THE LAST SHOT: by

by Matayo, Amy

  THE LAST SHOT

  by

  Amy Matayo

  Contents

  Untitled

  Untitled

  Untitled

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  Untitled

  Other books by Amy Matayo:

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  THE LAST SHOT

  For Connie, Christy, Nicole, and Tammy

  Copyright © 2020 by Amy Matayo Print Edition

  All rights reserved.

  Visit my website at www.amymatayo.com

  Cover Designer: Murphy Rae/Indie Solutions

  Editor: Kristin Avila

  Proofreader: Stephanne Smith

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locals is entirely coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  THE LAST SHOT

  By

  Amy Matayo

  Chapter One

  Teddy

  I toss my phone on the table and take two steps away when another text comes through. She’s persistent, I’ll give her that. She’s also out of her mind, something I’ve had to contend with for the last ten minutes, not to mention my entire life. Texting Dillon is the last thing I need to be doing right now, but ignoring her isn’t in my DNA. I roll my eyes and pick up the phone again. She might be a thorn in my side, but she’s been my best friend since birth. So even though the room is vibrating and I’m going to be late due to dreaming up ways to murder her, I don’t want to hurt her feelings. Still…

  “No, I won’t be your maid of honor. Ask Sabrina.” Sabrina is our cousin. A girl makes more sense than me.

  “I don’t want Sabrina. I want you.”

  Her lightning-fast fingers are likely shooting sparks.

  I text back.

  “Will there be photographers?”

  I can practically hear her sigh from here. It was a stupid question.

  “Of course, there will be photographers. It’s my wedding day. People tend to document those things. Come on, Teddy. Do it for me.”

  The sound of the guitar solo lead-in is what makes me cave. I’m expected onstage in less than sixty seconds. Fifty-two, to be exact. I’ve got the routine down to a science. Under normal circumstances, I would have enough time for a quick bathroom stop and a long swig of beer. As it stands, I’m debating Dillon’s wedding details and my involvement in them. I have thirty-seven seconds left. Why am I being dragged into this now? Oh, that’s right, because she’s my cousin. And while she’s proud of me, my career comes second to her wedding. Fair enough.

  “Fine. But I’m not wearing a dress.”

  I’m going to regret this. I can already feel it.

  “THANK YOU! We’ll discuss details later. Knock ‘em dead tonight.”

  I smile to myself, noticing she didn’t agree to the no-dress thing. Dillon is her own person and rarely agrees to anything without a lengthy discussion. Still, I’m winning this debate. I may have just agreed to be her maid of honor under duress—what the heck is wrong with me?—but I won’t be wearing pink taffeta to the party. I made that mistake when we were nine and Dillon talked me into a makeover complete with purple nail polish, sparkly pink eyeshadow, and her mother’s Easter dress. My mother still has that lovely photo taped to her refrigerator at home and will not take it down, no matter how much I beg.

  All around me, people do what I ask. Everyone except the ones who know me best. They tell me what I can do with my pseudo-demands, which usually involves me shoving large things up areas that would make sitting down impossible. It’s what I love about them most.

  “I will. I’ll text you after it’s over.”

  I hear my phone chime after I set it on the table, but the time for talking is over. Ten seconds. That’s all I have. I jog three steps over and tuck myself onto the lift that will carry me up to the stage as adrenaline rushes through my bloodstream. No matter how many times I do this, it never gets old. Maybe it will one day, but today is not that day.

  “Ready?” Josh, the stage coordinator, says as he reaches for the button that activates the lift.

  My phone chimes again, but I nod, too filled with purpose to think about anything but what I’m doing. This career is what I’ve worked toward since the first day I picked up a guitar on my fifth birthday. To see it come to fruition is like holding the one thing you’ve always wanted in the palm of your hand and staring at it, so grateful for its presence that you’re unable to look away. The people in the crowd are here for me, and I don’t take a single second of that for granted. Tour life is exhausting when you’ve been on the road four months straight, but it’s worth it.

  The lift moves, and I’m on stage in three seconds. Camera flashes go off across the arena. Screams crescendo into mass hysteria. Spotlights blind me to anything but the front row. Like always, the whole display makes me smile.

  Time to give Seattle a show they’ll never forget.

  * * *

  What do maids of honor even do?

  Nearing the end of the first song, I shake my head and climb onto the crane. The crane acts like a helicopter designed to fly me over the audience, allowing me to get up close and personal with those in the cheap seats. We use it now and later in the show, and both times are my favorite parts of the night. I remember seeing Tim McGraw when I was younger, simultaneously happy to be at the concert and sad to be stuck in the third section. We were so high that Tim appeared the size of an ant, and my head was woozy from the altitude. To be one of the lucky few on the floor, so close they could reach out and touch him, was a dream of mine that felt as impossible as flying to the moon.

