CHAPTER forty-four
You Became the Monster
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
I don’t think I’ve ever run so fast in my life, the hope carrying my feet on the pavement. Cody is waiting in the driveway for me when I arrive, and we jump in his mom’s car and race to the hospital.
I send Ashton a text as we speed down the highway.
“What did the doctors say?” I ask, still panting slightly from the run.
“They didn’t say much, just that he’s awake. Not talking yet, but awake.”
A warmth spreads through me, and it feels like color is flooding my skin. Every time I had looked in the mirror the last few days, it looked ashen. Lifeless.
Nora pulls up in front of the hospital and lets Cody and me out. He grabs my hand, and we sprint into the building. We run past the reception desk and down the hallway to his room, almost sliding past it.
The door is cracked, so we open it slowly. When we step into the room cautiously, I see him. He is sitting up, not all the way, but not horizontal like he has been. He looks so utterly exhausted, his eyes barely open, but when he hears us, he turns his head and our eyes meet.
Tears immediately spring and trail down my cheeks. When we approach the bed, Cody and I both throw our arms around him simultaneously, all sobbing.
“I’m so happy you’re alive, I could kill you,” Cody says through sobs.
He grips Cody’s hair with one hand and mine with the other. His grip is weak, but I can feel the mix of love and pain in his hold.
The doctor steps into the room.
“It’s going to be hard for him to speak from removing the intubation, but his vitals are stable for now. We’re not out of the woods, but we’re pleased with his progress… He’s lucky to be alive.”
I turn back to him and take his hand in mine. I lower my face to his, our foreheads touching.
“I thought we lost you.”
He doesn’t say anything. He can’t. He just squeezes my hand.
A sound from the doorway draws all our eyes. Nora stands there, framed by the pale light spilling in from the hall. Her movements are careful, as though one wrong step might break the fragile silence.
I press a kiss on Elias’s forehead before stepping back, giving space that suddenly feels sacred. The air in the room thickens, every breath suspended, every heartbeat loud.
Elias looks toward her, and something in him shifts. His face crumples into an expression I’ve never seen before—it’s almost childlike. Fear and guilt twist together, stripping him down to something heartbreakingly vulnerable.
She approaches slowly, the hush of her footsteps loud against the stillness, until she reaches his bedside. With trembling fingers, she brushes a strand of hair from his forehead, her touch reverent, her eyes glistening silver with unshed tears.
Across the room, Cody stands rigid, one arm crossed tightly over his chest, the other pressed into a fist against his mouth as though it’s the only thing keeping his emotions contained.
His hand finds hers—tentative at first, then clutching desperately. His lips shape two fragile words, barely audible but clear enough to split the air.
“I’m sorry.”
Nora’s tears finally fall, sliding unchecked as she leans closer, her voice soft and steady despite the tremor in it.
“It’s okay, sweet boy. We’re okay.”
The dam inside Elias breaks. He pulls her into him with a fierceness that nearly swallows her, holding on as though this embrace might stitch together all the jagged pieces. My own vision blurs, tears spilling freely as I witness the kind of forgiveness that heals old wounds.
The doctor advised us to let him rest, that his body is still dangerously weak, every movement draining the little energy he has left. I told them I wouldn’t leave him again, and I meant it.
I’ve been curled up on the stiff couch tucked into the corner of his room the last four days. My heart has been anchored here.
We haven’t gotten to talk much; the hospital staff come to check him often and make him walk every few hours, which wipes his energy. Most of the time, he’s been sleeping.
Cody is passed out on a makeshift pallet on the floor beside me. He insisted on staying too.
Jasper, Grady, Sasha, Ashton and Danya stop by every day. They don’t stay long, not enough space for everyone to stay, but they come to see him even when he’s resting.
At some point, sleep finds me, too.
When I blink awake this morning, sunlight streams through the narrow hospital window, casting gold across the sterile white sheets of Elias’s bed. The room feels suspended in quiet, the kind that hums against your skin.
I stretch, yawning deep from the pit of my stomach, and glance over.
He’s still asleep.
His chest rises and falls in a slow, steady rhythm, like he’s floating somewhere between this world and another. I know how hard his body is working to heal. I know how hard his soul has been fighting for far longer.
I smile faintly.
He didn’t give up. Not even when it would’ve been easier.
