Chapter 40
FORTY
It’s been twenty-four hours since she left us.
A whole day.
It might have been the worse day of my fucking life. That includes the day I drank myself into a blackout with Oxy because I thought it’d help me forget her the first year we were in New York, but I ended up getting my stomach pumped. Nothing mattered without her then, and it holds true now.
Although, this whole thing does feel… off. Something’s not adding up and I’m determined to figure it out.
Birmingham was a great crowd, and the four of us genuinely gave everything we had left to make it a good show for them. But the problem is that we don’t have anything left.
We just landed in Cardiff, got to the hotel room, and are puttering around the room because we have an hour before we’re due at the venue. We all are just… empty.
My thoughts turn to Mel, as they usually do. I wonder what she’s doing right now. Is she upset? Does she miss us? Is she hurting like we are? Does she still love us?
Does she still love me ?
Something just doesn’t fucking feel right.
Not how she smiled at us as we went onstage in Manchester and blew a kiss to each of us, then stood there watching for a moment, before just suddenly leaving.
Not how we had all worked through the past and helping her find her footing with the annoying intricacies of our job.
Not when we had just finally gotten the girl.
Paul walks up with a sour expression on his face as he helps us unload our bags. Not that he needs to help us, when we only have one bag each and are more than willing to carry our own stuff. He’s here for a reason.
Fuck, I need a blunt. I can already feel a migraine coming on.
His eyes narrow and he throws a bag down a little harder than is polite.
“Have something to say, Paul?” I ask strongly, calling him on his attitude and giving him the chance to tell us what’s going on.
“It’s not my place,” Paul answers politely, but the clench of his jaw tells me that he wants to say it anyway.
“Please, speak freely.” Kai comes over, crossing his arms over his chest, mimicking an authoritative pose that says Paul better speak up and quickly.
Paul looks at Kai, his nostrils flaring with anger-tinted restraint. “How could you guys do that to her?” He asks quietly.
“Excuse me?” Reis steps in, standing on the other side of me and mirroring Kai’s stance.
“How could you just… dismiss her like that?”
“Are you talking about Melody?” I ask quickly, the pieces starting to slot into place in my mind. At Melody’s name Adam crosses the suite quickly to listen.
“Yeah.” Paul looks at me with a silent ‘duh.’ “Louis told me she was respecting your wishes, and she was… fucking devastated. You guys carted her around like she was special, you all doted on her, and then just threw her out?”
My heart beats faster and I stand up slowly. “Louis…” I repeat softly. That motherfucker.
He’s going to pay for this.
“We didn’t,” Reis tells Paul. “We didn’t want her to leave. We love her so much it hurts.”
“How did she have her stuff?” Kai presses, “How did she get to the airport? How did she get home? Is she at home? Is she safe?”
Paul looks at each of us hesitantly, like he’s trying to figure out if he can actually trust us. It’s clear he’s grown attached to Mel and while it’s nice that she has someone in her corner, if he doesn’t get on with the point, I’m going to choke him out.
Besides, her harem is closed.
Seemingly hearing what he needs to trust us, Paul’s expression changes quickly when he sees how we’re chomping at the bit for more information on Melody.
“When Louis pulled me to the front during the Manchester concert, her bags were all packed and at the venue. I assumed she had done it. I drove her to the airport myself, but Louis said she’d figure out her own way home.
Made her sign the NDA. It was cruel and hard to watch, but she handled him like a champ.
” I grit my teeth angrily and I can hear Kai growl beside me.
So not only did Louis manipulate her into leaving somehow, he also abandoned her to find her own way home internationally, all the while twisting the knife.
“What about her stuff? I had everything moved from Haven to New York,” Reis asks quickly, and I can hear the hope in his voice. Maybe she’s back in our apartment, sleeping in my shirt and lounging on the couch.
But Paul shakes his head. “She mentioned that Louis told her he had all her things moved back to Haven. She… gave me a hug, jumped from the SUV and I didn’t see her again.
