Somewhere in western Kansas, the Feral Eclipse tour bus trundled along a two-lane highway surrounded by absolutely nothing.
Cornfields stretched out in every direction like green ocean waves. There were no towns for fifty miles, no fans in sight, and no concerts for two days. Even the GPS seemed vaguely annoyed.
Inside the bus, the pack was dangerously close to unraveling.
Jonah had spent the past half hour trying to convince Rico that ranch dressing was a “universal sauce.” Maya was threatening to throw his drumsticks out the skylight. Mark was pretending to sleep in the back bunk. Emily was editing quietly at the table, wearing noise-canceling headphones and the expression of someone who knew the wolves were about to do something profoundly stupid.
She wasn’t wrong.
Gabriel burst out of the bathroom with his phone held high, tail twitching.
“GUYS.”
Thane, halfway through writing a setlist, didn’t even look up. “No.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to say!”
“It’s you, Gabriel. We know exactly what you were going to say.”
Gabriel ignored the slander and spun dramatically in the aisle. “We are thirty minutes from the world’s largest ball of barbed wire.”
Thane blinked. “…What?”
“It’s real!” Gabriel held up his phone triumphantly. “They call it The Devil’s Hairball. We have to see it.”
“No, we don’t,” Mark muttered from his bunk.
“I’m not letting you get tetanus for content,” Thane warned.
“But imagine the photos!” Gabriel protested. “Emily standing next to it with her hoodie pulled up like a gremlin. Jonah pretending to floss with it—”
“I’m not flossing with barbed wire,” Jonah said flatly.
“We’re going!” Gabriel declared.
Diesel, up front at the wheel, just shouted back, “If it’s within five miles, I’m in.”
Mark let out a long, slow exhale. “We’re gonna die.”
Fifteen minutes later, the bus pulled off onto a dirt road, guided only by Gabriel’s GPS and unshakable enthusiasm.
There was, in fact, a field. There was, in fact, a sign. And there was definitely a tangled, rust-covered, absurdly large mass of barbed wire sitting on a wooden platform, surrounded by exactly one chain-link fence and zero safety regulations.
“Behold!” Gabriel cried. “The Devil’s Hairball!”
Emily whispered, “I hate that I’m impressed.”
Cassie stood back with her arms crossed. “This is so profoundly dumb.”
“Take a picture of me pretending to hug it,” Gabriel said, already climbing the fence.
“Gabriel, no!” Thane growled. “Absolutely not—”
Too late.
Gabriel had one leg over the top when his jeans caught on a loose bolt and he immediately yelped, flailing. Thane rushed forward and hauled him off the fence like an angry bouncer.
“You are not going on stage in Amarillo with tetanus and one functioning pant leg.”
“But it’s metal!” Gabriel whined.
“So is a rabid badger,” Mark snapped. “Doesn’t mean we take selfies with it.”
In the end, Emily took a tasteful shot of the monstrosity from a safe distance. Jonah posed next to the sign pretending to look serious, and Gabriel got one group selfie where he tried to lick the fence and was smacked upside the head by Maya mid-click.
Back on the road, Gabriel was bandaged, pouting, and wearing one of Rico’s spare belts to keep his torn jeans from committing to a full wardrobe failure.
Thane collapsed into the booth with a groan. “I cannot believe we stopped for that.”
Gabriel grinned from across the aisle, one arm slung over the back of the seat, tail wagging. “Worth it.”
Mark grunted. “You’re lucky you’re adorable.”
“I know.”
The bus rumbled on, trailing dust behind it—and somewhere in the fields they left behind, a confused local was definitely wondering why a rock band’s tour bus had just made a pilgrimage to what looked like an agricultural safety hazard.