Holt

It didn't take me long at all to realize where I was. I'd been to this venue plenty of times, but I'd never seem Bonita Femur perform any kind of music before. She seemed like someone who would have a bit too much stage fright to go through with it despite her vocal talent. I found myself a little disappointed that it wasn't Operetta up there, but I guessed Van Hellscream was the reason that wasn't happening. My guess was, he was afraid letting her stick with music under the curse might bring her out of it. I couldn't say for sure, though.

As for Bonita, it was so surreal to me, seeing her up on that stage. Again, she'd never struck me as a performer, yet here she was - except she clearly went by 'Anita' now. Just like Astranova went by 'Alannah'. The name changes around here would take a lot of getting used to, along with everybody looking so human. The curse had seriously done a number on them.

I glanced over at the three people beside me. I recognized all of them right away; Frankie still had her green and blue eyes, black hair (but without the streaks now) and the same facial features as she always did. Whisp still had her purple-and-blue hair, though it was straightened and fell around her shoulders instead of the hairstyle I was used to. Her eyes were also the same, and she even had some of the celestial markings from before, too.

Kieran was the one out of all of us who'd changed the least in appearance, but he did look less pale, and he no longer had his fangs.

"Kieran?" I asked, noticing he was staring at me. I didn't think the curse would've changed his name on him. But clearly, I was wrong because he raised his eyebrows and responded, "Who?"

Whisp (Willow, I irritably reminded myself) was confused, too. "Jackson, you okay?"

"I'm good," I told her quickly, "Just, uh...forgot his name for a second."

"Not sure where you got 'Kieran' from. Drystan, do you have a twin I don't know about?" teased Whisp. What made this whole thing worse was learning that the curse had named Kieran after his father, a detail that made me want to kill Van Hellscream even more than I already wanted to.

I wished there was something I could do, but if I left the concert then Jackson would come back, and I'd be stuck waiting for who-knew-how-long until I was somehow woken again. The one thing I was able to do was take out a notepad that Jackson conveniently had on him and write a note to him. He needed to know the truth about his 'blackouts'.

Jackson,

Get our headphones back from your 'dad' ASAP. And don't fall for his crap; the whole blackout thing is a lie.

Holt Hyde

The second I finished writing, I put the notepad away and proceeded to watch the concert as though nothing had changed. I knew that if I was going to figure out how to get rid of the curse, I was going to have to act like Jackson sometimes while I was out – mainly when Van Hellscream was around. The only tricky part would be hiding the earbuds that would need to be in my ears.

I decided to worry about all that once Jackson let me out again. Bonita and Astranova both had killer pipes, and I was not about to let myself miss out on that.

And I was glad I hadn't because the concert was awesome. They mostly performed original songs, but they threw in a few covers, too. The cover that stood out to me the most had to be 'Edge of Seventeen' by Fleetwood Mac, mainly because I remembered my mother being a fan of their music. She adored Stevie Nicks, and funny enough, 'Edge of Seventeen' was her favourite of their songs.

Seeing the two ghouls perform together reminded me of when Astranova and Operetta had started a friendly, impromptu guitar battle in the middle of Mr. Rotter's class not long after Astranova got to the school. I hadn't been there to see it, but people had recorded videos and posted them on Fright Tube – with their permission – so I got to watch later and man, was I glad I did!

"Hey, how does everyone feel about heading over to the coffee shop?" Frankie asked as the four of us were leaving at the very end of the concert. It had been so good that the crowd was begging for an encore by the time they finished their set, and I wasn't going to lie – I'd been chanting right along with them. And the encore they gave was, in my opinion, one scary cool way to close out the night.

"I'm in," Whisp replied. She turned to Kieran. "You?"

"Yeah," he agreed.

"Sounds like a plan," I added, "Hey, Fr – uh, Cheryl, do you happen to have any earbuds I could borrow?"

Frankie raised her eyebrows. "I don't have them with me, no. Why?"

"Oh. Never mind then," I responded quickly, trying to remember if there was a place nearby that sold them. We weren't out of the venue yet and the place was pretty packed. It wouldn't be long until Jackson came back, so the only thing I could do was fight off the transformation for as long as possible.

"You okay?" she asked.

"I'm awesome. Why?"

"You look like something's on your mind, that's all."

"Nope," I assured her, "Everything's cool, don't worry."

"Good!" She smiled and began to lead us further through the venue and closer to the main doors. I was really struggling not to transform at this point, which was always a painful thing for either one of us to do. It didn't matter in the end, anyway – just as we were walking through the main doors, Jackson made his return.

Jackson

I was thoroughly confused when I found myself walking through the venue doors with Cheryl, Willow, and Drystan rather than in my seat like before. What had happened?

Rather than let any of them know that anything was wrong, I decided to listen in on the conversation. They were all discussing how amazing the concert had been, so that must have been all I missed.

Of course, I realized, loud music. It makes me black out.

But why had I taken so long to come to my senses? And if I had really blacked out, wouldn't my friends be showing at least some signs of concern?

"It's a good thing the coffee shop is open this late," Willow was telling Cheryl, who nodded in agreement before the two of them launched into a discussion about what to order when we arrived.

