And I was the architect of the chaos. My hands moved over the loop station and the synth pads, weaving layers of distortionand clarity, keeping the sonic wall from collapsing under its own weight.
My brain was running two parallel processes.
Process A: Manage the live mix, monitor the gain stages, ensure the feedback loops didn't scream.
Process B:She is alone on the bus. She is burning. She called for Option B.
Every time the stage lights swept over us, blinding and hot, I visualized the bus parked in the alleyway. I visualized the air scrubbers I’d installed, humming their futile little song against a biological tsunami. I visualized Zia, curled in the nest we had built but not yet inhabited, waiting for the set to end.
Knowing she was waiting, knowing she had unlocked the door, turned the three of us into something lethal.
"Glasgow!" Alfie roared into the mic, sweat slicking his hair to his forehead, his pink faux-fur coat discarded somewhere near the drum riser. "Are you alive tonight?"
The crowd roar registered at 108 decibels. