"BREAKFAST, AMBROSE!"
Dean groggily woke up, as the guard slid a tray through the slot. He loudly yawned as he crawled towards the tray.
He looked down at the dry waffle, the two tiny, pale, grey sausage patties, and cup of dry frosted flakes.
"HEY YOU FORGOT MY MILK!...HEY!...HEY I KNOW YOU HEAR ME!"
A carton of milk came flying through the slot.
Dean sighed.
"CAN I PERHAPS GET A FUCKING SPOON? OR A FORK!? OR A SPORK!?"
After a few minutes, a spork wrapped in plastic wrap came through the slot as well.
"You guys have amazing customer service. As soon as I get another illegal phone, I'm giving this place 5 stars on Yelp." Dean said, taking the utensil out of it's wrapper.
"The number you have dialed is not currently in service, please try again later."
"I can't get her." Charlotte sighed, putting her phone in her pocket.
Dana and Becky were sitting in Bayley's living room, on the couch. Bayley sat in the recliner chair alone, while Charlotte paced back and forth around the room, trying to contact Sasha.
Becky sighed.
"It's not like we can just go outside and find her, she could be anywhere."
"We could try." Charlotte shrugged.
"I don't think you want to find her, Charlotte." Dana said.
Charlotte looked confused.
"Why?"
"She's probably going to beat your ass next time she sees you."
"You know, if she was about 5 inches taller, 30 pounds heavier, and I actually did something wrong, I would be scared. Girls that are half my size with misdirected anger and shutter shades don't scare me."
"Well she sure as hell scares me." Dana said, raising her hand. Becky raised her hand too.
"I second that."
"Third." Bayley added.
"Look, Boss or no Boss, we still need to find a quick way to get instruments. We need ideas."
"What we NEED to do, is find those East Coast Movement girls and teach them a lesson."
Charlotte gave her confused look again. This time, at Bayley.
"Bayley's right! How dare they!?" Dana added.
"Wait... wait... so you guys are afraid of The Boss, but you aren't scared of that huge girl in their band?"
"I imagine YOU would be fighting her." Becky said.
"What?"
"Yeah, you're the biggest of us. You fight her, Becky and I can beat up Tamina together and Dana could snap Alicia like a twig." Bayley shrugged.
"Okay, first off, that's not fair at all, she would kill me and use me as a weapon to hit you with. Secondly, we're not fighting them. The best revenge is success." Charlotte said, finally sitting down on the couch.
Bayley and Dana sighed.
"Fine." They said in unison.
"Okay, let's look at our options. My dad's not gonna buy us new instruments... Bayley, how much money do you have?"
"I have $50 dollars left from my last paycheck."
"Becky?"
"I found $10 in my laundry last night."
Charlotte sighed.
"Dana?"
"My dad gave me a 20, but that's for my lunch."
"Well, you'll have to skip lunch today. I have a 10, so together, we have $90."
"That's enough to buy The Boss a new guitar, and we'll still have $7 to buy a keyboard, a bass guitar, and a drumset!" Bayley said, with sarcastic enthusiasm.
"Don't forget drum sticks too." Becky added.
"We'll figure out something. $90 is better than nothing." Charlotte said, desperately thinking of possible solutions.
Sasha sat in AJ Lee's living room, on the couch. The night before, Sasha received 3 text messages. One, from her cell phone service provider, telling her that the monthly bill hadn't been payed, and that her phone would be shut off at midnight. One from Charlotte, asking her to spend the night at her house instead of spending it cold and outside. She ignored both of those, and only acknowledged the third one, which was from AJ Lee, asking her to be at 410 Talladega Avenue at noon. Little did she know, this was AJ's actual home address. Sitting next to her, was a muscular woman, with blonde hair, and a streak of pink in it. Standing next to AJ was an almost ghostly pale woman, with black hair and dark lipstick.
"Boss, meet Natalya and Paige, Natalya and Paige, meet The Boss. She's a young guitarist I found at an open mic, and more importantly, she's Number C." AJ said, with a smile.
"Number C?" Sasha asked, confused.
