The Soccer Mom Van slowly crept up a long, winding parking ramp in the dark of night. The wind howled outside the ramp, swaying the treetops viciously from side to side.

"I wish we would have asked this Derek guy for directions on where to park." Dusk complained. "There was no space by the theater."

"Well, this parking ramp will have to do." Thorn said, continuing to drive. "There's nowhere else to park. Who would have known the people of Salem would be out and about so much on a Wednesday night?"

"Park here, Thorn!" Luna exclaimed, causing Thorn to slam on her brakes. Luckily, no one was behind her.

"Where?" Thorn frantically looked around, not seeing the spot Luna was talking about.

"In that little spot right there next to the door. It says 'To Larcom Theater' on the door with an arrow pointing right." Luna elaborated.

"Do you think we can fit?" Thorn sized up the spot. It looked pretty wedged up against the wall to her, but the van might just barely fit.

"Well, we've only got an hour before the show, and we still need to set up, so I'd say it's worth a try if we don't want to be late." Luna suggested.

"Okay." Thorn said, as she made a tight right turn and pulled the vehicle into the spot, careful not to dent the vehicle next to them or hit the brick wall a few feet to their left. "I think we're good. Can you get out and check I'm not over the line?"

Dusk opened the front passenger door, while Luna opened the left rear door.

"Looks good to me." Dusk said.

"Me too." Luna nodded.

"Alright, then we're set!" Thorn declared, as she unbuckled her seatbelt and turned the van off. Once she got out of the car, Luna handed Thorn her guitar in its case from the back seat.

"I still can't believe we're playing a show in freaking Salem." Dusk took her drum set out of the back seat and caught up to the other two girls, who had already begun walking.

"I mean, I can't believe we have a song on the radio, but here we are." Luna laughed.

"I wonder what a full-on concert like this will be like." Thorn dreamed.

"I wouldn't call this a 'full-on concert'. This is still pretty small-scale compared to any concert that a famous artist would have. I doubt there'll be more than 100 people here." Dusk guessed. "It'll probably be like a slightly bigger Autumn Fest."

"Either way, it's better than playing at..." Thorn paused to shudder in between words, "...Lester's." The other girls shuddered too.

"I kind of like the types of concerts we have at Jack's and Haylee's, though." Luna admitted. "The concerts feel much more manageable when you're not singing to hundreds of people at a time. At least to me."

Thorn shrugged in agreement. "I can see where you're coming from. I didn't mind the Autumn Fest, though."

"Hell yeah." Dusk nodded. "The bigger, the better for me."

The girls went through the parking ramp door with the arrow leading towards the theater. The door led into a small, dingey looking building with a staircase made of cement. Once they descended the staircase, they realized that it oddly led back outside to a side street.

"What the fuck?" Dusk snapped. "This staircase didn't lead anywhere!"

"Yes it does." Luna pointed way down to the end of the street. "See, Larcom Theater."

"Oh thank god. I was worried we were lost." Thorn breathed a sigh of relief. "Good eyes, Luna."

"Thanks." Luna appreciated.

The street was dimly lit and quite spooky. Not a soul was there. There wasn't even a single car parked on the street. Nonetheless, The Hex Girls continued to confidently walk down the street.

"Excuse me, ladies." a voice called to them from a distance.

"Um...yes?" Thorn said uncertainly. She was admittedly a bit frightened, as she couldn't see whoever was speaking.

"It's just me, girls. Derek Johnson." the man clarified as he got closer.

"Oh, hi Derek." Thorn breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thanks again for inviting us to do this concert." Luna added.

"It's no problem, ladies. There's already a decent crowd in there. If you want to get set up, it's almost time for the show to begin." Derek reminded.

"When you say 'decent crowd,' how many people do you mean?" Dusk inquired.

"Oh, maybe about 60 people." Derek informed.

"That's so many!" Luna gasped.

"Follow me, ladies. I'll lead you backstage." Derek guided.

