Chapter 25
Piper
The sun is nowhere. I mean, it’s technically there, somewhere beyond the grim quilt of clouds and last night’s city smog, but I won’t see it for another week unless I die and get reincarnated as an early-morning jogger.
The haze fogs even Nolan’s expensive Ray-Bans and settles inside my mouth, metallic and sour, like anxiety made physical.
From the darkness of the SUV, the highway appears empty except for us and a few doomed commuters.
Nolan drives with one hand on the wheel and one hand permanently flexed as a fist on his thigh.
He’s stone-silent except for the dry clicks of his tongue every time I refresh my socials, which is a lot because I’m constitutionally incapable of not reading my own bad press at six in the morning.
It’s anticipation, really. Kellen went live early this morning and told the world everything we’ve all been too afraid to say aloud.
It’s freeing having that information out there, but now we’re waiting for the fallout from Kellen’s parents and even Raelynn.
The same Raelynn who already sent me an intense email about all the interviews I’ll be doing today.
Don’t say anything re: Royals, Piper. Focus on the music. Only the music, or so help me.
I read it again as Nolan pulls into the VIP entrance of today’s music festival. We glide past two layers of security with ease given I’m one of the top performers, and then he sets me inside my green room without us running into any crazy fans or journalists looking for quotes.
Inside, it’s only marginally warmer and the air smells like damp plywood, popcorn, and electricity.
It doesn’t give me much hope. The best I can hope for is that the storm promised by the humid air and rising temperatures doesn’t happen while I’m on stage.
For some reason, the festival has decided the threat isn’t so great they’ll cancel, but I’m nervous as hell.
I get three steps into the green room before Raelynn appears like a blazer-clad vulture swooping down with her phone glued to her face.
“Piper, darling, we need to talk, now.” Her voice could cut granite. “We’re going to run you through press first, then you get fifteen minutes for makeup and soundcheck before your set.”
I try to protest, but Raelynn is already steering me by the elbow into the interview corridor, where a whole murder of reporters are lined up with notepads and ring lights.
I shoot Nolan a look—he shrugs, resigned.
The man is bulletproof, but even he knows better than to go toe-to-toe with Raelynn Roberts.
The next several hours blur into a relentless cycle: stand here, smile, dodge the question, let Raelynn intercept, repeat.
Every time someone tries to bring up Kellen or the livestream, Raelynn “accidentally” drops her phone or answers for me (“Piper is focusing on her music and her fans, aren’t you, sweetheart?
”) while I perfect the art of dissociation.
At some point, they shove a sandwich into my hand and I inhale it in three bites. Nolan is a wall at my side, saying nothing but radiating “I dare you” energy at any member of the press who gets too close. He looks like he wants to vaporize Raelynn, which is comforting. I almost ask him to do it.
By the time night falls, my jaw aches from fake smiling and my brain is TV static.
I barely remember the makeup chair or soundcheck, but I do remember my band.
They’re all here, bleary-eyed and running on gas station coffee, but when I return to the green room they cheer for me. It feels like home, almost.
Home is where my pack is.
My drummer, a talented-man in his thirties, comes over to hug me first. “Piper, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Two ghosts,” I say. “Maybe more. How many outlets are here with journalists?”
“Too many,” my guitarist says. She and the rest of the band hug me close, and once I’m fully dressed for the stage, we perform our pre-show ritual: a secret handshake and a short, motivational chant.
It’s only then I see it, printing in bold black ink. Our set list. It’s different than the one I reviewed this morning.
My hands curl into fists. The paper crinkles as my grip tightens, and heat crawls up my neck.
My acoustic tracks—my folk stuff, the songs I actually care about—have been slashed and replaced with the big stadium pop numbers.
I’m supposed to open with “Heatwave,” close with “Starlit Synth,” and bury every trace of the old Piper Sumner beneath layers of electronica and backup dancers.
I stare at the paper. The set list’s black ink blurs as my pulse hammers through my wrists. I know, without even having to ask, that this was Raelynn’s doing. She probably thinks she’s saving my career.
Not only did Raelynn change the setlist last-minute without warning me, she took away the songs I chose.
This is a festival. A big one, sure. But this isn’t a stop on the stadium tour.
Something inside me ignites.
I. Am. Done.
I dig my phone out of my purse and wave it at my band before typing out a message to our private group chat without Raelynn: Setlist has changed. Play the old version. Trust me.
A chorus of phones go off, and then they all check the message I sent them. Their faces bloom with determination and they nod.
They’re with me. Thank god.
Five minutes later, Nolan knocks on the door. “Ready?”
I look in the mirror and see myself for the first time in a long time. I am Piper Sumner, folk artist and omega, and I’m done pretending otherwise. If Kellen can stand up to his parents, then I can do this.
I breathe out. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
Backstage is a fever dream of people shouting over walkies.
The crowd’s roar vibrates through the metal flooring beneath my feet, a wordless, living thing that crawls up my legs and settles in my chest. My skin tingles.
The hairs on my arms stand up. For the first time since I opened my eyes this morning, I don’t taste anxiety on my tongue, only the tang of adrenaline and possibility.
Raelynn materializes at my elbow looking like she might eat her own face. “Don’t do anything reckless,” she hisses. “Not after this morning.”