"Okay. So my EX best friend Kaitlyn, who was the bass guitarist in our old band-"
"Takeover. You were the lead guitar, Kaitlyn was bass guitar and background vocals, Jay was the lead singer, Austin was the drummer."
"Wait, how did you know that? They were a cover band and they never even released an album or any songs." Paige asked, confused.
"Oh. I forgot to mention. She's my biggest fan." AJ chuckled.
"AJ mentioned it in her interview with Rolling Stone in 2013, it's a good read, I had the physical copy of the exact magazine until... never mind. Go ahead." Sasha said, stopping before mentioning that the magazine was destroyed in the previous night's fire.
"Well, she's building some sort of musical empire, with the plan to monopolize the NYC music scene, all just to spite me. She's been recruiting all kinds of young artists from Manhattan. She's got this rapper kid, she's got those East Coast Movement girls, a boy that sings country, and that's great, help out young artists, that's fine. What's not fine is, about 2 weeks ago, I did acid, and recorded some amazing solos, like, top notch, great stuff and then... wait by the way, doing acid is a bad idea. Don't do it. You're 17 so I'm totally not encouraging you to do acid. But I did it, and I went into the studio with my guitar and just started playing. And the music that was coming out of me was other worldly. It was my best material I've ever created, and I didn't even write it. Music notes just started appearing in front of my face, floating in the air, and I just started playing them. I ended up recording 4 song length solos from my studio session, I apparently had them all burned to disks, and somehow, someone that happened to be at the studio managed to steal all 4 discs. If Kaitlyn finds these, she's gonna release them as her own, or hold them for ransom and demand something from me, or even worse, make them into songs for her artists. Paige and Natalya are basically detectives. If they want to find out something, they find it out. They're on the lookout for the CDs, and now, so are you."
Sasha looked at AJ for a bit, just to take in all the information.
"So what does Number C mean?"
"Oh, Paige's code name is Number A, Natalya's code name is Number B, you're Number C."
"...C isn't a number though."
"Who determined that?" AJ asked, tilting her head slightly to the side.
"Trust me, just roll with it." Natalya muttered.
Sasha simply nodded.
"No one I guess." Sasha shrugged.
"Exactly."
"Well why do you want me of all people to be 'Number C'?"
"You're young, maybe you know things and people that Nattie and Paige don't." AJ shrugged.
Sasha simply nodded.
"If you find me the discs, I'll be very pleased. If you find out who stole the discs, I'll owe you one."
"Trust me. I will." Sasha said, with a look of determination.
AJ simply smiled in response.
"LUNCH, AMBROSE!"
"Hey I learned my lesson by the way, so you can let me out now."
"You'll be out at 6AM tomorrow morning."
"What if I say sorry?"
"Shut the hell up, Ambrose." The guard said, rolling his eyes and walking away.
Dean stood still for a while, before kicking the lunch tray in frustration.
"So you had a change of heart, I see." Alexa said, with a bit of a chuckle, trying to lighten the mood of the situation.
She sat on the sidewalk, next to Sasha.
Sasha said nothing.
"It's not that bad. Trust me."
"Not that bad!?"
Before Sasha could continue yelling, Alexa cut her off.
"There's a pill you can take, right before you do it, and afterwards, you barely remember anything."
Sasha sighed, again, not responding.
"Well we've been waiting here for 30 minutes, you need a better dealer."
"Well my regular guy got busted, so-"
Before Alexa could continue, Sasha saw a familiar car park a few feet away from them. Seth got out and approached the girls, with the backpack.
"Hey, I-"
Seth stopped, dead in his tracks, recognizing Sasha. Sasha's jaw dropped a bit, as she recognized Seth.
"What?" Alexa asked, obliviously.
"If you don't tell blondie that you saw me, I won't tell her I saw you." Sasha said.
"Deal." Seth said, immediately.
"What's going on?" Alexa asked, still confused.
"We uh... we've met before. Anyway, here you go."
Seth and Alexa exchanged a bag with 8 pills and a $100 bill.