Thorn, Dusk and Luna headed into the theater and followed Derek to the stage area. The theater looked quite refined. All the walls were painted a fancy red, and each door was covered by a curtain presumably to maximize the theatrical-feeling experience. Derek walked in the second curtain on the left, motioning for the girls to follow.

"Alright girls, here's the backstage area. Feel free to set up. The curtain's been lifted already, but if you want some privacy, you can just press that button right there to shut it." Derek instructed. "Oh, by the way, I forgot to have you sign this form. It's just saying you're performing at our theater tonight and you agree to abide by all of our rules."

"Sure, I can sign it." Thorn smiled, as Derek handed her a pen and she scribbled a signature.

"Thank you! Good luck, girls!" Derek well-wished.

When Thorn, Dusk and Luna entered the stage area, they were shocked to see such a large group of people sitting in their seats already. Many of them were talking amongst themselves, waiting for the show to begin.

"Wow. The pressure's on." Luna laughed nervously.

"We better set up extra fast!" Dusk gasped as she noticed all the people sitting in the audience. Derek's guess of 60 people appeared close to accurate.

Thorn started to unpack her guitar as she glanced out at everyone waiting for her to perform. She admittedly felt butterflies in her stomach, which was unusual for her. Nonetheless, Thorn continued to set up and tried to just go into this without overthinking how comparatively big the audience was.

The crowd clapped profusely at the conclusion of "Hex Girl." There wasn't really much cheering, nonetheless, the girls still adored the claps of appreciation.

"Thank you! Thank you!" Thorn said into her microphone. "Drive safe!"

"That was a great concert, girls!" Derek joined the girls on stage as everyone began to leave. "Unfortunately, we were expecting 100 tickets to be sold, but there were only 73."

"Oh well, that's still a lot of people. No big deal." Thorn shrugged.

"That's a good way to look at it. Now, can you give me the number of your manager?" Derek inquired.

"Why do you need Gus's number?" Dusk looked confused.

"To square away the extra amount for the tickets that didn't sell." Derek revealed. "Or are you girls going to be paying for that?"

"W-w-what do you mean?" Thorn stuttered. She didn't understand what was going on.

"Well, the expectation was that your concert would sell 100 tickets for $5 each. Only 73 of them sold, which means after we take out all the profits, you girls still owe me $135." Derek said.

"The hell we do!" Dusk snapped.

"Those people paid to see us perform, meaning the money is ours." Thorn's voice got more angry as she spoke. "You have no right to take it from us."

Derek let out a chuckle, further aggravating Dusk and Thorn. Luna looked like she was feeling more uncomfortable than mad.

"You don't just get to perform here for nothing! It costs $500 to rent a stage at this theater." Derek shared.

"Well, why the fuck didn't you tell us?" Dusk shouted.

"You mean you really didn't know? You have to pay money to rent spaces to perform. We don't just give free rides! It was even in the agreement you signed before you went on stage!" Derek stated. "Well, I suppose I would have told you if I'd realized you didn't know the rules of performing, which clearly you girls don't even have a basic understanding of."

"We're not paying you a dime, asshole!" Dusk snapped.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to tell you to lower your voice, or I'll have to call security." Derek took his professionality to the level of sounding pompous. "Oh, and you will be paying us every cent of the $135 you owe. If I don't have that money in two weeks from tonight, I'm afraid I'll have to phone the authorities for fraudulently using our theater with no intent to pay us."

"You son of a -" Dusk screamed.

"Dusk, let's go." Thorn patted her friend on the back.

"We can't just let that -" Dusk was once again cut off, this time by Luna.

"Thorn's right. Let's get out of here." Luna tried to comfort her raging friend.

"We'll be sure to pay you the $135, sir." Thorn said in a monotone voice.

Dusk stayed quiet until they left the theater, but both Thorn and Luna could tell she was seething with anger.

Once they had exited the theater door and it had fully shut, Dusk exploded. "That fucking piece of shit took advantage of us! Why the fuck would you let him do that?"