  This gives everyone an equal shot at reaching the stars, so to speak. At least for a few minutes.

  The crane jerks to a start as it takes off, slowly raising me higher until I’m halfway across the stadium. I’m singing the second song, smiling at the crowd’s frenzied reaction to my rapid approach. I love seeing the faces of those in the back even more than the faces of those on the front row, and tonight is no exception. Still, my thoughts won’t slow down.

  Seriously, will I be expected to throw Dillon a bachelorette party? Because I am not sitting through anything that involves male strippers. I don’t care how much she expects me to.

  Sometimes the strangest thoughts pop into my brain at the weirdest times. One hundred feet in the air, and all I can visualize are oiled men in black G-strings. I shudder at the mental image and sing the next line.

  Last night in St. Louis, I couldn’t shake a desire for tacos. The night before in Indianapolis, it was an unauthorized charge on my credit card bill I hadn’t been able to solve, despite waiting on hold with a Visa representative for twenty minutes. And tonight, I’m currently three verses into our second song, and I can’t stop envisioning myself in a dress. Photos sp
lashed all over some cheap tabloid as both sides of the aisle take shots at my sexuality. I’m straight as a laser beam, but I’ve been down that road before, beginning with that stupid photo my mom still has hanging in her kitchen. Keep my son out of a dress, my father shouted when he saw it the first time. In response, my mother yelled I will not, and Super Glued the picture front and center to the door, hence its current placement. I learned a couple valuable lessons that day:

  No one messed with my mother, and the choices you make when you’re young may, in fact, haunt you forever.

  Kind of like Dillon is haunting me now. I work to shove her out of my mind as I sing the last line.

  “How’s it going, Seattle?” I yell over the final notes. “We’re so glad to be here!”

  The crowd roars as they always do when they hear their hometowns mentioned. Seattle has a great music scene, but I’m always surprised by how much they love country. If a battle ensued between the north and south over who loves the genre more, it might just be a tie. We’ll test that theory two weeks from tonight. That’s when we’re headlining at Madison Square Garden for the very first time.

  When that show sold out in twenty minutes, a lifelong dream had been realized. To say I’m excited is a major understatement. It’s been a while since I’ve been truly nervous; the thought of playing the Garden is more akin to terrifying. I grin behind me at Jack, my bassist, and laugh at the expression he makes on the overhead screen. It appears he’s having an even better time tonight than me, and I’m the one flying through the air. I adjust my guitar strap and strum the opening note of the next song as flares shoot up on both sides of the stage. A frame of fireworks, just as we planned.

  “This one’s called Up in Smoke! I hope you guys enjoy it!” I lock eyes with a raven-haired beauty below me and wink. She screams at her friend beside her, both enjoying the hell out of this. More sparks spray on both sides of the stage, my cue to sing the first line.

  “You say your name like a whisper, then bite your lip on a sigh…”

  A boom goes off behind me, and the crane shakes. I frown when the lift stalls. This isn’t supposed to happen. Only two sets of fireworks are scheduled to go off, and then I’m lifted higher for the third song. Stopping has never been part of the routine. I glance up at Jack on the JumboTron, but he’s busy searching for the source of the noise, looking as confused as me. Maybe something fell. Maybe the sound was a reverberation. It doesn’t happen often, and every arena is different, but sometimes, the acoustics are weaker in spots. This must be one of those times. Jack keeps playing, so I shrug off any hesitation and continue to sing.

  I think about taking you home with me, wonder if you’d stay with me all night…”

  Another boom, this one accompanied by screams that rise a little higher than the others. Screams still framed with excitement, but somehow also centered by terror. I’m not sure what I hear because I’ve never heard it before. Weirder still, the crane begins to lower at a rapid pace. I hold on with one hand and take another look at Jack, sending him a mental plea for clarity. What’s happening? His eyes dart side-to-side, and he takes a step back. The show must go on, a mantra every entertainer lives by. I keep singing and glance at the rest of the band, thankful the lyrics come as naturally as my next breath. Rande is still drumming, but his arms have gone rigid in hesitation like they know the beat, but he’s unsure whether to continue playing them. Tessa, Malik, and Christy keep singing back-up, but their arms hang limp, choreography all but forgotten. All eyes swing to me, the one in charge. Decision-making might come easier if I wasn’t hovering over a crowd entirely alone. I look and feel like an idiot.

  I turn back toward the audience and smile, more to reassure myself than them. So many are still dancing, still happy, that I keep going. Paranoia isn’t anyone’s best friend.

