because she’s gone.

I climb onto a stool. Scan the crowd. There’s nothing. No sign.

No.

No. No.

How could I have lost her? How could I have let myself lose her?

Blood thunders through me. My head starts to roar. I keep my eyes clear.

When the crowd dissolves at last, rivulets of people dribbling out the doors, I look at the stage. Jezz and Patrick are there, chatting with a few fans who’ve clustered at the edge.

Only Jezz and Patrick.

No Anders.

I scan the room again. He’s not here.

No. No. No. I rush out to the parking lot. I have to fight myself to keep my steps unobtrusively slow.

Anders’s small white car is just bumping out of the gravel onto the road.

I can’t lose him now.

I grab the blue bike. Throw my leg over. I rush forward, into the woods.

The first raindrops start to spatter as I plunge into the trees. I’m moving so fast that they turn into streaks as soon as they hit my skin. My hair whips behind me. The trees are just flashes.

Thunder shakes the sky. Black sky, black trees, shades of black on black.

The bike’s tires leave the ground. I fly.

The wind is strong. Leaves tear from twigs. Branches strain like bones about to snap. But the woods are laughing. I can hear them laughing.

I keep within the trees, following the curve of the road as it heads toward town. In the distance, to my right, I can see the taillights of the white car, leaving their red smears on the road. Rain fogs my eyes. Branches groan. A bolt of lightning shocks the woods, bleaching everything. I blink fast, but my vision is dulled, my focus lost. Darkness plunges in, thicker than before. I hit a root and nearly fall.

But I won’t let them take him.

Thunder. Another flash. A roar.