"He did, but there was no way we were going to get anywhere by arguing with him, Dusk." Thorn sighed. "You can't win with people like that."

"We should walk to the police station right now to turn him in, then point and laugh when his ass is hauled away in chains!" Dusk snapped.

"We do owe him money, though." Luna admitted.

"The hell we do!" Dusk yelled, clearly too angry to even think straight.

"We can check with Gus on it, but I'm sure he didn't make up the space rental thing. I feel like I remember a show in Oakhaven asking us for money before we performed, and we declined. We've just been lucky that these places let us play and keep our proceeds." Thorn explained. "He didn't lie about us owing money, he just took advantage of our inexperience and chose not to explain the process to us until it was too late."

"We could still turn him in for misrepresenting that we'd have to pay to play at the theater." Luna suggested.

"We can't prove that, though." Thorn disappointedly informed. "He could just lie and say he told us."

"Fuck that stupid ass." Dusk growled.

"Now that we can agree on." Thorn laughed.

Dusk had calmed down considerably last night, but she still was in a bad mood when Thorn and Luna arrived at Jack's. They had bumped into Bridgit, Nia and Sam while they were there, and Bridgit was just telling Thorn about some Wicca-related things.

"So some Wiccans form covens, and others prefer to practice on their own. It's really up to the person and how they feel best connects them to nature." Bridgit explained.

"Woah, that's really cool." Thorn said in awe.

"We haven't talked much about rituals yet either." Nia realized. "Often, they're just meditating or connecting your personal energy with the Earth, though some Wiccans use healing crystals and follow moon cycles for more elaborate rituals."

"Oh, I was thinking rituals would be more magical, but this is cool." Thorn smiled.

"So healing crystals aren't really magical? Maybe they're kind of like that herbal remedy Thorn makes if any of our vocal cords are sore." Luna wondered.

"Exactly." Sam nodded. "People think that Wicca is always something supernatural, but in reality, the energies Wicca focuses on are all around us. It's just a matter of how much importance you place on them. Most people don't think about the energies they give off, but focusing on your energies is core to Wicca."

Just as Thorn was about to respond, all of them heard a very loud yell from a few tables away.

"Shit!" Dusk shrieked, as a bowl dropped to the floor and shattered. "Argh, I'm sorry."

Dusk rushed to the kitchen to grab a broom, and quickly ran back out so that no one would step on the broken pieces. As she swept them up and dumped them in the trash can, she stopped over at the table where the other girls were sitting.

"I'll be ready to go to Gus's meeting in a second." Dusk said.

"That's fine." Luna snickered at Dusk's previous mistake. "It's cute you keep messing up."

"Ugh, shut up!" Dusk snapped, as she walked back to the kitchen to put away the broom and change out of her pink apron.

"Well, thank you so much for sharing all that about Wicca with me." Thorn appreciated. "That was really informative."

"I'm glad you enjoyed it!" Bridgit chirped.

"Sorry again about what happened in Salem. That's really shitty." Nia apologized.

"It's okay. I actually thought of an idea to pay him back that I was just about to tell Luna and Dusk." Thorn revealed.

"What's that?" Luna asked.

"Well, Lester's called us again and asked if we'd play tomorrow night. We can always cancel if you don't want to, but I said yes. I was thinking we could pay him back with the money from that show." Thorn suggested.

"I guess." Luna huffed. "If we have to."

If there was one place the girls hated performing even more than their new least favorite establishment in Salem, it was Lester's. The patrons were always quite boorish and rude, and seemed to enjoy getting wasted more than they did watching the girls' show. Occasionally, people would even hit on the girls while they were performing.

"Did you say Lester's?" Dusk sighed, putting her right arm into her light blue coat. "I guess the upside of that is that we'll be giving them their shitty money from another shitty establishment. So, yeah, we can perform there if it means paying those assholes back. I'm ready to go when you are, by the way."

The girls waved goodbye to Nia, Sam and Bridgit and headed for Gus's office. Hopefully that would brighten Dusk's day a little.

