Page 24 of Freeing the Wild
Yeah, your truck and your heart left a mark on—
An abrupt crunching metal sound stops me from finishing the line as the metal rail five feet from us topples over and the crowd lurches forward, bridging the gap between them and us.What happens next is instant, though it feels as if I’m watching it in slow motion.Hordes of people rush against the stage, reaching for Luke, grabbing my legs, my hand, my guitar.One second there’s a safe space between us, the next what feels like hundreds of bodies are pressed against me, pinning me to the cold metal edge of the stage.I’m trying to crawl, or just move,but I can’t.I feel Luke being pulled away and his strong hand gripping my shoulder but my legs are pinned, and I slip out of his grasp.I look around frantically as screams ensue.These people are wild, pushing other people down, trampling, climbing, doing anything to get to safety.And all the while I’m paralyzed as they threaten to pull me down, using me for leverage.Pain stabs my inner arm and then someone is tugging at me from behind.The feeling of the stage digging into the backs of my knees makes me cry out.
I open my eyes just as I feel multiple people free my body from the crowd.A sort of haze takes over as my gaze lands on a woman on the ground in front of me.She’s face down and just as helpless as I am.I only catch glimpses of her as people panic, pushing and stepping on her, but at one point, she is able to lift her head and we lock eyes for a brief second.She reminds me of Ivy in that moment, before her face is shoved back down by someone’s boot.I’m screaming “Help her!”but no one is.Fights have broken out.It’s chaos, and that poor woman in front of me is being trampled further into the ground like she isn’t even there.“Help her,” I scream again as I’m being dragged off the stage.I look down to see blood before everything goes black.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Haden
I pull my hat off and rest it on my knee as I sit down on a bale of hay.The cold blowing in from outside bites my ears but I’m sweaty after feeding all the horses with Dusty.February in Kentucky is either one of two things: warm and fairly mild, or downright cold and frigid.This year, it appears we’re getting some payback for the last two mild winters.Dusty comes back from washing his hands and takes a seat beside me, pulling out his phone as he starts munching on a sandwich.
“Holy hell,” he mutters.I barely give him a glance, knowing he’s probably watching some stupid dogs-who-skateboard video.
“You see this?”he asks, turning his phone to me.I look down and try to register what I’m watching.A concert in a farmer’s field.
The video is shot on someone’s phone, fairly close to the stage, and I can only see the top of a woman’s cowboy hat through the crowd.But I know by the music that it’s Cassie singing.I scooch a little closer so I can see Dusty’s phone more clearly.As pissed as I am with her, I’ve been following her career ever since she left.I told myself it was only to monitor that she wasn’t making any more music about me.One of her most recent songs,“Your Truck,” was written about the night we spent together.And it got under my skin.Because what she’s singing about is a lie.
“Yep, she’s really good, ain’t she?”I ask, turning my head away.Dusty has no idea what happened between us that night and I don’t really want to finish off my day thinking about her.I’ve already found it hard enough over the last five months to forget her.Seemed the moment I knew who she was, she was everywhere.
“No.Wait for it,” Dusty says, pushing the phone back toward me.I take a bite of my own food and watch as Luke Bridges comes out onto the stage, which causes the crowd to explode.I look at Dusty and try to figure out why the hell I’m watching this.My question is answered the moment the crowd in front of the person with the phone rushes forward and a large portion from behind them follows.My stomach drops as people scream, and the recording ends as the phone is dropped, becomes muffled and then cuts off.I swallow the bite I’m chewing and look at Dusty in horror.
“This was last night.Your princess was onstage when it happened,” he says, nodding toward me.She’s not my anything.
“She alright?”
“Yeah.”Dusty puts his phone in his pocket.“Everything I’ve read says she’s fine.She and Luke were pulled offstage before anyone could get to them.But there’s a bunch of people hurt and they’re saying one woman might not make it.”
“Fuck,” I say, taking my last bite.
“Yeah, they really have to start making sure …” Dusty starts going on about concerts using unsecured rails and farming the set-ups out to the cheapest local bidder, while I imagine what that must have been like for Cassie.Would she have been scared?Was she hurt?I take a big drink from my water bottle and try to push the racing thoughts from my mind.
Get it together man, it was one night.I return my focus to what needs to be done on the ranch.But as the day goes on, everything that could possibly go wrong does.One of our older horses has lost a shoe in the field and it takes myself, Dusty and Colin over an hour to find it.And when Colin calls to say he’s found it, it turns out it’s completely bent out of shape.Then I find mouse shit in some of our grain, which means we have to throw almost a whole bin out.No idea how the little fuckers got in there.
I’m late to leave for Penny’s because I need some time on the trail, just me and Odin and the frigid pasture to recenter my head.It’s one thing to push Cassie from my mind when no one else talks about her.But when someone else talks about her it reminds me she’s real, and that is harder to shake.
And as I get into my truck, dog-tired and heading to Penny’s, the sky looks like it’s about to unload a pile of snow on us.Wade’s dad, Wyatt, always said a man can tell exactly how his future will go by the weather in the field.If that’s true, then this afternoon almost feels like an omen, one that tells me a storm is coming.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Cassie
The music scene has been under a dark cloud since the incident at the Rustic Chords Music Festival last weekend.Because the concert was in a farmer’s field, even though security was high, the set-up wasn’t as well designed as it should have been.The makeshift stage and rails made out of scaffold weren’t properly engineered, and so, when Luke came out, the hysteria and the weight of people against the rail forced it to give way—which meant hundreds were thrust onto me, Luke and the stage.Fourteen people were seriously injured, three of whom are still in critical condition.One woman, the one with light brown hair, a pretty face and a red bandana tied in her hair, died the next night.And every single time I close my eyes, I see her face as she was crushed into the dirt.Every goddamn time.
My hotel room drapes are thrown open and sunlight streams through the massive window, blinding me as Cherry, my guitarist, stands looking at me with her hands on her hips.
“Goddammit, Cassie, it’s three o’clock in the afternoon.Have you eaten anything?”she asks me, like she’s my mama.
I sit up and rub the heels of my palms into my eyes.Thegauze wrapped around my right arm where I assume my guitar cut me after it was broken catches my eye, along with the remnants of angry red scratches from people clawing at me.They’re a haunting reminder of what happened every time I look down at my arms.When I woke up in the ambulance I didn’t know what had happened.The last thing I remembered was blood.
Turns out it was nothing a few stitches on my inner forearm couldn’t handle.
“I don’t need another mama, Cherry.I already have one of those, and she and my sister haven’t stopped calling me.”
“Well, someone needs to look after you.Dax is downstairs and he really wants us to play tonight.It’s our last show and we already missed the one in Albuquerque.”
Right, because I was in the fetal position on the hotel bathroom floor.
“You should talk to Dax.He risked bodily harm to help drag you off that stage and you’ve barely answered his calls.”
