DRASTIC (Book 4 of the Soundcrush Series)

Chapter 62: Drummer Boys Choose A Future To Fight For

The song--Shallow-- is for the conversation Bodie and Marley have at the very end of the chapter...

Bodie

Marley answers her phone at once. "What happened? Is everyone safe?"

"No Marley, everyone is not safe. Dev got shot."

"What!?!?!?"

"Did you know that Mac had a gun?"

"No! I...I thought she had a taser. I gave them all a taser. What?!?!? Dev got shot? Is he ok?"

"No. He's going into emergency surgery."

"Who? Who shot him?"

"Mac pulled the gun on Slade. He took it from her and shot Dev. Matt was almost shot too."

"Oh my god. Oh my god. I...I didn't mean for this to happen...oh fuck..." she bursts into tears.

My fury with her is warring with my pity.

"This whole thing...your idea?"

"Mine...and Ashlynn's..."

My chest is tight with too many emotions as she sobs.

"Marley, calm down. Listen to me. It's gonna be okay. Dev is strong. He's gonna make it. Where are you?"

"We're still in the limo...a few blocks away. We couldn't leave..."

There is only one place Marley can be right now and keep it together.

"I need you to go to the hospital. I need you to be there with Matt. Dev took a bullet for him. He's..."

"Yes, of course," Marley is immediately drawing in on herself, going into counselor mode. Good. That's good.

It's a very strange and long night, in the surgery waiting room of that hospital. All of us dressed in our Grammy finery. The grimmest bunch of celebrities you've ever seen.

I don't know if it's tragic or beautiful but Matt spends the night with Bridge huddled beside him. Someimes he sings soflty to her like I bet he did when she was a little girl.

I watch and I realize, she is stronger than probably both Matt and Dev think. She is not sobbing or incoherent. Her devastation is the quiet kind but the kind that doesn't incapacitate. Honestly? I think she lets Matt hold her like that for his sake, not hers.

I am worried for awhile, about more than Dev. I watch Trace, pacing, shooting both Kat and Marley angry looks. I try to run as much interference between Marley and Trace as possible, following her down the hall to the bathroom.

I'm not wrong about where Trace's head is. While I lurk around by the vending machine, he follows, confronting her as she exits.

"Hey, I need to talk to you," he says tersely.

She wraps her arms around herself and then looking down, conscious of her own body language, she unfolds and gestures toward some chairs.

I duck away, because they nearly saw me eaves-dropping. I want them to work it out, but I will intervene is he gets too hostile.

"I don't wanna sit, Marley. I don't want a fucking session. I want to know what the hell is wrong with you. How could let Kat do that? Or Ashlynn? It could be them in that OR right now. It could be them in the fucking morgue right now! And it would be your fault!" he hisses at her. "You are supposed to be the sane person that stops us all from doing crazy shit!"

"I know," she says. "I know that's...what you think. That I'm the person with all the answers. I'm not. I'm just the person that sometimes asks insightful questions."