The Junior

Chapter Eight - Bad Blood

Emily's POV

I rushed over to the recording studio to find Kaitlyn and the members of TBD distraught and near tears. "I came over as soon as I heard! What's this about your recordings being deleted?" I asked.

"It gets worse..." Kaitlyn said.

The band moved aside, and I saw that Kassidy's drums were slashed and overturned, the overhead mics were torn down, and the mic stands lie on the floor, snapped into pieces. "Oh my God!"

Annisa wrapped Kaitlyn in a hug. Kaitlyn slumped against her shoulder for a moment, then pulled away again. "The equipment was like this when we got here this morning."

"And when we signed into the studio's database, all our music files were gone!" Annisa exclaimed.

"And we mean all," Rachel said.

Rachel pulled open a drawer. It was full of broken shards of plastic. "Wait, are those...?" I asked.

"Our hard copies."

"I kept all our backups here because I thought the studio would be safer than an apartment. God, I'm such an idiot!" Kaitlyn exclaimed.

"That's awful, do you have any idea who would do this?" I asked.

"Not a clue. My beef with the Loose Pins ended forever ago. Besides, they're on tour in Germany right now. We get along really well with all the other bands who record here."

"Same with everyone at our gigs. We've always been respectful of the venues we perform at," Annisa said.

"So there's no one who might hold a grudge?" I asked.

"The folks who work for Hartfeld's Student Housing department don't like me very much. Although I don't know why," Rachel said.

"Raise your hand if you know why."

Everyone in the room raised their hand. "Hey. It's not my fault my last twelve roommates requested transfers!"

"I'm sure it had nothing to do with sharing a room with a community of cockroaches..."

"This is fascinating and all, but something tells me Student Housing isn't responsible for this," Kaitlyn said.

"Do the police have any idea who might have done this?"

"Amnesiac Cat Studios wouldn't call them. We haven't been able to convince them a break-in even happened!" Annisa exclaimed.

"Wait, what? Why wouldn't they want to report this?"

"While our music's gone, nothing was actually stolen, and the alarm never went off," Kaitlyn said.

"Doesn't the studio have a security guard?"

"Yeah. One guy, for the whole building. He can't be everywhere at once," Rachel said.

"But what about the equipment? That's clear destruction of property!"

"Since it's technically my equipment, the manager said he can't account for what condition it was in before the break-in," Kassidy said. "I think he's still salty that we brought in our own stuff to make up for his shoddy tech."

"And since it's not covered by the studio's insurance, he doesn't get anything by reporting it," Annisa said.

"What a dirtbag. Does he think you deleted your own recordings and smashed your own equipment?" I asked.

"Not exactly. He just says there isn't enough evidence that a crime occurred," Rachel said.

"So what happens now?"