I jerk right and then left.

“Where is she?” I ask, yelling to be heard when another chord from a guitar rings out and the crowd bellows with excitement.

“She was just here,” Shayna says, her tone reflecting my shock.

The throng of people in line for food and booze push toward us, hungry for Johnny to take the stage. “Don’t fight them,” I say, when Shayna tries to move against the group rather than with it. “Get to the front of the stage. She’s probably there.”

“And if she’s not?” Shayna asks, holding tight to her phone when someone bumps into her. “Everyone is moving forward, we won’t be able to make our way back up.”

“Then we’ll have to cut through the backstage,” I reason. “Whatever it takes, either way we have to find her.”

I keep Emme close when what feels like an avalanche of bodies shove us in the direction of the sunken arena.

“What’s wrong with them?” Emme asks, her attention bouncing along the rough and tumble crowd.

“I don’t know,” I admit.

The best way I can describe Johnny’s fans are zombie-like, blindly following their hero, with no regard for anything else. They’re in a daze, like they need their next fix, and only this rock god can provide them the drug they seek.

“Johnny.” The woman to my left cries, falling into her partner who cuddles her close. “I get to see him. I get to see, Johnny.”

“I know, baby,” her partner tells her, her cheeks damp with tears.

I curl my right arm into me, not only to keep her in line, but also to bring me comfort.

During the British invasion, millions of young women became obsessed with the Beatles. I never understood it, finding all those images of women screaming at the sight of John, Paul, Ringo, and George, disturbing.

Johnny’s followers remind me of those women, except it doesn’t make sense. They aren’t young teen women swooning, dreaming and desperate for love. They’re grown men and women better suited for biker bars and brawls.

“Koda, Gemini, and Bren are on their way,” Shayna says. “Tye is bringing them in with his helicopter.”

Emme stiffens at the mention of Bren’s name. I thought they’d made up, but it’s like every time they’re together, there’s this overwhelming tension, and it’s been going on for a long time. I think I know what’s happening, in fact, I’m sure of it. But Emme and Bren aren’t who keep my interest then.

“I thought Tye was under lock and key,” I say. The North American Were Council is the governing body for all weres in the U.S. and throughout Canada. “As the son to the president, the Alliance demanded his protection.”

“Come on, T,” Shayna yells. “Tye likes to be coddled just as much as Celia.”

“Good point,” I say, wondering who Tye had to maul to get free.

“Besides, you know him and Destiny are buds,” Shayna reminds me, slapping her hands over her ears when another strum of the guitar follows another, and another, the succession of musical notes growing more frantic.

“Who else is coming?” I yell, my voice competing and failing miserably over the cacophony of sound.

“No one. Everyone else is too far out.” Shayna scrunches her face, her small pixie features pained. “Something’s way wrong in Rockville, dudes. Let’s find Des and get out.”

Shayna drops her hands away from her ears. I’m not sure how she’s not losing her mind. The noise is killing my hearing, and mine isn’t as keen as hers. She removes the long silver chain around her neck and clutches it against her side. Very carefully and covertly, she manipulates the metal and changes it into a sword.

“The magic is getting stronger,” Emme says, her attention darting around. Like me, she’s expecting whatever this thing is to suddenly appear.

“It’s not getting stronger,” I say. I keep my gaze away from the mesmerized crowd and in the direction of the stage. “We’re just getting closer to it.”

We reach the steps leading into the sunken dome. I barely keep from falling when the crowd lunges forward.

Bodies big and small shove me through the narrow opening, and down the first step. No one is checking tickets, the ushers appearing as taken by the music and the presence as the rest of the throng.

I’m squeezed between two large men, cursing when I realize I lost Shayna and Emme. My first thought is to move to the side and into a row, but everyone keeps bustling forward, piling into the front section and anxious to get close to the stage.

The guitarist playing stands near the corner, his fingers flying over the strings. He feels the music, and so do the rows of people raising and lowering their arms, bowing before him.

My guess is he’s the one with mojo, the music he’s playing a hypnotic melody, snagging those who hear him and refusing to let them go.

I play with the idea of zapping him. Not enough to kill him, just enough to stun him until we get a fix on what’s going on. The crowd is oblivious and might not notice. But he’s too far away and I can’t be certain how those around me will react. It could snap them out of their fog, or harm them in some way and turn them violent.

The latter keeps me from acting, that, and because I can’t be sure he’s the man behind the magic.

Again, I stagger forward, the fans too eager to care who they trample.

The next person who pushes against me is more aggressive. This time, I don’t keep my feet. I fall into the woman in front of me, rushing to stand when the lights go out and the music abruptly cuts off.

Darkness stretches across the arena, and good God, do I feel alone. I can’t see anything. All I feel is the mound of bodies closing in, keeping me immobile and making it hard to breathe.

Panic sets in the longer I’m blinded. I tug the cuff of my glove, hoping Sparky will light up and give me a fighting chance. Except no one is fighting, or yelling, or moving.

No. It’s time for Johnny Fate to start the show.

The stage explodes with pyrotechnics, reenergizing the crowd as the larger than life Johnny Fate takes center stage. “Santa Barbara,” he yells. “Do you crave Champagne and Guts?”

Everyone shrieks at the top of their lungs, banging their heads as the bass guitarists and lead drummer rev up the music, morphing it from a staccato of loud obnoxious noise to a mash-up of classic metal mania and garage band awesomeness.

Johnny Fate’s image takes up every super-screen. Some images show just his face, others his full frame. I’ve never seen him, and didn’t bother to look up anything about him. Maybe I should have. Maybe, it would have prepared me for what I see.

His bleached blond hair is cut short all around except on top where a mop of long strands drape to one side, resting against his sweaty cheeks. To my right, I see all of him, his entire upper body a working canvas of tattoos. The only visible part unmarked with ink is his face, the exception being the three blacked-in tears cascading from his right eye.