I even checked her socials to make sure she was okay, but there’s nothing new posted since one of the selfies of her in London. ”
So much in that statement makes me want to shove him and tell him to back off our girl, but I know he’s just being helpful. But hearing that she hugged him as she was heartbroken makes me want to rip his arms off.
“Are you able to see her socials?” I ask quickly. If he’s not blocked and he’s friends with her, maybe Reis can message her somehow. Plead with her to hear us out and that we love her. That we absolutely did not want this.
“Yeah,” Paul nods, “You can’t? Her stuff isn’t private.”
“We can’t. We’ve all tried. Can we use your account?” Reis asks quickly. I see the spark in his eye that I’m feeling.
Hope.
“Yeah, sure.” Paul nods, handing over his phone to Reis quickly. We all watch as the one tether we have to Mel makes its way into Reis' hands.
“I’ll be really fast. Code?” Reis asks.
“4523,” Paul prattles off automatically and Reis smiles, running to grab his computer.
“So, Louis told you she had chosen to leave because we said we wanted her gone?” I ask, my chest tightening just a little.
“That’s what I was told,” Paul confirms.
“Why would she believe it, though? I thought… I thought we had shown her how much we love her. I thought she trusted us,” Adam asks, looking at me with eyes full of emotion.
“He must have done something.” I try to think back to every interaction to find any clue of what might have been said or done. “And I’m going to figure it out.”
“ We ,” Kai chimes in quickly. “We are going to figure it out. And when we do? He’s going to pay for this.”
“Fuck yeah, he is.”
Reis spends our free hour at his computer, searching for her and drafting messages, trying to do anything he can to get in contact with Mel. But she never responds.
I try not to spiral about her safety or her mental health. She’s strong, she’s smart, but those twenty-four hours where we thought she’d left us of her own choice… those brought me to my metaphorical knees. I can’t…
I don’t want to imagine how she felt being cornered by Louis and told all those disgusting things. Untrue things.
I need to find out how he proved to her that it was what we wanted. Was it the lipstick on Adam’s neck? Did another girl get to her? No, she would’ve come to us and kicked our asses.
It has to be something Louis did.
At the venue, we decide to go sniffing around. To keep up appearances, we take turns getting ready, saying hello to the new staff, all that stuff, but the rest of us look for any sort of clues. Anything that could give us an idea.
Paul said he’d keep an eye out as well. That he just wants to help Melody.
I’m trying really fucking hard here not to snap at him possessively about how she’s ours. Always has been.
But the guy’s been really helpful. He let Reis stay logged into his socials so he could keep trying to get to Mel, and there might be some light— not so light —stalking going on. We just need to talk to her.
I’ll approve of whatever he thinks he needs to do if it gets her talking to us.
Sound check goes well, we’re all dressed and ready, doors are open, the crowds ready, and we still haven’t found anything.
All of us stand on stage—starting masks on, waiting for the curtain to open, and I see movement out of the corner of my eye.
It’s hard to see with these masks on, but luckily we only wear them for the first little bit before we toss them aside.
Louis has kept his distance today, probably the first smart thing he’s done in months. But I see him, slithering backstage behind the tech desk and he plugs his tablet into the charger there, then walks off.
We didn’t check his tech.
I know it’s there.
I sling my guitar over my back and run across the stage.
“What the hell are you doing?” The tech guy’s startled and stops the curtain from opening. “The show starts now! ”
“Give me five minutes,” I say through the mask, my voice muffled as I pick up the tablet, tapping it so the lock screen lights up.
That motherfucking motherfucker.
I push my mask up, dropping my voice dangerously low. “Put on something, tell the crowd we’re going to be twenty minutes. At least .”
“Markus,” he starts to say, but I smack the table and a lot of very expensive equipment jostles.
“Do it!” I snap, turning on my heel, tablet in hand and wave it to the guys. They’re all staring at me with questions in their sad eyes. “I found it. We’ve got twenty minutes.”
And my best friends stalk off the stage like demons in the night with neon masks.
I growl, “Let’s go.”