"It's 15 a pill, you're $20 short." Seth said.
Alexa gave a fake laugh.
"Just testing you." She lied, reaching in her pocket, and handing him a $20.
Seth took it and walked back to his car, before driving away.
"So you not only have sex with a weird ugly old guy, but you also have to buy expensive drugs to make you forget everything?"
"You gotta spend money to make money." Alexa shrugged.
"This doesn't sound worth it." Sasha said, again, having second thoughts.
"At this current moment, you're homeless, and everything you own was burned to ashes. You don't even have clothes to change into. If anything, you need this more than I do."
Again, Sasha said nothing for a while. Eventually, she broke her silence.
"What's he gonna make me do today?"
Alexa shrugged.
"Depends on his mood I guess, he's pretty unpredictable. My first day he gave me $800 and all I had to do was attend this fancy party as his 'girlfriend'."
"$800!? Just to go to a party!?"
"Yeah, he's weird. Come on." Alexa said, leading her down the sidewalk. Sasha reluctantly followed.
"Glad we could help!" Kofi said, with a smile.
The members of the New Day left Bayley's house.
Becky sat down behind the old drumset that belonged to Big E's uncle and began tapping on the drums with her fingers.
"It's kinda cool... retro..." Becky smiled, trying to hide her disappointment.
"Kinda sucks that there's no drumsticks." Dana sighed.
"It's better than nothing, and we got it for free. Can't really complain." Charlotte shrugged, sitting next to Bayley.
"I guess... And I could probably make some makeshift sticks out of something. What now?"
"Good question Becky...hmm... what now... Maybe we go to the music store and find Dana a bass guitar?"
"Or get Bayley a keyboard?" Bayley asked.
"I like 'get Dana a bass guitar' a little better." Dana muttered.
Bayley shrugged.
"Agree to disagree."
"I have an idea." Becky smiled.
"Go ahead."
"My dad owns a barbershop. We could use it to throw a party, charge people at the door to get in, and perform at it! Then we can earn enough money! Charlotte, you're pretty popular, just invite everyone you know!"
"WHAT INSTRUMENTS ARE WE GOING TO PERFORM WITH!?" Bayley yelled.
Becky paused for a little while.
"Dammit. I knew I was forgetting something."
Charlotte facepalmed.
Alexa and Sasha sat on the couch of Vince's large, expensive house. Vince sat in his own personal chair.
"So. What brings you here today?"
"Well... my friend Sasha... she uh..."
"Look. I'm homeless, I need money, and I need a place to stay. And I know that you... like me or whatever, so... I think you understand what I'm saying here." Sasha said, refusing to make eye contact.
"Alexa, you can go now." Vince said, emotionlessly.
"But... I... I think Sasha would be more comfortable if I stay here s-"
"Goodbye, Alexa." He said, not even looking at her.
Alexa sighed, before patting Sasha on the back, and leaving out of the front door.
"I like you. More than Alexa."
Sasha said nothing, looking down at the floor.
"I'll make you a deal. You can stay here. And I'll give you anything you want, whenever you want it."
"Anything?" Sasha asked, looking at Vince for the first time since she walked into his house.
"As long as it's not over 50 thousand dollars."
"50 THOUSAND DOLLARS!?"
"But in turn, you give ME anything I want, whenever I want it."
Sasha sat for a bit, as if she was trying to calculate just how much money her pride was worth.
"Deal." She said, with a lot less excitement.
"Get on your knees."
"What?"
Vince chuckled, beginning to unbuckle his belt.
"Get on your knees."
"Right now?"
"Right now."
Sasha gulped, not moving. She looked at the front door, almost wondering if she should get up and run out of it. She stared at the door for a little while longer before getting up from the couch and dropping to her knees, in front of Vince, who was now standing.
"What are you waiting for?"
Sasha sighed, holding back tears, as she pulled down Vince's pants and underwear.
"Anything I want, right?" Sasha asked, looking up at Vince, as tears flowed down her face.
"Anything you want." He smiled, patting her on the head.
Charlotte, Dana, Bayley, and Becky entered the music store around 7PM. The lead singer of the group approached the cashier.