His arms stretch out, parting the sides of his fringed leather vest and exposing a tattoo of a green serpent devouring a bleeding heart. Across his flat stomach is a mural of his bandmates, their black and white faces inked into a large and eerie image of a full moon.

The tats are powerful, dark, and violent. They don’t quite fit someone who is on the small side, and whose bandmates tower over him like overinflated gym rats.

Black leather pants hug what looks like muscle developed just enough to add definition to Johnny’s slender legs. He’s cute, and I can see why some young, impressionable women would fall for him, but not older women, or even men—especially in this crowd. If the majority were on parole or on probation, it wouldn’t shock me. Their response to him does.

I zero in on his arm sleeve tats. One looks straight out of Tolkien’s Mordor, desolate darkness without hope. His opposite arm is all jungle, hidden predators lurking in the shadows and behind wide jumbling leaves. I zero in on what might be a rhino, a wolf or two, and a couple of boars.

“This doesn’t make sense,” I find myself saying. The music is good, bordering on great. Except it’s not the rage-filled kind I expect this group of people to fall for. There’s a heart rendering melody to it, I feel each tug and pull, like I would my own sadness.

“That’s him?” Shayna says.

I didn’t see her muscle her way through, she’s just there, Emme clutched close to her side. Good, I’m glad she has her. Regardless of her power, Emme’s small stature makes her vulnerable in this mad horde.

“T, he is so not what I expected,” Shayna yells over the music.

Like me, Shayna probably can’t get past how young he seems. He can’t be older than me, but he’s trying to be, embracing a persona that appears forced.

Strip away the overload of ink running along his neck, arms, and torso, and he resembles a softer, slighter version of Justin Bieber, rather than the heavy metal rocker the audience can’t get enough of.

The opening melody seems to take forever. Like the Meatloaf songs of years ago, each note is designed to tell a story long before the lyrics unfold. But when Johnny’s hands wrap around the mic and he leans in close, and his first words spill across the arena, the energy erupts, detonating in an atom bomb of power.

Unlike the lead singers who took the stage before him, Johnny doesn’t screech. He sings, beautifully, his emotion and agony stopping everyone in place.

“Your love was meant to heal me.

Your words were meant to cure.

Your arms were destined to embrace me.

You were supposed to leave me pure.

Instead you looked away and sighed.

Leaving me to weep. Leaving me to die.”

Every word is like a dagger, stabbing me through the heart, his voice as commanding as Chad Kroeger and his words as poignant as Eminem’s, telling a story of a life filled with torment and sorrow.

A few people beside us fall to their knees, clutching their chests and openly weeping.

This is only the first song and their response to his music is not what I expected. No, Johnny, isn’t what I expected.

Something in me clicks in a way I don’t want it to, sending the urgency I’m feeling out of control. “We have to get to Destiny.” I rush forward, pushing people out of my way as I make my way closer to the stage. “We have to get her out of here now!”

“T. T, what’s wrong?”

I can’t explain to Shayna what I don’t understand myself. Johnny is different, even more so than Destiny. It’s a bad thing, I think. No, not think, know.

It’s as if a grenade has rolled to a stop at my feet with its pin missing. I don’t wait for it to explode. I move fast, desperate to spare us from the blast.

I think Emme and Shayna follow. At least I hope they do. I don’t stop to look, dodging around the bodies too large to push through.

The music blares, each beat matching the painful thuds of my heart, and each syllable flowing through Johnny’s lips, pulling out memories better left forgotten.

I reach the arena floor when my phone vibrates in my back pocket. I only answer it because I think it’s Shayna or Emme.

Gemini’s face flash across the screen. “What’s happening?” he growls. “I can feel your torment.”

“I don’t know,” I say through my teeth. I’m not a hysterical woman. It’s not a luxury I can afford if I want to stay alive. I’m hysterical now, the raw feelings poking through making it hard to stay calm.

“I need you here, okay?” My already fast breaths quicken. “Please come, love. I need you.”

“Taran, Jesus.”

Like me, he probably can’t believe I’m this much of a mess, begging him for help. I should get a hold of myself. He’s not here and all I’m doing is further stressing him and his beasts.

“Are you hurt?” he asks, trying to make sense of why I’m so upset. “Did someone hurt you or the others?”

“No. We’re not hurt—something isn’t right,” I say. “There’s magic, lots of it. I don’t know what kind it is. But it’s affecting us and everyone around here.”

It’s as much as I manage. “We’re in route,” he tells me. “Stay alive, you hear me?”

I nod, although he can’t see me, my nervousness propelling me forward and to the first row of seats. My foot hits something hard. I’m not sure what it is, my gaze unnaturally fixed on Johnny as he sings, every deep emotion I’ve ever felt dripping like honey with each of his lyrics.

The stage, the people, everything falls away, leaving me in a world filled with blinding white light.

Quiet greets me, loud in a way and eerily still, erasing the panic engulfing me seconds ago.

At first, I think I’m dead, and somehow made my way into heaven. But then hell arrives, knocking me hard in the head and reminding me of my sins.

Skulls litter the desolate and burning ground, their charred remains smeared with blue and white ash. Some are human. One is of a beast. There’s no life around me, nothing but smoke and what remains of my fire.

It’s then I know that I’m in neither heaven nor hell. I’m in the future, my vision forming from stress or panic, or simply the need to fuck with me.

I fall to my knees from the gruesome sight, lifting the skull of the beast at my feet. It’s feline, a tiger. Just like my sister.

A sob cuts through my throat as I clutch it to me, its weight unbearably heavy and too much to hold.

I startle awake from my position on the concert floor, Destiny’s bleeding body tight in my arms.