13. Jules
Jules
The pre-show interview went exactly as Camille intended: brief, polished, and so aggressively normal that even I struggled to make it interesting.
The concert is different. Crowds always feel different on opening night.
Not louder, though it is. Not bigger, though the Vegas arena is packed to the rafters.
Sharper.
Every scream lands deeper in my chest and lingers beneath my skin. By the time the four of us rise through the stage in a burst of light and smoke, the audience feels less like thousands of separate people and more like one enormous thing waiting to be told what to do.
Then the opening track hits, and there’s no room to think about it.
Light. Heat. Sound crashing over us.
Normal.
This is our normal.
I move into position, my body dropping into the choreography automatically. The steps belong to me. The stage belongs to us. For the next two hours, nothing exists outside the counts, the music, and the girls moving around me.
Mostly.
The crowd is alive tonight.
More than usual.
They’re not just reacting; they’re anticipating. Every time I turn, they’re already screaming. Every pause lands with perfect silence before the next beat tears through them.
Like they know what they’re supposed to feel before we give them a reason.
Huh.
Weird.
I don’t have time to think about it.
The routine ramps up, energy building, feeding into itself in a way that should feel good. And does. God, it does. Too good.
I hit the turn on count eight, slide into the next sequence, and the crowd loses it like they were waiting for that exact moment, like it means something beyond a few seconds of choreography I designed in an Eon studio three months ago.
Then we reach the new call-and-response section in “ECLIPSE RUN.”
The music drops. Kaia raises one hand.
“WHEN THE DARK COMES FOR US—“
The response phrase burns across every arena screen in white letters. The crowd answers.
“WE ECLIPSE AND RUN!”
Perfectly.
Thousands of voices strike the phrase on the same beat, no hesitation or variation. The sound rolls through the arena hard enough to vibrate beneath my feet.
For one second, something tightens in my chest.
Then the next cue hits, and I move.
That’s what I do. That’s what I’m good at.
***
By the time we come offstage, backstage is chaos.
Crew members reset equipment, security moves around us, and stylists descend with towels, water, and enough powder to disguise the fact that we’ve spent two hours sweating beneath industrial lighting.
“Two minutes to livestream,” someone calls.
“Engagement is already above projection,” another person answers.
Camille’s plan is working.
I catch a glimpse of her across the space, already in position, tablet in hand, talking to someone with that same precise, clipped tone she uses when she’s building something that’s about to work exactly the way she wants it to.
She’s changed out of the cream suit she wore earlier and into another cream suit that is somehow different only in ways probably visible to experts.
She doesn’t look at me. I don’t look either—
Okay, I look. But just for a second, then I look away.
The four of us are guided onto a low couch beneath softer lights. Cameras sit close enough to create what Camille called high-intimacy framing. I laughed when I heard it, but now I kind of get it.
It feels like the crowd is still here. Just… closer. Watching harder. Listening more carefully. Individual comments race across the monitor.
Camille remains behind the center camera with Blaire and Mr. Bane, near enough for the bond to hum steadily beneath my ribs.
The stream begins.
“Hey, everyone,” I say, slipping into the easy warmth that always works. “Vegas, you were completely unhinged tonight. We’re very proud.”
The comments flood in so quickly they blur into color.
“BEST SHOW EVER”
“MINA HEARTGLASS WAS SO PRETTY”
“JULES LOOK AT ME”
“ARE YOU ACTUALLY MARRIED”
“HOW DID YOU KNOW SHE WAS THE ONE”
I laugh. “Wow. Straight to the deep questions.”
The response spikes. I see it in the comments, hear it in the crew’s reactions, and feel it gathering beneath my skin.
Remy reads one of the questions from the screen. “‘When did everyone else find out about Jules and Camille?’”
“Approximately twelve seconds before the rest of you,” I joke.
Kaia gives me a look, then smiles for the stream. “That is not true.”
“It’s not,” I correct. “They were the first to know, obviously.”
The comments accelerate. More questions. More hearts. More people demanding details about the proposal we invented only this week.
The audience from the arena still feels present, only compressed into the room with us, watching harder now that they can see our faces up close.
Mina answers something about tour rehearsals. Kaia thanks everyone for opening night. Remy corrects a fan’s interpretation of one of her lyrics.
Then another question appears: “JULES ARE YOU REALLY IN LOVE”
I lean forward. “I mean, have you seen my wife?”
The comments explode.
Camille’s irritation flickers through the bond, clean and cold.
Usually, that would be funny.
This time, the reaction catches on something. The static energy of the post-show high beneath my skin tightens into rhythm.
