Chapter 31 #2
Kieran’s stomach dropped. The gentle hand in his hair suddenly felt less like comfort and more like warning.
“Why did you leave the bar, Kieran?”
The question was soft, almost conversational, but Kieran heard the steel underneath. His mouth went dry.
“I— I was having a panic attack. The crowd, the noise, I c-couldn’t—and Vander—”
“He led you away?” Vale asked, still gentle. Still dangerous. “Vander Moss. The guitarist mentored by Nox. From Two Suns Studio.”
Oh no.
“The same studio,” Vale continued, “that I explicitly warned you about. What were my exact words, Kieran?”
Kieran’s voice came out barely above a whisper. “Stay cl-close to you around people fr-from Two Suns.”
“Stay close,” Vale repeated. “Not go off with them to a private room. Not accept drinks and cigarettes and let your guard down.”
“He was h-helping—”
“Was he?” Vale’s grip in Kieran’s hair tightened. “Or did he deliver you exactly where Nox wanted you? Alone. Vulnerable. With alcohol in your system to slow your reflexes.”
No. Vander was kind. Vander understood panic attacks. He wouldn’t—
“He left you here,” Vale said, reading Kieran’s expression. “Alone. Because that’s what people do, Kieran. They take what they want from you and they leave you to deal with the consequences.”
Kieran couldn’t respond, he couldn’t even argue, because it was true. Vander had left. And Kieran had been too slow, too compliant, too fucking broken to protect himself.
“But before that,” Vale said, voice dropping even lower, “before Vander and Nox and the green room—I gave you a simple command. Do you remember?”
Eyes forward. Don’t move. Stay here.
In that basement voice. The tone that meant absolute obedience, no exceptions, no excuses. The command Kieran’s body had been trained to follow without question.
“I was p-panicking—”
“And if you had stayed where I put you, you would have panicked safely. At the bar. Where I could see you. Where I could get back to you in seconds.” Vale’s hand slid from Kieran’s hair to his throat, his fingers resting over the fresh gauze wrapping.
“But you left. You disobeyed. And what happened?”
Kieran’s eyes burned with tears he refused to let fall. His throat worked under Vale’s fingers, swallowing against a pressure that wasn’t there but crushed anyway.
“H-he tried t-t-to—”
“He tried to take advantage of you,” Vale agreed, his tone still terribly gentle. “Because you disobeyed. Because you went with someone I warned you about. Because you let your guard down in a private room with a predator. Because you didn’t listen to me.”
It’s my fault. The thought tasted like poison, but it settled into Kieran’s chest like truth. Vale had given him one command. One simple rule to keep him safe. And Kieran had broken it. He let panic over ride Vale’s authority and put himself in danger because he couldn’t just fucking listen.
“I’m sorry,” Kieran choked out, his tears finally spilling over. “I’m sorry, I should have stayed, I should have listened—”
“Shh.” Vale’s hand on his throat became a caress. “I know you’re sorry. But sorry doesn’t undo what happened. Sorry doesn’t erase the fact that I left you alone for a few minutes and you proved you can’t be trusted to keep yourself safe.”
He’s right. I can’t be trusted to keep myself safe. I need him and his supervision. I need his hand on me like a leash , because without it I’ll wander straight into danger.
“I was handling a situation that required my attention. You were safe at the bar. Protected. Visible. And I thought—” He paused, the hand on Kieran’s throat tightening fractionally.
“I thought you understood by now that when I give you a command, I do it for a reason. That I know better than you do what will keep you safe.”
“You d-do,” Kieran gasped, desperate to fix this, to make Vale understand he knew he’d fucked up. “You were right, I sh-sh-should have st-stayed, I won’t—”
“You won’t what?” Vale’s eyes searched his face. Knowing. Dissecting. Peering into his soul.
Kieran couldn’t stop the tears streaming down his face and burning in the split of his lip.
“I understand. I d-do. I n-need—I need you. To keep me safe. I c-can’t—” His voice broke.
“I can’t trust my own judgment. I can’t prot-protect myself.
I need you t-to tell m-m-me what to do. I just—I f-f-fuck everything up. ”
“There it is,” Vale murmured, leaning in to press his forehead against Kieran’s. “There’s my good boy.”
The smile that spread across Vale’s face was terrible in its warmth, its satisfaction, its absolute certainty. His hand left Kieran’s throat to cup his face with both palms, his thumbs wiping away tears.
