Page 102 of Vengeful Melodies

“No,” she whispers. “I need you to live. I need you all to live.”

She leans her head into my chest, and I wrap my arms around her small, shaking body.

We’re going to perform tonight.

But after that?

David, Bradley and Vivian are done breathing. If I have to wrap my hands around their throats and watch life bleed from their soulless eyes myself… I will fucking end this... for her.

The lights overhead hum like a warning.

We’re backstage, five minutes from curtain, but the room is silent. Dead. No warmups, no shots, no joking from Bash. Just Dreya—curled into herself on the couch with swollen eyes and a blanket of silence wrapped around her like armor.

Wren sits beside her, holding her hand like it’s the last goddamn thing anchoring either of them to earth.

And I can’t stop replaying it. The way her voice cracked. How her body shook. How it wasn’t just pain that came out of her when she spoke—it was years of rot buried so deep it didn’t even have a name until tonight.

David.

Her doctor. Her foster father.

The man who hurt her. Touched her. Used her.

The man who made her run to Wren. Who started the rumors. Who’s been sending her those texts.

The man who sent one more message tonight—only this time, it wasn’t about her.

It was about us.

A still photo of me, Bash, Alix, and Kai. Laughing. Relaxed. Exposed. Unprotected. She was asleep inside the bus when he sent it. Just a moment. Just one tiny, perfect moment he somehow made monstrous.

I felt the shift in her the second she saw it.

And then she broke.

Sobbing. Stammering. Telling us everything—like the words themselves might kill her to say.

And she said she was sorry.

So many fucking times.

Sorry for hiding. Sorry for ruining tonight. Sorry for not telling us earlier. Sorry for being her.

And now? She’s saying we can’t cancel the show.

That if we do, David will know.

“He’s watching,” she whispers. “If anything changes… he’ll know I told you.”

We’re five shows deep into this tour.

Five away from Europe.

Almost a year since she and Wren joined us.

Almost a year since we fell for her—each of us like we were drowning and she was the only breath left.

And now she’s begging us to keep breathing like nothing's wrong.