Blood for Blood, Hearts Beating

Graciela Marquez walked off the tour bus with the band, Pink Elvira. Every one of the five girls in the band lived up to their name. Elvira was a mythical creature, a slutty dark vampire. The girls in the band were basically the same way except they were very pink and they weren’t vampires.

These girls were as ghastly as any Elvira that could be thought up. Even worse than how they dressed, they treated so many people like shit. It was a wonder how they became so popular.
They treated their fans horribly, their record company, but they never treated anyone as bad as they did to their merch girl, Grace.

Grace was incredibly different from the other girls. Unlike the pink plastics that they were, Grace wore band shirts, dark skinny jeans, and she was a very sweet girl.

She walked off the bus with the band, carrying all the merch while the girls just had their purses in their hand and a couple guys from other bands to help them with their instruments.

Sarah, the singer, and Marissa, the lead guitarist, walked up to her with smiles on their faces. Both of them had a box in their hand. They rested them up on Grace. “Oh, Grace, be a doll and carry these for us.” Sarah said with a taste of hatred.

Marissa put a giant bag full of wires on top of the top box. Grace fell backwards, having everything fly up into the air and all over the ground.

Everyone who was staring started to laugh but didn’t think to help her up or with anything. They just walked away when they saw that Pink Elvira was doing the same.

Once composing herself, she made it over to the merch tent near the stage where the girls would be playing. Once she opened up all the boxes and putting some shirts on the table, she felt a presence of someone at the table next to her. When she looked up, there was a guy with black hair and a black wife beater and Tripp shorts on.

He smiled up at her. “Hi, I’m Freddy.” Grace realized that he was the merch guy for another band that would be playing.

“Grace.”

“You must be the merch girl for Pink Elvira?”

Not wanting to admit it to him, she tried to nod her head, but Sarah walked up to her, not even looking at the boy next to Grace. “Where did you put my mic?” She sounded like she was in a panic and it was clear that she was stressed out from more than her microphone.

After digging in the bag that had the wires, she pulled the mic out. “You’re welcome.”

Freddy folded his arms. “Wow, you are even uglier in person. You’re from Pink Slut Bunnies?”

There was a little silence except for Grace trying to contain her laugh as Sarah glared at the merch boy. “Fuck you, buddy. You work for Sleeping With Sirens? Their work sucks ass. If I get the chance, I’ll say it to Kellin’s face. He sounds worse than Justin Beiber.”

“Yeah, but here’s the thing. People have never said that they sound like old men gagging on their own puke.”

Sarah just grabbed her mic and stormed off back to the stage. Grace couldn’t believe what just went down. People have never spoken to Sarah like that from what she’d seen.

“Why do you work with that band? They’re horrible. They’re horrible to you.”

Grace began working again. “I know. Vicky, the drummer, is my friend’s sister and so she was able to hook me up four years ago. Quickly I learned that I had sold myself to the devil. They own me.”

A shiver went up her spin when she thought about being controlled for the rest of her life. “You’re lucky. You serve for a band who actually is nice.”

With just a little bit of a laugh, he was able to compose himself again. “Picture it like this. I’m the baby brother. They pick on me but we still love each other. We aren’t perfect. They really aren’t bad guys though.”

They didn’t talk much for the rest of the night after that. For the time that they were working, there was always a customer there. Grace had to leave before she got to say bye for the night to Freddy.

He was making a sale. There was no time to spare.

Pink Elvira wanted to get on the road early for the next Warped stop so that the bassist of their band, Jess, could see her family in Oregon. Grace wasn’t excited about this. She knew that meant that some of her friends and family would be coming the next day to see Pink Elvira play.