One.
Two.
Three.
My mouth is already open when the next thought arrives.
Say it.
My breath stutters.
The words waiting behind my teeth aren’t mine. I try to laugh, but the sound comes out wrong. Too thin. My smile remains fixed while the room tilts slightly around me.
Mina notices first. “Jules?”
“I’m good,” I say automatically.
I’m not.
The pressure isn’t as violent as the rehearsal attack. It doesn’t seize my limbs or force itself over my body.
It probes. A whisper pressing against the edges of the bond, searching for somewhere thin enough to slip through. It tests my breath, my mouth, the rhythm beneath my thoughts.
The bond stops it from taking hold.
It does not stop me from feeling it try.
“Jules,” Remy says, sharper now.
Mina grips my forearm. Usually, that would be enough to pull me back.
Not this time.
The comments race faster on the screen…
“SAY IT”
“TELL US”
“ARE YOU IN LOVE”
Hungry.
The word drops into my head with sickening clarity.
The Mouthpiece isn’t only in the equipment. It’s in the demand, in thousands of people asking the same question at once and waiting for me to give them something.
Behind the cameras, Blaire is speaking sharply into her headset. “Cut the stream. Now.”
“The control board isn’t responding,” someone says.
The red light stays on.
Mina takes my hand. “Jules.”
My fingers won’t close around hers. The whisper settles into the rhythm of my pulse, nudging each beat into alignment.
One.
Two.
Three.
Say it!
My body shifts forward. Only an inch. Still wrong.
The comments keep racing across the monitor.
“IS JULES OKAY”
“WHAT’S HAPPENING”
“SHE LOOKS SCARED”
“IS SHE SICK”
Heat crawls up my throat. This is live. Millions of people are watching me lose control of my own body in real time, and beneath the humiliation, something colder opens inside me.
Fear.
Actual fear.
Then Camille steps into the frame. She crouches in front of me with a bottle of water, blocking part of the camera’s view as she twists off the cap. Her free hand closes around mine.
Lightly. Carefully.
This time, my fingers close around hers. The bond pulls taut between us, and the pressure in my skull stutters.
“Here,” she says. “Drink this.”
The comments accelerate.
“THAT’S CAMILLE”
“CAMILLE CAME OVER”
“OH MY GOD HER WIFE”
“IS THIS PART OF IT”
I barely register them.
Camille’s eyes hold mine. They aren’t cold now. Still pale, still sharp, but focused entirely on me with an intensity that makes the rest of the room blur.
“Jules,” she says quietly. “Look at me.”
The thing pushes once more.
Harder.
A last attempt to line itself up with my voice.
Camille’s expression changes by less than a degree, but I feel her reaction through the bond. Anger. Not panic. Not disgust. Refusal. The same cold, absolute refusal I felt in the corridor when she told the demon she was not allowing it to possess her.
But this time, it’s for me.
“Stay with me,” she says.
I do.
The rhythm breaks.
The whisper in my head withdraws so abruptly it feels less defeated than satisfied, like it learned what it came to learn and decided that was enough.
That thought scares me more than the possession attempt.
My body becomes mine again, and the room snaps back into focus, harsh and immediate. Camille presses the water into my hand without releasing the other one.
“Drink.”
I take a sip because arguing requires more coordination than I currently possess. The water is cold enough to hurt, but it helps. Camille remains crouched in front of me, clearer and closer than anything else in the room.
For one uncomfortable second, neither of us looks away.
She saw all of it. The fear. The moment I couldn’t make my own body listen. Every ugly second I usually bury beneath a joke before anyone notices.
The bond carries nothing from her except that same unwavering steadiness.
Somehow, that’s worse.
“I’m good,” I say.
Because of course I do.
Mina’s fingers tighten around my other hand, and the red camera light catches at the edge of my vision.
Right.
Still live.
The comments are moving too quickly to read now. Questions, panic, Camille’s name repeated between strings of hearts. Behind the cameras, Blaire is still trying to force the system offline.
I turn toward the lens and summon the easiest smile I can manage. “Sorry, everyone. Opening-night heat finally got me.” I lift the water bottle. “I’m fine. Hydrating. Being responsible. Very upsetting character development.”
The comments accelerate again, but the panic begins shifting into laughter and relief.
I glance at Camille, still crouched in front of me with our hands linked. “And, as you can see, I have a very loving wife here to take care of me.”
Her eyes narrow.
There she is.
The comments explode, so I lean into it.
“Extremely loving,“ I add. “Practically overwhelmed with tenderness.”