  “It doesn’t take much convincing, we park under the street lamp out front…”

  Another boom, this one accompanied by a red flash to my right and an earsplitting crack. Paranoia, my ass. I’m out. Heart hammering, pulse tripping, throat clogged with so much gunk I can barely get an airway, I stop singing and fall to one knee, hoping the bars enclosing me might offer some protection from whatever is happening around me.

  I lock eyes with the raven-haired girl in front of me until she looks at her chest. Her fingers flutter upward as something that looks like blood—why would it be blood?—fans across her white shirt. The colors swirl together in a juxtaposition of irony, like seeing a crescent moon in broad daylight. She looks up to find me watching. Her eyes ask a hundred questions right before she crumples to the ground.

  People scream.

  Others run.

  One door opens, and a few file out.

  Two others remain locked, people banging on them and each other in a ring of frenzy.

  As for me, I’m still suspended twenty feet in the air on one knee and terrified for my life. I rattle the cage to no avail.

  Another boom. Dozens fall to the ground in stunned shock.

  “Get me down!” I yell and rattle the cage again, not recognizing the sound of my own voice. I’ve never shrieked so wildly or sounded so terrified. The crane lowers so quickly that I have to hang on with both hands to avoid tumbling out. While I’m still four feet in the air, someone grabs me from behind and yells my name, but I’m too absorbed in the sight of mass chaos to turn around.

  Before we reach the ground, I’m pulled over the side of the cage in one swift motion; my back scrapes against metal, my jeans rip on the thigh. I’m not bleeding, but my skin throbs in both spots from the roughness of the movement. A female voice yells a string of words I can’t make out—names, dates, cries for help, I think—but I’m too numb and on edge to know for sure. I’m confused and entirely certain. Excitable and sick. My vision blurs like I’m living out someone else’s life, like I’m here but not. I’m both inside my body, and outside watching like a spectator.

  I think someone in this arena is shooting at us.

  I know someone is dragging me backward.

  I’m incapable of comprehending any of it.

  Movement catches my eye, a blur of black here and gone before I can focus. My heart beats behind my eyes. Adrenaline pumps into my throat. Nothing in my body feels right or familiar. These things happen in other states and other towns. In churches and shopping malls, at gas stations and schools. They cover it on the news; it’s heartbreaking and frustrating, but it always happens to someone else.

  It never happens to you.

  People move like nervous mice, going everywhere and nowhere. They hide under chairs, kick at doors, step on each other, rush the aisles, look for an escape. A door opens. A flash of red goes off to my right; another gunshot, this one close to my ear. I duck and holler and half-crawl a few feet, survival instinct clawing upward to choke out every other emotion. A century passes in ten seconds. A hand grips my forearm tighter. A voice shouts in my ear.

  “Move! Faster! Now!”

  I trip over a shoe in the aisle, but the hand doesn’t let go. The shoe looks like a child’s, but there’s no time to take a second glance. Blood. All I see is blood. A sunburst. An emptying of life. Red on black on white, a foreign flag inside a Seattle arena.

  Why is a child’s shoe just lying on the floor?

  A door opens, and I’m flung inside a room the size of a closet. My back slams against the far wall and I fall to the floor.

  I think I hit my head.

  Or maybe my head hit me.

  I stare and stare and stare and stare.

  I rock back and forth and back and forth.

  My heart swells in my chest and explodes like a hand grenade. Shrapnel goes everywhere and cuts everything in its path. My limbs, my brain, my throat, my lungs. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can’t move. I can’t see.

  I rock and rock and rock and rock.

  It’s pitch black in this room, but the nightmare is vivid.

  People are dying out there, and it’s all my fault.
/>   * * *

  Jane

  I’ve practiced this so many times.

  Follow protocol.

  Stick to the routine.

  Check the doors, secure the premises, protect the target, hand on your gun, don’t shoot unless the shot is clear.

  I’ve heard about it, watched it, sympathized, mourned.

  We all have, every single American, each one of us.

  You analyze it, scrutinize it, proselytize it because you have all the answers: “this is what should happen, this is how things should be handled, this is what we should learn.” You think you know what you’ll do. You believe you’ll fight, grab a weapon and take the shooter down, enlist the help of others and form a mob mentality, essentially save the day and win a medal of honor for your immense bravery under intense pressure. Never in your wildest dreams do you think you’ll just sit on the floor of a closet, too paralyzed with fear and confusion to move.

  Blood rushes between my ears. I rock back and forth, aware I’m mimicking the movement of another. Apparently, terror sings the same song for all of us.

  Stick to the job, stick to the job, stick to the job.

  I blink in the darkness and feel my body go still, determination taking over as anger moves up and outward. This will not beat me. I will win this fight.

  I’m suddenly aware of Teddy Hayes sitting beside me.

  I open my mouth to reassure him when someone screams outside the door.