Her Fandom Friend Was Lethal

To afford front-row pit passes for her favorite band's sold-out arena tour, my older sister agreed to split a cheap room with a fandom mutual she had known online for a decade. The concert ended, but my sister never came home. She vanished into thin air. Forty-eight agonizing hours crawled by before the police would even file a missing persons report. And when investigators finally tracked down that mutual, the girl looked the detectives dead in the eye and swore under oath that she had never heard my sister's name in her life. We searched for my sister for ten unbearable years. When we finally found her, she was rotting on a filthy curbside in a forgotten border town. Both her eyes were milky, blind ruins. Her left arm had been crudely severed at the shoulder, her legs twisted and paralyzed beneath rags that smelled of infection and gutter water. She stared toward the sound of my footsteps with dead, unblinking eyes. With the two remaining fingers on her withered right hand, she tapped an empty tin can against the cracked asphalt. "Spare a dime, kind soul. Just a bite to eat." Later, on the highway drive home in the back of our car, some buried splinter of memory must have pierced her delirium. In a sudden, terrible burst of lucid horror, she wrenched open the door at seventy miles an hour and threw herself onto the freeway. Mom dissolved into grief, swallowed a lethal dose of sedatives, and never woke up. Dad walked around in a ghost-like daze until a semi-truck ran a red light and crushed him on an ordinary Tuesday morning. Our whole family was wiped off the earth. In the hollow aftermath, one relentless, gnawing thought drove me out of my mind: "If only I had stopped her from leaving that afternoon. If only I hadn’t let her go to that concert." I gasped, my eyes flying open. Warm morning light filtered through the dusty Venetian blinds of our suburban living room. My sister, Wendy, stood by the front door, slipping on her denim jacket, her handmade canvas tote covered in enamel pins swinging from her shoulder. Her hand rested on the brass knob. "I’m heading out, Abby," she called over her shoulder, her voice bright and untainted by tragedy. "Be good for Mom and Dad." A sob tore through my chest. Tears flooded my vision as I launched across the room, wrapping my arms around her waist with the feral desperation of a drowning child. "Wendy, you can't go! You can’t go to that show!" 1 Wendy startled, nearly dropping her car keys. "Hey, easy, sweetie! What’s gotten into you? I swear I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon." No. She wouldn't. Tomorrow, there would be no Wendy. Tomorrow, the nightmare would begin. I wept hysterically, clutching the denim of her jacket until my knuckles went white. "Listen to me! That friend from Twitter, she’s bad! She’s drowning in predatory debt, and she cut a deal with human traffickers! She’s going to drug you at the motel and hand you over to them! You’ll never come home! I won't have a sister anymore!" Wendy froze for a fraction of a second, and then a soft, breathy chuckle slipped out of her. She ruffled my hair with warm, tender fingers. "Abby, honey... did that true-crime documentary we watched on Netflix yesterday mess with your head? Did you have a bad dream?" She crouched slightly to meet my tear-streaked eyes. "It’s not real. It was just a movie. You don't have to be scared. I’ve known Melanie online for ten years. We grew up posting on the same fan forums. She’s harmless." Right on cue, her phone buzzed in her pocket, cutting me off. A sickeningly familiar voice drifted through the speaker, crisp and chirpy: "Hey, Wendy! Just checked in. When are you getting here?" I would recognize that voice in hell. In my past life, the minute Wendy didn’t answer our calls the next morning, Dad called 911. The detectives eventually hauled that girl down to the precinct. Online, she went by Melon. Wendy went by Peach. In that tight-knit pocket of the music fandom, they were practically soul sisters, sharing late-night playlists and childhood secrets for a whole decade. Yet inside the interrogation room, she had blinked at the detective with wide, innocent eyes. "Who’s Peach? Who’s Wendy Prescott? I don't know who you’re talking about. I don't even listen to that band—maybe my little stepsister made an account with my email or something. I’ve never seen that girl in my life." My skin turned to ice as the voice on the other end of the line purred, "I got a room with just one queen bed so we could split it down the middle and save twenty