Cody is still saw-snoring on the floor, one arm flung over his eyes. It’s probably the first decent sleep he’s had in days. I reach carefully for my phone, trying not to stir either of them.
A few texts from my parents. I’d updated them—told them Elias was stable, and slowly improving. I could feel my mom’s emotions through her reply. They’ve grown to love him in their own way, and this whole thing has shaken them too.
I reply quickly, then swipe away from the thread.
I swipe over to my photos, and the second the gallery opens, a lump rises in my throat. Six months of moments spill across the screen—a kaleidoscope of color and light, the montage of the best months of my life.
I scroll slowly, each picture a pulse in my chest.
The summer tour that bled into fall.
Cody’s endless, unhinged antics—him balancing a traffic cone on his head, the blurry shot of him pretending to wrestle a parking meter.
A photo of my bare feet propped up on the dashboard, a ribbon of scenic highway stretching into the horizon like it was leading us toward something bigger than all of us.
Dozens of show photos—the guys onstage, sweat-slicked, electric, commanding the crowd like they were born for it.
And then the ones I took of Elias.
The ones I pretended were “for socials,” though even in the moment I knew that was only half-true.
Candid shots of him tuning his guitar, hands steady but eyes far away.
Him chatting with Grady on stage.
Him leaning against a brick wall outside a venue, looking like a secret I was terrified to want.
One of our hands linked together as we walked down a moonlit city street.
My thumb pauses as I reach a photo I had transferred from my real camera—the one I saved intentionally, planning to post it on the band’s page after the Atlanta show.
Elias is surrounded by fans, their hands reaching for him, their faces bright with adoration. And in the center of it all is him—a real smile, soft and unguarded, cutting through the darkness.
Something inside me loosens in the smallest, gentlest way.
I smile too—brokenly, achingly—because I remember that moment.
Because it was real.
Because for a second, he let himself glow.
When I finally scroll away after looking for longer than I would like to admit I see a video from Halloween night.
I tap it open.
The screen lights up with strobes, the kind that paint shadows over everything. I see myself dancing, hair flying, eyes bright. Cody grabs the phone and flips the camera around on himself, grinning widely, arms out as he spins.
I smile instinctively, then my eyes narrow on what else I see.
A figure bumps into Cody from behind, nearly knocking him sideways. He turns and scowls playfully.
“Rude,” he mouths, before turning back to dance.
But my eyes are glued to the figure.
A mask. White and black. Scream.
And a necklace.
A thick silver chain with a round pendant. Something about it tugs hard at my brain.
I rewind. Play it again.
There. That necklace.
I pause and zoom in.
My pulse kicks. I’ve seen that pendant before—distinct, almost ancient-looking. Three serpent heads curling outward in opposite directions. The symbol clings to the back of my mind.
Then it hits me.
Traeger.
Every time he walked into a room, that necklace caught the light, bold and bizarre like a warning sign.
My heart thuds.
The masked figure. The necklace.
My memory jerks violently to that night—the moment right before I stepped onto the bus and found Elias unconscious.
I saw someone.
A man in a Scream mask stepping off the bus and vanishing into the dark. I thought it was just a fan—someone drunk, out of place, blending in with the chaos.
But now I know better.
It was him.
It was Traeger.
I sit up straighter, the blood draining from my face. My breathing quickens.
Why the hell was Traeger at our show? On our bus?
Last anyone had heard, he’d all but disappeared. Swallowed whole by scandal, lawsuits, and disgrace. We assumed he was buried in legal hell or hiding from the public eye.
But he wasn’t. He was there.
He was watching, he was hiding.
And he waited until we weren’t looking.
Everything slots together with sickening clarity.
The mask.
The necklace.
The timing.
The cowardly way he fled.
This wasn’t Elias spiraling.
This wasn’t a relapse.
This was an ambush.
Traeger did this.
He came to destroy the one thing Elias had built from the ashes of Hellwake. He couldn’t stand to see him thrive—loved, respected, happy.
So he drugged him. Tried to kill him. And knew that if it didn’t kill him, no one would believe he didn’t do it to himself because of his past.
My hands shake as I clutch the phone to my chest, heart thundering like it might crack bone. I want to scream, to smash something, to rewind time and stop it before it ever happened.
But all I can do is sit there, breath catching in my throat, staring at the man I love, still asleep, still fighting, and vow that I will never let that bastard get away with this.