"Hey, we're looking for some really cheap deals. Anything in here under $30?"
"That mock guitar, and some CDs."
"What's a mock guitar?" Charlotte asked, looking at the shiny red guitar that the man behind the desk had pointed out.
"It's a guitar, it just don't play anything. It's a prop."
"We're not shooting a movie, sir, we're trying to buy real instruments." Charlotte smiled, quickly becoming impatient and agitated.
"Well maybe you should get some real money, then come back and buy some real instruments."
"How much is that bass?" Dana asked.
"$179."
"Do you have a used one in the back?"
"Yeah, it's $80."
"Any used keyboards?" Bayley smiled, hopefully.
"Nope. They hold up pretty well, I've never had a keyboard returned."
Charlotte sighed, as Becky began looking at the CD's.
"What's this?"
"What's what?" the cashier asked.
"AJ Lee 3/4."
Becky grabbed a clear case, with a blank CD that had 'AJ Lee 3/4' written on it in black sharpie.
"Oh. Somebody brought it in, they said it'll be worth a lot of money one day. I listened to it, it's just a guitar solo that goes on for like 4 minutes. If somebody added some words, maybe a bassline and some percussion, it'd be pretty good. At the moment, it's unsellable. No one wants to listen to someone play guitar for 4 minutes."
Charlotte's eyes got huge, as an idea popped into her head.
"How much is the CD?" Charlotte asked.
"You wanna BUY this thing? I can just play it for you."
"No. I want it. How much?"
"How much are you willing to pay for it?"
"Charlotte what are you doing?" Bayley asked.
"How much is the mock guitar?" Charlotte asked, completely ignoring Bayley.
"$20."
"I have $90. Is there anyway I could get that used Bass, this CD, and that mock guitar as like a package deal?"
"$115."
"I don't have $115."
"$110."
"My dad is Ric Flair. What if I throw in an autograph with the $90?"
"Your dad is Ric Flair!? What!? No way! I love the Horsemen! I was just telling my friend Brent the other day, at my funeral, when they lower me into the ground, they better be playing Nature Boy or I'm hopping out of that casket and-"
"Do we have a deal?"
"You're god damn right we have a deal, I'll get that bass for you right now Ms. Flair."
The cashier walked through the door to the room behind his desk.
"Hey, Charlotte. Quick question. What the fuck did you just do?" Dana asked.
"I got us instruments for our party that we're throwing at Becky's dad's barbershop."
"Um, hello! We don't have a keyboard!" Bayley exclaimed.
"Look. We'll take the CD, listen to it, write some words to it for me, add a drum part for Becky, and a bass part for Dana, then perform it at the party!"
"Do I even exist? What about me?" Bayley asked.
"You're playing guitar." Charlotte said, with air quotes.
"I don't know how to... wait, playing what guitar?"
"The mock guitar."
"It doesn't work. It's a prop."
"That's the point. We're gonna play the CD, and you're gonna pretend to play the guitar. If we charge $10 a person, we'll make enough money to buy all new instruments, then The Boss will forgive us and rejoin us once we show her her shiny, new, REAL guitar, and you'll have a new keyboard."
"OHHHHH!" Bayley, Dana, and Becky said, in unison.
"Forget what The Boss said, YOU'RE the genius." Bayley said, with a laugh.
"HOW MANY MORE HOURS!?"
"Go to sleep, Ambrose, we'll let you out in the morning."
"WHAT TIME IS IT!?"
"11 at night."
Dean weakly smiled, grabbing his own hair and rocking back and forth, performing an insanity act for the cameras that were watching him.
"7 HOURS, 59 MINUTES, AND 59 SECONDS, 7 HOURS, 59 MINUTES, AND 58 SECONDS, 7 HOURS, 59 MINUTES, AND 57 SECONDS, 7 HOURS, 59 MIN-"
"IF YOU SHUT UP WE'LL LET YOU OUT AT MIDNIGHT!"
"That's what I thought." Dean said, under his breath, laying down and putting his hands behind his head.