bucks. Put that toward front-row pit passes for their summer tour, right?" A fond smile spread across Wendy’s lips. All I could picture was Melanie sitting in the precinct's plastic chair years ago, picking at her manicured nails while our world burned around her. "I don't go to arena shows," she had told the cops, utterly bored. "Maybe your daughter hooked up with some cute guy she met at a tailgate and skipped town with him." "Watch your mouth! My daughter would never do that!" Dad had roared, his knuckles white against the precinct desk. Seeing our only lead slip away, Mom had dropped to her knees right there on the linoleum, sobbing until she choked. "Please, please, sweetheart, just think! Wendy is only twenty! She has her whole life ahead of her!" Melanie had recoiled as if Mom were a leper, hiding behind an officer’s uniform. "Get this psycho away from me! I told you, I don't know her!" Now, on the call, Wendy laughed softly into the receiver. "Sorry, Melanie, Abby’s being super clingy today. She’s convinced you're a cartoon villain out to kidnap me." The girl on the phone gave a playful tsk. "Oh, little sis! You can’t keep your big sister on a leash, you know. That’s not very sweet." It was the exact same cadence. The same venomous flippancy masked beneath sugar. My whole body shook violently. I grabbed Wendy’s wrist, digging my nails in. "Wendy, you have to believe me! She’s lying to you! Her screen name is Melon, but her real legal name is Kendra! She’s going to destroy you!" A beat of dead silence hung in the air. Wendy stared down at me, her brow furrowing in confusion. Then, a peeling burst of laughter erupted from the phone. "Kiddo, are you for real? Are you paranoid or something? I’ve been talking to your sister since middle school. And for the record, my name is Melanie, not Kendra!" Wendy let out an exasperated sigh, gently tapping my forehead. "Hear that, Abby? I’m going to miss my commuter train. If you keep throwing a tantrum, I’m actually going to get mad." The world tilted under my feet. "Melanie? Not Kendra?" When the police had pulled up her record in my past life, the intake form had clearly read "Kendra"! 2 Panic, dark and suffocating, clawed up my throat. If I couldn't even prove who she was, I had lost my only leverage. The timeline was already slipping through my fingers. Desperation tore through me, and I screamed into the phone's microphone: "You're a liar! You took out high-interest loans from loan sharks! You plan to sell my sister to pay off your debt! You’re going to ruin everything! You’re going to kill our whole family!" Wendy’s face darkened instantly. She tapped the screen to kill the call, her jaw set. "Abigail, that is enough." Her voice carried a sharpness I had rarely heard. "I don't care what scary internet rabbit hole you fell down, but Melanie is my friend. You do not talk to people like that." She turned the deadbolt, swinging the door wide. "I have saved up for this concert for a year. Mom and Dad never let me travel out of state for shows, and the tour finally stopped right here in the city. Are you really trying to ruin this for me?" Even in her anger, she was trying to be gentle, trying to reason with a younger sister she thought was being selfish. But I clamped my arms around her hips again, dropping all my weight, tears soaking her shirt. "Hate me then! Call me names! I don't care! You are not walking out that door!" The commotion finally drew my parents from the master bedroom down the hall. Mom hurried out in her slippers, trying to peel my fingers off Wendy. "Abby, stop this right now. We know you love your sister, but we all agreed she could go, remember?" Wendy slipped out of my grip, adjusting her tote bag with a relieved sigh. Seeing my blotchy, hysterical face, her expression softened with pity, but she still took a step backward toward the porch. "I have to tell them. I have to tell them I died and came back." I opened my mouth, but my throat seized shut. A strange, invisible pressure clamped down on my chest—the words "time travel" and "second life" withered into static behind my teeth, entirely unutterable. Wendy turned on her heel to leave. A memory flashed behind my eyelids—jagged, electric, and sudden. "The hostel!" I shrieked. Wendy’s foot froze on the welcome mat. I gasped for air, speaking as fast as my lungs allowed. "You didn't book a regular hotel! You told Mom and Dad you booked a three-star downtown, but you cancelled it to save cash for pit tickets! You booked two bunks in that cheap backpacker hostel over by the industrial park, didn't you?" I locked eyes with her, trembling from head to toe. "You kept that a secret between you and Melanie. Even Mom and Dad don't know. How could I possibly know that if I were just making this up? Please, Wendy. Just trust me once. Don't go today." Years ago, when we dragged Wendy’s broken body into that police cruiser, her mind had been shattered beyond repair. She hadn't known who I was. When the officers questioned her, she had merely rocked back and forth, chanting the same broken refrain into the stale air: "If only we didn't go to the hostel... home... I just want to go home..." Then she had blinked, her clouded eyes clearing for a fraction of a second: "Abby? You came to get me?" A second later, taking in the ruin of her own amputated limbs, her mouth had twisted into a grotesque, despairing grin. Before anyone could react, she had flung the door open at seventy miles an hour. I snapped back to the present, my vision swimming red. "Wendy, you can't go to that hostel. You can't!" Dad stepped forward, his easygoing face hardening into something sharp and attentive. "Is what your sister saying true, Wendy? You’re staying at a hostel? In that part of town?" Wendy shrank back, her cheeks burning red. The shock on her face was undeniable. She couldn't fathom how her little sister knew her private booking details. Mom’s voice brooked no argument. "Absolutely not. The city might seem fine in the daytime, but those unmonitored crash pads are a magnet for vagrants and creeps. You are not sleeping there." Wendy hung her head, the guilt clear in her posture. Dad pulled me into his side, his large hand resting on my trembling shoulder. "People say little kids have a sixth sense about danger," he murmured quietly. "Wendy, you know Abby doesn't throw fits like this. Look at her. She’s terrified. Maybe... maybe you should sit this one out. I’ll drive you to their next tour stop next summer." Tears welled up in Wendy’s eyes, bright with frustration. "Dad! It’s their ten-year anniversary tour! I’ve been counting down the days for twelve months! You can't just cancel it two hours before the gates open!" Panicking, she raised both hands in surrender. "Fine! I won't pinch pennies! I’ll pay the extra cash and check Melanie and me into the luxury hotel downtown right now. The big one on Grand Avenue." She unclipped the pink GPS safety watch from my wrist and strapped it around her own. "Look, Abby. Track me on Mom’s phone. You’ll see exactly where I am every second. I won't get lost. Can I please go now?" Mom and Dad traded a long, hesitant glance. Dad finally let out a heavy sigh. "Alright. But you text us the second you check in. Deal?" "Deal!" My eyes dilated in horror. I lunged forward, but Dad’s arm caught me gently around the ribs. Before I could tear free, Wendy slipped through the doorway, pulled the door shut, and jogged down the driveway. "No!" I screamed. "No!" 3 A bottomless void opened beneath my feet. Was fate an iron track that couldn't be bent? Was I doomed to watch her march right back into the slaughterhouse? The door clicked open again. I looked up, tears blurring my sight. Dad was grabbing his car keys off the hallway hook, a faint, determined smile touching his lips. "Our little Abby’s gut is usually right," he said softly. "Come on. We’re not letting her out of our sight tonight. We’re going to crash her hotel." Color rushed back into my world. Yes! As long as Wendy remained within our line of sight, the nightmare couldn't touch her. Within two minutes, the three of us piled into the sedan. We caught sight of Wendy just as she was boarding a yellow cab at the corner of our subdivision. "Tail that taxi, Dad!" I urged, leaning forward between the front bucket seats. The cab took the highway exit, winding deeper into the grimy commercial district before idling outside a dingy brick building. The sign read "Metropolitan Backpacker Lodge". Sure enough, she had gone straight to the hostel to collect her friend. I watched Wendy walk through the glass doors. Ten minutes later, she walked out, looking apologetic, trailing a girl behind her. The girl wore an oversized graphic tee, dark jeans, and had bleach-blonde hair tied in a loose knot. I kicked the car door open and scrambled onto the pavement. "Wendy!" I yelled, throwing myself between my sister and the blonde girl, cutting off the conversation. Wendy stared at me, dumbfounded. And the girl beside her—Melanie—froze, the easy smile sliding off her face like melting wax. I pinned my eyes on Melanie, watching every twitch of her facial muscles. "Well, hey