Chapter 28 #2
“A bit longer. The organizer is insistent all guests stay until after Flake performs her new material.” Vale’s tone was almost sarcastic, which made Kieran feel a little better for some reason.
“She does have talent, but they’ve got her completely miscast. She’s an alto, but they’re forcing her to sing soprano at the top of her register.
All her recordings are technically beautiful but muddy because she’s too quiet at that key. ”
Kieran’s chest ached with sympathy for the singer. “That’s s-sad. Like she’s being set up to fail.”
“Welcome to the industry.”
As roadies set up a small stage area, Kieran grabbed a cocktail napkin instead, scratching lyrics while Vale hummed something soft and complex under his breath. The moment was intimate despite the crowd, like they existed in their own creative bubble.
The song had been haunting him since high school, back when he’d gone through a Greek mythology phase and devoured every story about gods and monsters.
He’d found the rhythm first, the flow that crashed like waves against ancient shores, but the words always eluded him.
Too grand, too heavy—every attempt was trying to capture lightning in amateur hands.
But now, with Vale’s humming providing texture and his fingers wrapped in gauze that turned writing into ceremony, the words were finally coming. Something about Icarus, about flying too close to what someone wanted most.
I don’t even know if he can sing.
“Vale, c-can you—” Kieran started to ask, but Vale went completely still beside him.
The change was immediate and terrifying—Vale’s entire body language shifted from relaxed to something stiff and alert as he squeezed Kieran’s hand painfully.
Across the room, someone’s voice rose above the ambient conversation—sharp, dismissive, cutting through the polite murmur.
Kieran couldn’t make out words, but the tone carried entitlement and cruelty, the type of public rudeness that paused other conversations and sent eyes darting away in secondhand embarrassment.
A server hurried past their position at the bar, her face flushed with barely suppressed tears.
“Eyes forward,” Vale said softly, but it was in that tone that made Kieran feel sick. That tone he was only used to hearing in the basement. “Don’t move. Stay here.”
Kieran forced himself to stare straight ahead, every muscle locked in compliance while his peripheral vision tried to catch whatever had triggered Vale’s sudden tension. Behind him, he could hear Vale moving, speaking in low urgent tones that sounded angry.
Minutes passed. Maybe five, maybe twenty—time was elastic when fear made everything hyperfocused. When Kieran finally dared to look around, Vale was gone.
He left me. He actually left me alone.
The realization hit with stunning force. For the first time in months, Vale wasn’t monitoring his every breath or controlling his every movement.
He could run.
The bartender was right there, wiping down the bar, close enough that Kieran could reach out and tap his shoulder. And somewhere in the back of Kieran’s mind, a half-remembered social media post surfaced: If you need help at a bar, ask for an angel shot.
A code word. A way to signal distress without making a scene.
His mouth opened. The words were right there, ready to tumble out and change everything.
But what if it was just a social media myth? What if this bartender had never heard of it? What if there was a different code word and asking for the wrong thing just made him look stupid or unstable?
And even if it worked—even if the bartender understood and called the police—what then? Vale would come back to find him gone. Or worse, find him mid-confession, and then he would find himself on the other end of whatever Hell existed for people who earned Vale’s angry voice.
The bartender moved further down the bar, the moment slipping away like water through Kieran’s gauze-wrapped fingers.
The panic started slowly, then accelerated as the reality of his situation crystallized. Without Vale’s steady presence, the room became too bright, too loud, too full of strangers who saw him as entertainment rather than person.
A woman in all white took the small stage—Flake, the artist Vale had talked about.
Her dress and platform heels gleaming white like fresh snow.
Her voice rose in pretty melody that should have been beautiful but sounded discordant against Kieran’s rising hysteria.
Too high, straining at the top of her register just like Vale had said.
I can’t breathe. I can’t think. Where is he?
“Hey.” Vander appeared beside him like salvation, grabbing a bottle of vodka from the bar. He hooked his arm around Kieran’s elbow and pulled him from the barstool. “I know a place for panic attacks. Come on.”
Kieran nodded frantically, following Vander away from the stage where Flake’s voice soared in keys that were all wrong, toward whatever refuge Vander was offering from the overwhelming chaos of existing without Vale.