Free Torn - Part Two (The Torn Series) by Ellen Callahan Page B

wouldn’t want to rattle the little triangle you’ve got going on.”
     
    “There’s no fucking triangle.”
     
    He shrugged. “That’s not what that Jen girl thinks.”
     
    When the hell had they gotten so friendly? I didn’t want to know. “Go fuck Jen yourself for all I care,” I said, “Just leave me out of it.” Finally, I did what I should have done in the first place - I walked away. He wouldn’t follow. I’d have Lockett and Surly on my side once I found them and they would verbally shut him down in ways that I couldn’t seem to manage. I found them near the bar and tried to put on a happy face as they cheered my arrival and passed me a drink. This was Riley’s night. I wasn’t going to let Tony ruin it any more than he already had.
     
    We weren’t music experts, so when the first band came out and played a five-song set, we clapped politely and shrugged at each other and ordered another round of drinks. Their style was different from the Mistresses of Mayhem and they didn’t command the crowd’s attention as well as the girls did, so I didn’t consider them much of a competitor. I could imagine Riley backstage though, fretting and twirling her hair. I wished I could have been back there to reassure her.
     
    I wished I knew who the judges were so I could attempt to bribe them. Not that I really would but there was no harm in entertaining the idea.
     
    The MC was back onstage announcing the next act. “Up second tonight but hopefully not coming in second, right guys? Heh. We have The Swordfish Fight!” The crowd applauded but I refrained. If they were Riley’s main competitors then I wasn’t going to cheer them on, no matter if it made no difference.
     
    They were good; there was no denying that. They were far better than the first band and the crowd definitely seemed more into their show. I couldn’t tell if they were better or not - how could you even judge “better” when their genres were different? These guys were playing rock covers, the Mistresses played punk. The guy on bass seemed to know what he was doing, but so did Riley as far as I was concerned.
     
    “Think the girls still have a chance?” I asked Surly once they cleared off the stage.
     
    “Sure,” he said with a shrug, “Who know what the judges are looking for?”
     
    Fighting was so much easier. Sure, sometimes a match had to be judged and a winner declared if the match was close. I didn’t like fights like that, though - I liked it when it was clear. The loser either passed out or tapped out and that was that. I’d gotten used to being declared the winner . Except when Tony was involved, of course.
     
    The girls played next. They stormed onstage with a wild energy and launched right into their first song as soon as Robin was seated behind the drum set.
     
    I could tell that Riley was off her game right away and sappy as it sounds it broke my damn heart. She still played well - she always played well, and she’d told me that herself. I didn’t doubt it. But the spark was missing. She wasn’t marching back and forth and owning the stage the way she normally did. Her smile was strained and her shoulders tense. Even from where I was standing I could see the looks passed between her and Jen.
     
    My stomach sank when they finally strode offstage. Maybe I’d only noticed something was wrong because I knew her so well. Maybe they still had a chance at winning. The crowd had seemed just as into it as always. But who could say what the judges thought?
     
    I pushed my way through to the backstage door and waited for Riley as I promised I would. She burst out just a moment later with Jen hot on her heels.
     
    “Maybe if you didn’t have your head up your ass you would have remember how to play five simple fucking songs,” Jen was hissing when they reached me. Her teeth were bared and her eyes were wild. Hell, she was probably drunk, or high, or both. “This was a mistake,” she snarled, “Letting you join