After such a stressful end to their concert the prior day, it felt like Thorn was going back into her comfort zone when she walked through the hallways of Decade Records. She was growing to quite enjoy their meetings with Gus, as were the other two girls.

"Hello girls! Great to see you again!" Gus exclaimed. "How was the concert in Salem?"

"Oh boy, do we ever have a story for you!" Dusk's eyes lit up with anger.

"Maybe it would be better if you let me tell the story." Thorn laughed. "You know, less profanity and all."

"Oh no! What happened?" Gus had a look of concern on his face.

"Basically, the guy who invited us to play in Salem 'conveniently' forgot to tell us that there's a $500 charge to play at their theater." Thorn was sure to say 'conveniently' at the same time while also doing an air quotes motion with her hands. "He said we owed him $135 at the end of the concert, and would call the police if we didn't give it to him in two weeks. And we signed his agreement without reading it fully, so we're stuck now."

"Thorn forgot to mention the part that the guy was a fucking shithead about it." Dusk added.

"Oh dear." Gus appeared to be troubled. "It sounds like he took advantage of you girls because you were a newly signed band. Regardless, you girls got your first experience with a larger concert, and you learned a valuable lesson for next time."

"What's that?" Luna inquired.

"Always ask for all the details before agreeing to a concert, and make the person put it in writing. Most importantly, never sign anything without reading all the fine print, even if it takes a while. I really should have thought to tell you; I just never expected someone to take advantage of you girls like that." Gus shook his head in disgust. "You girls put yourself in a situation where you had no way of proving that he didn't inform you of the cost like he needed to."

"So there's nothing we can do to get back at this bastard?" Dusk swore.

"No, I'm afraid not. If you reported him to the authorities, he could just claim you were lying to get out of paying, or say you must have forgotten. You'd have no defense against him, at least nothing that you could prove." Gus explained somberly.

"That sucks." Thorn harrumphed. "At least we can make the money to pay the guy by next week from our jobs. It'll just mean we won't pay off the cost of the car repair on the credit card for another few weeks."

"Yes, you girls should be thankful you have a way to pay. It could have been a lot worse. Now, let's move on to a much happier subject." Gus switched topics. "I wanted to follow-up with you on our conversation about covers. Have you girls thought about a song to cover for the album?"

"Not really." Luna admitted.

"That's perfectly acceptable." Gus responded. "There's such a multitude of music out there that it's hard to know what to cover. Are there any songs that specifically speak to your image as a band?"

The girls were silent for a moment, as they thought about Gus's statement.

"How about environmental songs? You seem to give off an environmental vibe with "Earth, Wind, Fire and Air," so is that a topic of interest for you?" Gus questioned.

"Absolutely. I mean, we're eco-goths." Dusk informed.

"What's an eco-goth?" Gus looked confused.

"Don't ask me, HB made it up." Luna chuckled, causing Gus to look even more confused.

"HB was the nickname of this kid we knew in high school named Hannah Barbera. She was a preppy girl who liked to make fun of us for being goths, and for liking the environment. One time, she called us 'The Eco-Goths' as an insult. We liked the term though, so now we use it in an empowering way." Thorn explained.

"Hmm...very interesting." Gus nodded. "There are lots of songs from goth bands that focus on the environment. Why don't you think of a couple ideas and talk amongst yourselves after the meeting, then we can talk about it more next week, if you're ready?"

"Sounds good to me." Thorn shrugged.

"Great. And if it wasn't obvious, you can always do more than one cover if you choose. How many songs are we at now?" Gus inquired.

"Ten." Luna responded.

"That's perfect! If you want to have your last two songs be covers, I say go for it. You girls are doing great." Gus smiled. "I had one more thing to share with you, however."

Gus motioned for the girls to come over to look at his computer. As all of them got up from their chairs and gathered around Gus's screen, they saw a listing of 50 songs. Thorn knew most of the songs, but paused for a moment when she saw their song placed second-to-last at the bottom of the list.