I flash her a sweet as pie smile. “Of course not.”
She doesn’t buy it, but she has no time to argue. Nolan walks with me to the wings, radiating calm.
“If you want to bail, now’s the time,” he says.
“Not in this lifetime.”
The emcee shouts my name, the lights go down, and I step onto the stage.
It’s like being hit with a tidal wave of sound, heat, and color. The lights are so bright I can barely see the front row, but I can hear them, every voice screaming my name. It fills me up in a way nothing else ever has, not even the best day in the studio.
I open with “Heatwave,” because I’m not a monster and I know what they want. But halfway through, I break it down, strip away the backing track, and let my guitar do the talking.
I see confusion on the faces of the techs. Raelynn’s probably swallowing her own tongue backstage.
But then I launch into “Garden Walls,” one of my oldest songs, the kind I used to post in grainy videos before the world cared about me. The crowd catches on almost instantly—they sing along, some of them crying, some of them just swaying with their phones out.
I play through the whole folk set, just me and the band, and it feels like coming home.
The last song, “Evergreen,” is soft and slow. The wind picks up, mist swirling over the stage like dry ice. I’m halfway through the second verse when a boom of thunder shakes the sky, followed by the white-hot crackle of lightning somewhere way too close.
I freeze. I step back, one hand on my mic stand. Another flash of lightning zips through the sky. It must strike something relatively close because an explosion rockets through the air. I gasp and take a few more steps back without looking where I’m standing first and then—
Nothing. No floor beneath me, no grounding to anchor myself on. I sail off the edge of the stage.
I see my life in slow motion: I am Piper Sumner, I am halfway through the best set of my life, and I am about to eat shit in front of fifteen thousand people.
Except—I don’t. Because two shapes appear out of nowhere, right at the edge of the stage: one is Nolan, hair plastered to his head and face set to “kill or die trying,” and the other is Kellen, soaked but grinning like he just won the lottery.
They reach me at the same time. Nolan catches my arm, Kellen grabs my other hand, and together they catch me in a controlled drift toward the ground.
I can’t see the audience anymore, but I can hear them—screaming in fear and absolute, unhinged joy. Phones go up by the thousands, screens glittering like a second sky.
Elliot appears behind Kellen. His gaze is focused on every single person around us, but he takes a moment to check on me and nod.
I nod back. I’m fine.
Nolan sets me on the ground and checks me over. Kellen’s holding my face.
“Are you okay?” they both ask.
“I’m good, I promise.” I laugh a little, unhinged as it is. Nearly died but here I am laughing. “I’m okay.”
Another clap of thunder sounds. I jump into their arms.
Elliot comes in closer but doesn’t stop watching the crowd around us. There’s no danger here, though. Just a few thousand fans screaming in joy at seeing us all here together.
“Piper?” Kellen asks again.
I nod. “I’m okay, but I need to get back on stage. Even if it’s storming.”
Nolan gently nudges Kellen out of the way. “Here.” He puts his hands on my waist and hoists me up the few feet toward the edge of the stage. I climb back up and blow them each a kiss.
The crowd goes insane. Cheers and hollers galore.
I chuckle unsteadily into the mic. “Well, you know what they say, sometimes you just fall head over heels for the right pack.”
The crowd cheers again as a blush creeps up my cheeks.
“Shall we try that song one more time before we end our set?” I ask and then turn to the band to ask them the same.
More applause sounds and we play “Evergreen” one more time without me falling off any stages or more thunder sounding. The storm must be passing somewhere relatively distant, the danger over now. But that’s also a lie. The danger is waiting for me backstage in the form of Raelynn Roberts.
I walk back to my band when our set ends and we hug like we did after every show on our last tour.
Then I sneak off to the side where Nolan is waiting for me.
Nolan leads me through a not entirely legal path away from the backstage area and to the SUV lot where Elliot is already waiting with Kellen.
I run to them as my heart thunders against my ribs.
Elliot’s hands catch my waist mid-leap, his fingers pressing firmly enough to leave phantom imprints as he swings me in a dizzy circle.
The scent of pine and ocean swirls around me when he sets me down, and Kellen’s thumb traces my rain-dampened cheek before his mouth claims mine.
When he releases me, Elliot’s calloused fingers tilt my chin upward, his kiss more restrained but no less devastating.
Nolan’s growl is barely audible as he tugs me toward him, one hand tangling in my hair as his lips crush against mine.
My pack, whole again.
“I love you all so much.” I look at them each in turn. “I hope you know that.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Kellen says.
Elliot smirks. “Like there was any chance the world could keep us apart.”
Nolan crosses his arms. “It never stood a chance.”
Raindrops slam against my skin like tiny bullets, cold and sudden.
The sky has stopped growling, but it’s still crying.
I yelp as water slides down my collar, and we scramble toward Elliot’s SUV, our shoes splashing through puddles already forming on the asphalt.
The tinted windows swallow us whole, doors slamming in quick succession.
Elliot guns the engine before I’ve even buckled my seatbelt, tires hissing against wet pavement as Raelynn’s silhouette appears in my side mirror, phone already pressed to her ear.
Not this time, Raelynn.