Drystan had fallen behind and was walking beside me now. "So, what'd you think of the concert?" he asked.

"I thought it was really good," I told him. I didn't really want to reveal the whole blackout thing just yet. "It's nice to finally experience Anita's music. You know, after hearing about it so much from others."

Drystan brushed his dark hair out of his eyes as he responded, "Yeah. I should really try to listen to more of her music. Alannah's, too."

"What music do you normally go for?" I asked. I wanted to get to know him better, and since we were outside work I finally felt like I had a true opportunity to do so.

"I would say I'm open to any kind of music," he replied, "although I do tend to gravitate toward classical. "

"Well, uh..." I struggled for words, "I don't really have a specific taste in music either, but...I don't know, normally I don't do loud music." It wasn't really a lie.

I had expected him to ask why, but instead he said, "Fair enough."

A slight chill was in the air now that the sun had gone down, and I couldn't help but notice the way the wind was playing with his hair. He was startlingly attractive, there was no denying that, and I could have sworn his eyes were glowing in the pale moonlight.

Anyway, we made it to the coffee shop a few minutes later, Drystan and I continuing to make conversation as we walked. We mostly talked about our interests and hobbies and such, and he seemed to find me just as interesting to talk to as I found him.

When we arrived, the first thing I registered was just how full the place was. Everyone there had probably gone straight from the concert, like us, but had gotten out of the venue much sooner. I couldn't even hear what kind of music was playing due to all the chatter, but I guessed from experience that it had to be some form of pop music. Thankfully, they always had it quiet enough that I wouldn't be affected by it.

The first people to approach us were Laura and Claudine. Claudine's older siblings Claude and Claudia were also there, already seated at a table with a few other people. I remembered Claude and his friends from high school – they'd been on many of our high school's sports teams together, and I myself had been on the basketball team with them for awhile.

"Hey, guys! Wasn't that concert amazing?" Laura greeted us, enthusiastic as ever. "I really hope they perform there again soon. How are you guys doing?"

"Well, I can't speak for these guys, but I'm doing great," Cheryl hugged her friend, "Have you met Willow and Drystan yet?"

"Yeah, Drystan and I have met before," Laura replied, "We dated once, back in high school. Didn't last long, though. Willow, on the other hand, I haven't met. At least not officially, I did see her and Drystan at the meeting today.  Nice to meet you!"

"Yeah, you, too," Willow shook her hand as Laura led all of us to an empty table as close to hers as possible. At her table, I could hear Claude and his friend Manny raving excitedly about the recent motocross event they'd been involved in. I wasn't really into motocross myself, so I didn't try to join in on the discussion.

I noticed that a lot of the people here had been drinking, which didn't surprise me considering most of them had just come from a concert where alcohol had been offered. For a moment, I wondered if I had been drinking at all tonight, but I quickly concluded that no, I hadn't been. Because if I had, I'd still be buzzed at the very least.

I decided to get up and go order something. None of us had done so yet, since Laura had led us to our table pretty quickly, and I was in the mood for a soda. I headed up to the till and ordered a Coke, but as I reached into my pocket for the change to pay for it, my fingers brushed what felt like a folded-up piece of paper. What was that about?

I quickly paid for the soda and headed back to Laura's table, taking out the paper as I sat down. It was the size of one of the pages in the notepad I carried with me, and when I opened it and read its contents, I was extremely confused.

Who on Earth was Holt Hyde, and why was he writing to me? And how did the note even get in my pocket?

More importantly, though, I was concerned as to how this guy knew my father had my headphones, and how he knew about my blackouts. What, was he stalking me or something? And what did he mean by, 'the whole blackout thing is a lie'? Aside from the fact that he was accusing my father of deceiving me, of course...and there was also the fact that I already had my doubts when it came to that, after seeing the lack of reactions from anyone else.

"Hey, you okay?" I felt a sudden hand on my shoulder. It was Drystan, whose eyes were full of concern when I turned to face him.

"I—yeah," I told him. Despite us working together, I didn't know him well enough to know if I could trust him with this sort of thing.

You can trust him, a tiny voice in the back of my mind seemed to whisper. I ignored it. "Anyway," I continued, 'I think maybe I should get home and get some sleep. I want to get to work early tomorrow to take care of some stuff for Cecelia."

This was a lie, of course. I was going to get the headphones back before doing anything else, but only because I wanted to know what was going on here. All I knew was, the note hadn't been in my pocket before I blacked out, and suddenly I had it. That wasn't normal, and that worried me a lot.

I said a quick goodbye to Cheryl and the others and headed out, soda in hand. I began driving in the direction of home at once, praying that my father was asleep so I could get the headphones easily. If he was awake, I couldn't do a thing; he was too perceptive.

Fortunately, he seemed to be asleep when I got there.

I ended up finding the headphones in a drawer, managing to sneak them back into my room and put them in my coat pocket before putting the note away. I didn't dare throw it out; I needed it in case this became a recurring thing. Knowing there was nothing else I could do about the situation tonight, though, I sent Cheryl a text bidding her goodnight before I really did drift off to sleep.