there, little sister," Melanie recovered swiftly, her tone dripping with sweet condescension. She glanced at Wendy. "So that’s why you suddenly insisted on springing for a four-star suite? Because baby sis had separation anxiety? Guess it’s a girls' night for all three of us, then!" Wendy let out a breath she’d been holding, relieved that her friend wasn't offended. I didn't know what poison Melanie was brewing behind that placid mask, but I wasn't backing down. "Wendy’s sleeping in our room with Mom," I said cold and clear. "You sleep by yourself." Realizing she had no escape from my clinginess, Wendy offered Melanie an embarrassed shrug. "You see how she is today, Mel. Don't worry about the cost, my family will cover your room too." Seeing my parents approach the curb, Melanie forced a stiff, slightly strained smile. "Whatever works, babe." At the high-end hotel on Grand Avenue, Dad booked three adjoining rooms. Mom and Dad took the middle suite, effectively wedging themselves between Melanie’s room on the left and the room Wendy and I shared on the right. That evening, while the shower ran in the bathroom, I snatched Wendy’s phone off the nightstand. I unlocked it and scrolled to the contact saved with a blue heart: Brett. Wendy’s boyfriend of two years. A cadet in his final semester at the police academy. In our previous life, Brett hadn't cared for boy bands. He had offered to pay for Wendy’s trip so she could enjoy it with her friend. When she vanished, the guilt ate him alive. His hair had turned prematurely silver within a year. For ten years, he volunteered for human trafficking task forces, never dating, never moving on, living like a ghost among the living. I opened his chat box and typed with trembling thumbs: "Brett, it’s Abby. You’re going to think I’m crazy, but you need to buy a scalper ticket to the arena tonight. Right now. Someone is planning to snatch Wendy in the crowd. If you aren't there, we’ll never find her." The water in the bathroom clicked off. I hastily deleted the sent message from the log. If Wendy caught me, she would brush it off as a childish prank. But Brett was a trainee cop; his instincts might just give him pause. A sharp knock rapped against the heavy wood of our hotel door. "Wendy! Open up! I brought room service snacks to share!" Wendy emerged from the bathroom, toweling off her wet hair. "Coming!" I beat her to the entryway, bracing my back against the wood. "Melanie," I called out through the crack of the door, keeping the security latch firmly engaged. "My sister’s already tucked in. You should go get some rest. The show’s tomorrow, right?" A heavy stillness lingered on the other side of the wood. Then, Melanie’s honeyed voice drifted back: "Alright, Abby. Make sure you get some beauty sleep too!" I pressed my ear against the cool veneer. Behind me, Wendy shook her head, amused and exasperated. "See? I told you she’s totally normal. Will you relax now?" Wendy didn't see the blood drain from my face. Out in the carpeted hallway, fading footsteps were accompanied by a muffled, low whisper into a phone receiver: "...Stick to the original plan." 4 Nightmares tore my sleep to shreds. Over and over, I saw the blind, broken woman on the roadside tapping her tin bowl against the frozen curb. Downstairs at the hotel breakfast buffet, Melanie turned on the charm. She complimented Mom’s scarf, asked Dad about his weekend plans, and played the part of the polite college girl so well that even my parents began to warm up to her. Only I sat in silence, dark circles under my eyes, glaring daggers into her side profile. In the car over to the arena, Melanie casually leaned over the console. "By the way, Wendy, where’s that handsome cop-in-training of yours? Why didn't he tag along?" "Oh, arena pop isn't really his scene," Wendy chuckled softly. "He texted me last night saying he had to drive up to his hometown to help his aunt with some paperwork. Told me to have a blast with you." My stomach dropped straight into my shoes. Last night was when I had sent that desperate text. If Brett couldn't make it, what was going to happen inside that twenty-thousand-seat arena? Mom and Dad had only bought nosebleed seats for themselves; they wouldn't be down on the floor with Wendy! Before I could spiral, the car pulled up to the stadium plaza. Nausea threatened to choke me. I began to shiver uncontrollably. Wendy noticed. She reached down, her warm palm wrapping over my icy fingers. "Alright, little boss," she whispered, pulling a paper ticket out of her purse. "I called in a favor and snagged an