Page 109 of Vengeful Melodies

I drop to my knees beside her. “We’re not going anywhere,” I rasp, shaking, tears streaking through grime and blood. “Stay with me. Fight. Justbreathe for me.”

Wren screams behind us. Grey holds him back, both wide-eyed, trembling. Dreya lifts a trembling hand toward them.

“Hey, hey,” I whisper, brushing blood-soaked curls from her face. “Stay awake. You’re going to be okay.”

Her voice cracks. “He… was here. David… Bradley too…”

Then—she goes limp. Eyes rolling back, body sagging, every second a fight against the darkness pulling her under.

“No—” I grab her wrist, but the paramedics are shouting, frantic, loading her onto the stretcher. Alix is drenched in her blood. Sebastian is frozen, silent, broken. Kai looks like he’s about to collapse.

The ambulance doors slam. Lights blaze. They take her away—without us.

Wren screams, spins toward the van. Grey yanks open the passenger door. “Come on! Come on—we can beat them there!”

We pile in, hearts hammering, blood on our hands, desperation thick in the air—but we never make it.

We find the ambulance fifteen minutes later—tipped, broken, abandoned on a winding coastal road.

The night is suffocating. No sirens. No backup. Gravel crunches under our boots. Copper-blood scent hangs heavy.

Alix screams first.

The back doors hang open. One paramedic slumped over the dash, neck twisted wrong. The other sprawled on the pavement, chest hollowed by a gunshot. Blood streaks the white interior. The stretcher is gone.

So is Dreya.

Kaiser collapses to his knees, hands over his face, sobs wracking his body. Sebastian paces in frantic circles, hair tangled in his fists, guttural cries tearing from him. “No. No, no, no—this isn’t real! Where the fuck is she?!”

I can’t breathe. My chest is crushed. Every scream, every sob, every glance around me is a knife twisting deeper.

Then I see it.

Taped to the cracked plastic of the heart monitor—

A letter. Folded once. Our names in block letters.

I tear it open with shaking hands.

“You thought she was yours?

She was always mine.

She still is.

By the time you find her,

she won’t remember your names.

Just the sound of my voice.

She’s coming home to where it all started.

You should’ve—

—D.”

The rest is smeared in blood, dragged across the page like a clawed hand. Jagged. Final.