I need him. I need someone to tell me what to do because I can’t be trusted. I disobeyed and look what happened. Look what I let happen to myself.
“I n-need you,” Kieran whispered, the words surrender and relief and absolute truth. “I’m s-s-sorry I didn’t listen. I’m s-sorry I left the bar. I’m-m-m sorry I—”
“Stop.” Vale pressed a finger to Kieran’s lips. “I know you’re sorry. And I know you’ll try harder next time. Won’t you?”
“Yes.” The word came out muffled against Vale’s finger.
“Good.” Vale pulled back slightly, studying Kieran’s face. “Now. You want to perform tonight. You want to take what Nox did to you and transform it into art. Make the pain mean something.”
Kieran nodded frantically, relief flooding through him that Vale understood, that Vale wasn’t going to take this away from him.
“Then let’s make sure you stay in the right emotional space,” Vale said, the smile growing on his face as his eyes darkened. “Because I can already see you trying to distance yourself from it. Building walls to protect yourself from the memory.”
He’s right. I can sense it happening. The numbness creeping in, the dissociation trying to carry me away from the horror of what happened.
“I need the wound to stay open,” Kieran said quietly. “Long enough to perform it properly. But I can sense myself— I’m already trying to forget. To make it not matter.”
“Because that’s what survivors do,” Vale said, almost kindly. “They protect themselves by distancing from the trauma. But you’re not trying to survive this, Kieran. You’re trying to transform it. And transformation requires you to stay present with the pain.”
Vale’s hands moved to Kieran’s shoulders, gripping with just enough pressure to ground him.
“Close your eyes,” Vale instructed.
Kieran obeyed, his eyelids fluttering shut. His other senses sharpened immediately—the smell of the spilled vodka and blood, the sound of the event continuing somewhere beyond the green room door, Vale’s hands on his shoulders like anchors.
“Think about the moment Vander left you alone with Nox,” Vale said softly. “The exact moment you realized he wasn’t coming back. That you were alone with a predator.”
Kieran’s breath hitched, the memory slamming into him with visceral clarity. Nox’s smile widening. The door closing. The silence deafening.
“He grabbed m-my tie,” Kieran whispered, throat tight. “Twisted it around his hand. Used it like a— like a leash.”
“Like you were something to be controlled. Something that belonged to him.” Vale’s grip on Kieran’s shoulders tightened. “How did that feel?”
Wrong. Terrifying. Like my body wasn’t mine. Like I was just an object.
“It was like dr-drowning,” Kieran managed. “Like I c-couldn’t breathe. Or think. Couldn’t—”
“Couldn’t fight back,” Vale finished. “Because you didn’t know him and you didn’t trust him. Your instincts told you to freeze because he was a stranger. That’s what happens when you’re with someone who doesn’t care about you. Someone who sees you as prey instead of someone precious to protect.”
Kieran’s eyes were burning.
“But with me?” Vale’s voice dropped lower, intimate and certain. “You know my touch. You know my control. When I tell you to comply, when I guide you through a lesson, you trust that it’s for your growth. For your art. That I would never hurt you the way he did.”
No. That’s not— you do hurt me. You hurt me all the time.
But even as the thought formed, Kieran couldn’t hold onto it. Because Vale HAD saved him. He burst through that door with violence Kieran had never seen from him before.
“The difference between Nox and I,” Vale continued, still in that hypnotic murmur, “is that everything I do—every lesson, every command, every moment of control—is to protect you from a world full of predators like him. To keep you safe.”
His thumbs continued their gentle movement across Kieran’s face, wiping away tears that kept falling.
“And tonight proved you still need me to protect you from them,” Vale continued. “You froze with Nox because you didn’t have me there to guide you. Because you’d left the safety I’d created for you at the bar. Because you disobeyed the one command that would have kept you away from him.”
Yes. If I had stayed at the bar, this never would have happened. If I had listened, I would have been safe.
“That’s what you need to channel,” Vale said, voice still terribly gentle.
“Not just the assault. Not just Nox’s cruelty.
But the betrayal of everyone who should have protected you and didn’t.
Vander, who left you alone with his mentor.
The industry, which is full of men like Nox who see artists as things to consume.
Even yourself—for disobeying the one person who actually keeps you safe. ”
Kieran’s hands shook, the notebook falling from his grip onto the couch.
He saved me. He broke down the door and saved me. He’s the only one I can trust.