"What is this list? It looks like we're 49th on it, whatever it is." Dusk pieced together.

"This is the pop radio chart from this Sunday." Gus smiled. "You girls have made the top 50 on pop radio in the United States."

"Holy shit!" Dusk gasped.

"Wh-what's this number next to it?" Thorn gasped frantically, observing the number 408.

"That means your song was played 408 times on the radio last week." Gus said. "That's not all though. I want to show you the pop chart from today."

Gus exited out of the Sunday chart window, which pulled up the chart from this morning. It showed "Hex Girl" had climbed to #45, and had been played on the radio 820 times in the past week.

"What the?" Luna inhaled rather than swearing.

"Looks like you girls have got a hit on your hands." Gus continued smiling. "Now, given this, we need to have you record a radio liner."

"Is that anything like a one-liner?" Luna asked, confused at the terminology.

"No." Gus chuckled. "It's simply a ten-second introduction listing the song title and your band name for radio stations. Radio stations can use it as a promotional intro right before they play your song. I've cued up an example."

A voice with a heavy southern accent came out of Gus's computer.

"Hey y'all, it's Farmer Jones! When you hear "Beer, Cowgirls and Trucks" on other stations, it's just business. But when you hear it here, this station's like my own family to me. I'm proud for you to hear my song on -"

Farmer Jones was interrupted by a loud robotic voice saying "insert station name here!"

"Isn't that a little deceptive?" Thorn gasped.

"Well, yes…" Gus chuckled. "But like he said, that's business."

"I don't want to make an intro like that." Luna shook her head. "I'd like to record something a little less corporate."

"That's wonderful! Quite frankly, I've never cared for overly corporate introductions like that." Gus admitted, as he pressed a button on his computer. "Alright, I have it set up to record your intro whenever you're ready."

"Okay...I think we're ready." Thorn said, a tad cautiously. "I just want this to be from the heart, not something elaborately planned."

"Yeah. It should be something authentic to us." Dusk agreed. Luna nodded as well.

"Alright. 3, 2, 1." Gus counted down.

"Hey, this is The Hex Girls, and you're listening to our song "Hex Girl." Thorn began.

"We just want to thank everyone for all the support and love." Luna added.

"I hope you enjoy our song." Dusk concluded.

Gus hit the stop record button on his computer, quickly realizing that they were done.

"Stupendous work, girls!" Gus smiled. "It's exciting that your first song is turning into a hit so early! I'm sure it will be even further up the charts once I meet with you next Thursday. Speaking of which, that's all I had planned for our meeting today, unless you had anything you wanted to discuss with me."

Dusk looked at Luna and Thorn before responding. Luna simply gave a blank stare, while Thorn shook her head.

"I think that's it." Dusk responded.

"I hope you girls have an excellent week, then. And don't forget to think about what song you want to cover before I see you next!" Gus said, as the girls got up out of their chairs.

"Thanks again, Gus!" Dusk waved as she and the other two headed out the door.

"Yeah, you've been incredible to work with!" Thorn appreciated.

Once the door was shut, Dusk let out a big happy sigh. "God, can you believe we have one of the biggest songs in the fucking country right now?"

Thorn could not for the life of her think of a response, mainly because she couldn't believe it either.

After all the glitz and glam of the last concert in Salem (even if the person who asked them to do it ended up being a liar), the girls were back to playing at the depressingly dingey establishment that was Lester's Bar.

"Oh god, I thought we'd never have to come back here after we had a concert in Salem." Dusk complained.

"Or now that we have a top 50 pop radio hit." Luna added.

"Anyway, let's just set up and get this out of the way so we can make some money." Thorn tried to look for the bright side.

"I hope they give us really greasy money here, as a metaphor when we give it to Dick Johnson." Dusk joked.

"I thought his name was Derek." Luna obliviously corrected.

"I know what I said." Dusk smirked.

This time, Lester was the one to greet them instead of whoever the guy was filling in for him during their previous concert.