extra youth floor pass from another fan group. You’re sitting right on my lap in the pit, got it? And this is coming out of your Christmas savings." Tears sprang into my eyes, hot and overwhelming. "Take all my savings," I blubbered, burying my face in her sleeve. "Take every cent!" Melanie’s jaw twitched. Her skin paled slightly. "You’re bringing the kid down to the pit? Won't that be super crowded and overwhelming for her?" Wendy gave her an easy smile. "Abby will be fine. She stays close." At the gates, Wendy and Melanie met up with half a dozen other girls from their regional fan club. In my past life, these were the girls who had printed out missing-person flyers on their own dime and distributed them across three states. Surrounded by them in the vibrant, neon-lit crowd, the tight knot in my chest loosened just a fraction. For two hours, the concert was pure magic. The bass shook our ribs, laser lights cut through theatrical haze, and twenty thousand voices roared in unison. Melanie spent the entire set screaming her lungs out, eyes glued to the stage, never once looking in Wendy’s direction. The trap sprung the moment the encore ended and the house lights flickered to life. A sudden, violent wave of people surged from the left aisle. Someone shoved hard. Melanie went down with a dramatic yelp. "Melanie!" Wendy instinctively released my hand to reach down and keep her friend from being trampled underfoot. "BOOM!" A thunderous blast of stage cannons erupted overhead. Millions of metallic confetti ribbons showered down like a shimmering curtain. The entire floor went wild, fans diving and scrambling across the sticky concrete to collect the tour-exclusive memorabilia. The crowd fractured into absolute pandemonium. I lunged forward, clawing through the bodies to reach my sister. "Wendy! Don't let go of me!" Wendy looked back, her eyes wide above the bobbing heads. "Stay right there, Abby! Stand with Sarah from the fan club! Don't move, I’m right here!" "Like hell I was staying there." A surge of adrenaline, born of a decade of grief, flooded my veins. I threw my tiny body against the crowd, slamming into Wendy’s hip and locking both arms around her waist like iron bands. "Wendy, you do not let go of me! We are leaving together right now!" Just then, Melanie scrambled to her feet. The innocence was gone from her face, replaced by a cold, predatory gleam. She pulled a pre-packaged moist towelette from her pocket, lunging toward Wendy’s neck. I didn't think. I threw my weight sideways, sinking my teeth into Melanie’s bare wrist with every ounce of fury in my soul. Melanie let out a strangled, venomous hiss. But as her hand jerked back, the cloth brushed past my nose. A sweet, sickly, chemical scent invaded my airways. Her face contorted in agony, but she masked it in a split second, forcing a bright, breathless tone: "Goodness, look at your little face, Abby! You've got stage makeup smeared all over your cheek." Wendy didn't notice the exchange in the dim, pulsing lights. "Come on, let’s push toward the north exit." My vision blurred into double exposures. Black spots bloomed across my retinas. I bit my own lower lip until the metallic tang of blood filled my mouth, using the sharp spike of pain to stay conscious, my fingers knotting into the hem of Wendy’s jacket. Suddenly, shouting erupted near the exit tunnel. Two men began throwing punches, careening into the crowd. The crush became a stampede. Melanie yanked Wendy hard by the elbow. The sheer momentum tore Wendy’s jacket clean out of my numb, weakening fingers. The human tide swept between us like a flash flood. "Wendy!" I screamed, my voice shredding. "Abby, don't fight the crowd! Ride the wave out to the plaza, I’ll find you by the merchandise trucks!" Her voice floated over the sea of heads, distant and fading. "I have to follow her. Keep your eyes on her back." Fighting the creeping blackness behind my eyes, I dragged my feet forward, staring relentlessly at the back of the girl ahead of me—the same denim jacket, the same chestnut curls, the same official tour enamel pin clipped to the collar. We finally spilled out into the brisk night air of the plaza. There, near the main fountain, stood Mom and Dad, looking frantic. A sob of pure, unadulterated relief broke through my chest. We made it. We survived. Gathering the last dregs of my strength, I sprinted forward and threw my arms around the girl’s waist. "Wendy! We’re safe, let’s go home!" The girl turned around. A stranger’s face looked down at me with mild irritation. "Kid... who the heck are you?"