61-Zach
Neil arranges a private car to take me from the hospital to the hotel.
Traffic crawls. Kit’s already on the bus to Denver, but there’s speculation on whether there’s even going to be another show.
We inch past the festival grounds. The field is empty now—no music or cheering, bodies pressed together in joy.
Just debris and an eerie silence, the skeleton of what used to be.
A sour metallic smell clings to the air, the scent of trampled earth and broken machinery.
Police tape flaps in the wind as floodlights bleach the wreckage.
I’m falling again; the cold, smoky mist pushing against me. The air thickened, like invisible hands bracing my fall.
Did anyone else see or feel it?
I’ve been avoiding my phone, but Neil texted saying there are NDAs and paperwork I need to sign before meeting with festival reps. So, reluctantly, I open my email.
And immediately regret it.
There are dozens of messages from news stations trying to reach me, the cracked screen filled with subject lines:
IS THIS THE WOMAN JUDAS SCREAMED FOR?
EXCLUSIVE: THE ZACH BEHIND THE SURGE!
With my stomach in knots, I open one and click on the link. A social-media video, currently at two million views, starts playing. The narrator’s voice is bright and chirpy, disturbingly cheerful considering the circumstances.
A collage flashes across the screen of Kit leaving the concert with his hood up, me in the crowd, and the moment Judas shouts my name as I fall. Carter’s mugshot pops across the screen, and I nearly choke. He stares at me, eyes sunk and swollen.
“Oh my God,” I whisper, head spinning. “Oh my God!”
The video loops again, and I slam my phone face-down on the seat.
It’s a total invasion of my privacy. Every skeleton in my closet’s being dragged into the light and dissected by strangers. Against my better judgment, I open the comments.
she’s too average for Judas lol
he can do better
she doesn’t deserve him
My DMs are flooded.
you nasty—
I don’t read the rest. I hit “select all” and delete every request. I open my profile, and there are debates everywhere in the comments of my videos.
Does she deserve him?
His fans should respect his privacy.
He should respect his fans.
She’s using him.
Him. Him. Him—nothing about me, or what I wanted.
My throat tightens, the comments blurring as humiliation burns hot behind my eyes. I set everything to private, knowing it’ll confirm the speculation, but I don’t care. I need the distance. Managers, old classmates, people I haven’t spoken to in years, are suddenly messaging me.
But Kit hasn’t called. Or texted.
He’s going to have to deny, deny, deny. If there’s any chance of the heat dying down, we have to stay far apart.
Panic surges through me, and I call Neil.
“Hey,” he says, answering on the first ring as if he was staring at his phone, “you on your way?”
“I’m not fired, am I?”
“Um… no.”
“Neil,” I ask slowly, “am I getting kicked off this project?”
The longest pause of my life.
“Look, kid…just get to the hotel and we’ll discuss everything, okay? Before you freak out, you are not off this project. This is yours. I just want to present you with a few options that might be better. I don’t give a rat’s ass about the project. I care about you.”
I exhale shakily. “Okay. I trust you.”
“Good. See you soon.”
Click.
I stare out the window, thinking about Carter’s mugshot, my once-battered face, the trial, and car accident, all of it yanked into the spotlight.
This is Kit’s worst nightmare come to life, only it isn’t his life under the microscope.
It’s mine. Somehow, I’m the one paying the price for his limelight.
Resentment coils in my gut, palpable.
The car pulls into the hotel’s underground garage as reporters swarm the front entrance. Neil and a keen-eyed woman in a tailored pinstripe suit wait by the service elevator. As soon as the door opens, the woman pounces. Her heels click like gunshots against the tile.
“I don’t care what you two did in private,” she says briskly as she takes my elbow and hurries me down a back hallway. “That’s between you and Kit. But Judas cannot be part of it.”
“I understand,” I murmur, numb.
“I’m issuing a statement denying any romantic involvement. You simply work together. He saw a coworker in danger and reacted. Look me in the eye and tell me I’m making the right choice.”
I peer up at her, low cheekbones, clipped bangs, and a glare like polished steel. “Yes.”
“Good,” she says, “because from now on, unless it’s on camera, you two will stay as far apart as possible. Since clearly you two are incapable of keeping things private, we’ll keep them nonexistent.” She reaches into her briefcase and takes out a stack of stapled papers. “I need you to sign this.”
“What is it?”
“A contract of your compliance.”
“Wait,” I say, grabbing her arm to stop her, “are you saying you’ll sue me if I talk to Kit?”
“In so many words, yes.”
“So, you’re basically commanding us to break up?”
“Were you two together?” She leers, pure venom. “I get it,” she says, softening slightly, “but for the good of everyone on this tour, put it on pause until it’s over. If you can’t do that, well, then I think you’ll have a very difficult time finding future work.”
“Irisha,” Neil snaps, but she holds up a blood-red nail, long and pointy as a needle.
“I want that signed before you go to Denver,” she says, turning on her matching red-bottom heel.
Neil gives me a solemn look and follows her. I stand frozen, the hallway spinning as my world collapses in less than twenty-four hours.
“You coming?” Neil calls from the end of the hall.
My knees wobble, barely holding me upright. “Yeah.”
I force my legs to move and follow him to my execution. I’ve known this was coming since Kit and I spent the night together in the hotel room. Since Endymion warned me not to cross that line. I didn’t want to hear it then, and don’t want to hear it now. But gods don’t waste their breath.
My heart feels like it’s trying to claw its way out of my chest. I’m going to sign the damn thing. I have to. For him. For me. Because if I keep fighting this, clinging to him while pretending we can outrun the consequences, I’ll destroy us both.
Ever since I let myself fall into him, things have gone from bad to worse. One disaster after another, each one with our names tangled in the fallout.
The universe is ripping us apart by the seams.