"Alright, just set up over there." Lester pointed to the makeshift stage. "Ya just gotta watch out for the rat, which made itself a home in a hole in the wall right behind your stage."

"Isn't that against the health code?" Thorn questioned.

"Hey, you dames got somethin' against rats?" Lester put his hands on his hips disapprovingly.

None of the girls dignified him with an answer.

"Now, here's the money ya get for performin' here, since you playin' always brings in more customers." Lester slapped a wad of bills in Dusk's hand.

"Hey, can you smear some barbecue sauce on these bills or spit on them or something? We're giving this money to someone we fuckin' hate." Dusk got a mischievous smirk on her face.

"Come on, Dusk." Thorn rolled her eyes.

"Learn to take a joke, Thorn." Dusk playfully snapped back.

"Oh, how I didn't miss this." Thorn sighed, as she looked at the mess of tangled up cords they would need to unravel to plug in their instruments.

As Thorn was setting up, a patron wearing a somewhat tattered t-shirt and shorts came up to her and tapped her on the shoulder. The man's breath smelled horridly of whiskey.

"Hey, excuse me miss, I'm looking for something and I was wondering if you could help." the man's speech was slurred.

"Umm...what are you looking for?" Thorn cautiously said.

"A good time with you tonight, baby!" the man burst out laughing.

"Hell no!" Thorn snarled. "Leave me alone."

"Aww, c'mon little lady, you'd look a lot prettier if you smiled!" the man said as he let out an obnoxious burp. "Just give me a little smile, that's all I'm askin'!"

Thorn was enraged by the man's taunting.

"You'd look prettier if you weren't drinking yourself to death and hitting on women!" Thorn snapped. "Now get the fuck away from me!"

"Oh whatever! You're probably a slut anyway." the man insulted, as he stumbled back to his barstool. Part of Thorn wanted to rip him a new one, but she knew it would only escalate the situation.

After the girls had set up, Lester came up on stage to introduce them before the concert began.

"Attention everyone! Now presenting a local band from right here in Oakhaven, The Hex Girls!" Lester's voice boomed throughout the bar as he spoke into the microphone.

Thorn didn't feel the invigoration and excitement about singing that she had been lately. She just felt sad. She expected to move up in the world, and not have to perform at places that made even a garbage dump look favorable, now that she had a top 50 hit on the radio. She really didn't even feel like singing, but nonetheless, all she could do was suck it up and hope for better days.

Author's note:

A bit of a shorter chapter again, but hopefully everyone still enjoyed it. In case anyone didn't get the "eco-goth" joke about how "HB made it up," eco-goth is definitely not a popular branch of the goth subculture. In fact, a Google search requires you to go several pages in before getting anything that isn't about the Hex Girls. Many people think Hanna-Barbera made the term up. An interview with The Hex Girls' voice actors reveals that Jennifer Hale, Kimberly Brooks and Jane Wiedlin didn't even know how to say the word "eco-goth" when first recording their lines for Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost. Since this fanfic has been giving backstory into how The Hex Girls rose to fame, I thought it might be fun to give The Hex Girls' self-identification with the term "eco-goth" a backstory as well, in quite a literal sense since it's explained as coming from someone named Hannah Barbera haha.

The radio promo thing with Farmer Jones is sadly not a joke. I heard an almost identical radio liner the day before writing this, where the artist introduced their song and said that "This station's like family to me, so I'm proud to have my song on…" and then it cut to a poorly spliced in radio jingle of the station name lol. Even if they didn't intend it, that's pretty much a perfect satire of the corporatization of music and was too good not to include here haha.

Also, I feel the need to say this given how horrible of a place it's made out to be in this fanfic, but since Larcom Theater is a real place in Salem, none of the events of this fanfic were intended to be any sort of diss on that establishment. I'm sure it's quite a lovely place haha.

I'll be visiting relatives for Thanksgiving next week, so I think I'm going to take a little break from publishing next week. I'll plan to resume the weekly publishing schedule in December with chapter 7!