This excerpt is from my upcoming novel Nobody’s Hero, the continuation of my Rise and Fall of Skye Wright series.

This is book number four in the series, right after Finding the Apex Devil Girl. Link for the entire series is below!

    “You gonna be at Ashby?”
     “Me and Preston are already at MacArthur,” texted Miranda.
     Skye had lugged her suitcase and backpack on the San Francisco bound subway car, hoping she would not be the last one to show up at the airport.
     She sat down, making her large backpack her seatmate and maneuvered her suitcase in front of her as she took in a deep breath. She ignored her phone for a few minutes as it chimed away, bleeping and vibrating with multiple texts, no doubt a few from Tandasil and one or two more from various other band or tour members.
     Skye sat back, still ignoring her ever-buzzing phone, trying to let it all sink in.
     The Dynamite Chicks were on their way to their first major tour.
     Skye was scrolling through her texts when Roach walked onto the subway car at Ashby, dragging a modest suitcase with her.
     “What the fuck?” greeted Skye.
     “Miranda got the jump on us,” said Roach as she plopped down on a seat across from Skye.
     “I didn’t expect to see you on the same train.”
     “If Annie was still in the band, I’d be bringin’ up th’ rear.”
     Skye checked her cell.
     None of the texts were from Annie.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

     Skye and Roach found Miranda looking over the departure times, her waist-length hair tied back in an elaborate ponytail.
     “Ain’t that Tandasil’s spot?” asked Skye as she came up behind Miranda.
     “I’m waiting for Preston.”
     “You okay?” asked Roach as she squinted at Miranda’s wide and glassy eyes.
     Miranda let out a long breath. “This is ours,” she said as she kept gazing at the board. “This is our fucking tour.”
     “Hey, we ain’t Led Zeppelin yet,” said Skye.
     “Yeah, but we aren’t opening for a rock star this time either.”
     Skye looked up at the board and then looked at Miranda.
     She felt a warm and cold wave go through her.
     “Coffee?” said Roach.
     “Fuck yeah,” breathed Miranda. “Just as soon as Preston gets back.”
     Skye looked down towards their gate, trying to remember where the Peet’s coffee stand was located.
     Skye had mused during Gail Burp’s tour how so many airports looked the same, especially when the fatigue of constantly traveling started to settle in.
     Looking down the long airport terminal, at all of the gates and shops…
     Her hometown airport looked like a new place that she had never been to before.
     Roach held up her smartphone as they waited for their lattes. “Check it out!”
     It was a video of their kickoff show in Oakland, with all of the cheerleaders onstage, including Nicole and her friends.
     “Hopefully we didn’t violate any child labor laws,” said Skye.
     Preston walked up, dragging his suitcase and his large backpack. They all made their way to the Peet’s stand and eventually ended up at their gate, all of them sipping coffee.
     Colleen showed up wearing an all-black pants suit, her short red hair styled flat.
     “Damn Colleen!” said Roach. “You look like a capitalist lion tamer!”
     “Just trying to be professional,” remarked Colleen with a slightly irritated look on her face.
     Molly arrived with Larry a few moments later.
     “Where the hell is Tandasil?” asked Miranda. “I never thought in a million years she’d be the last one to show up.”
     “She’s yarking at the airport peoples about the equipment,” said Larry. “She wants to make sure they don’t break anything.”
     “Don’t mess with the Tand!” said Molly with a big smile.
     Roach stood up and pointed at Colleen. “Okay, she’s our leader until Tandasil shows up.” Roach looked right at Colleen. “Unless you want to stage a coup.”
     Colleen’s eyes got wide as she held up her hands. “Hey, I just work here! I’m not in charge.”
     Everyone crowded into a row of seats at their gate as Larry ran off to buy more coffee for those who were empty-handed.
     Skye’s eyes wandered to their plane.
     Her mind went blank for a moment.
     A shudder.
     She took in a deep breath.
     She felt light. Her skin bristled and turned cold.
     As she exhaled, she tried to revel in her disbelief.
     She thought back to her last days in San Francisco, when she was unsuccessfully fighting off the urge to drink liquor and use speed, right after she gave up dealing meth.
     She remembered the day when she threw out the last of her drug stash, pouring it out of a window and watching the speed crystals waft in the wind. That’s when she vowed to herself that she would never do speed again. She bristled at how naive she was, that leaving such habits took only a casual commitment. She wondered whether she had been all that serious about trying to straighten out, as she realized that it had only been a few years, that it had not been that long ago when she was living in a cheap and dilapidated San Francisco flat with a crowd of roommates.
     On that day, when she recklessly poured a felony’s worth of meth amphetamine out of her window, she had looked at a tall, sleek, and silver apartment building off in the distance, a place where only the wealthier San Franciscans could live. She mused for only a moment what it must have been like to have that kind of life, where one could live in a clean and decent place, where everything worked, and the specter of dwindling finances did not haunt every moment of a life, where everything reminded you of being poor: the clothes, the food, where you lived, and even the small details like bedding and silverware and all the scuffed and creaking boards of a cheap living space. It was a press and pressure that one felt all of the time, so much so that Skye never really knew how much it had affected her until she finally got her feet on stable financial ground.
     On that day, she had only mused for a moment about living in a tall, silver apartment tower, tossing the muse aside before such thoughts would just drive her crazy with an unresolvable mix of hope and despair. She had turned back to the job of trying to drag herself through her working-class life by looking for yet another retail wage job, and finding roommates who would hopefully be able to pay their share of the rent, and not be so chaotic that they would make the place unlivable.
     She thought about how that turn in her life had set her on the path that brought her to her current moment. If someone had told her that one day she would be boarding a plane for her band’s cross-country tour she would only believe that they had gone mad, or were just trying to bait her.
     Her band was going on their own tour, and not in a broken-down van that would just trundle around California and no farther.
     Her mind was a roil of colliding thoughts and feelings. She felt almost comatose trying to sort them all out.
     “Schau mal! Alle diese Verrückte!”
     It was Svenya from The Jolly Sturms. Their opening band had arrived en masse. They were all wearing faded jeans and band shirts, and their chaotic multicolored hair was shredding out in different directions.
     “Seist du nicht doof!” shouted Molly.
     “Should I shout something in Spanish?” said Roach.
     “I need to learn German,” said Miranda. “It just sounds too cool.”
     “Oh man,” said Molly. “You speaking German? That would be too much!”
     Tandasil finally came around, wearing plain all-black clothes and balancing her headdress of hair. She walked up to Larry and took his arm.
     “Took ya long enough!” chided Roach.
     “Just making sure everything’s in order,” said Tandasil with her poker face.
     “We all think Colleen should be in charge,” said Molly. “I mean…” Molly held out her hand to indicate Colleen’s outfit.
     Tandasil looked Colleen up and down while Colleen rolled her eyes. “Yes, I think that would be the best thing for everyone,” said Tandasil with a rare smile.