Page 99 of Vengeful Melodies

It wrecks me.

She shouldn’t have to live like that. Not here. Not with us.

I close the space between us, dropping my palm to the small of her back. Her heat seeps through the cotton, electric. My voice scrapes low.

“You stay close to me today, Darlin’. You hear?”

Her gaze lifts. There’s sweat on her skin, tension carved into her shoulders, but her voice holds steady.

“I hear you. Loud and clear.”

Good.

Because I’m not letting her out of my sight.

Not after the leak.

Not after the texts she won’t show us.

Not after that night on the bus when she shattered in our hands—when we all tasted what it meant to worship something real.

We move together across the lot, one organism—tight, quiet, dangerous. Crew parts like the Red Sea. They know. Everybody does.

Inside, the venue is cooler, shadows stretched long across the stage. My drums wait in the distance, my sanctuary, my sin. But my eyes stick to her. Always her.

She drifts to Bash’s side, his sunglasses slipping as he flashes her that grin, fingers sliding into hers like it’s the most natural thing in the world. She laughs, but her eyes betray her—flicking to the exits, the corners, the dark places where danger lingers.

Takoa notices too. He moves slow, deliberate, sliding an arm over her shoulders, murmuring something into her hair. Her chest loosens, just a fraction, as she exhales.

And for one second, the mask slips.

It should make me jealous. Instead, it makes something darker coil in my chest. Because it doesn’t matter whose hand she’s holding or whose shoulder she leans on. She belongs toall of us now.Whether the world understands it or not.

Kaiser sidles up beside me, chewing on candy, eyes tracking the same scene.

“You feel that?” he mutters.

“Yeah.”

“It’s gonna blow soon.”

“I know.”

We fall quiet. Not because we’re calm. Because we’re ready.

Bash’s voice cuts the silence, cocky as ever. “Careful, Alix—you glare any harder, you’re gonna set her on fire.”

I shoot him a look sharp enough to kill. “Keep running your mouth and I’ll setyouon fire.”

He smirks wider, tugging Dreya closer just to spite me. “Maybe she’d like to watch.”

Takoa snorts. “Or join in.”

Her cheeks flush, and my chest squeezes tight. Not anger. Not jealousy. Something hungrier.

Because they’re not wrong.

We orbit her, all of us. Different pieces of the same storm. And she’s right there in the center—our anchor, our ruin, our fucking salvation.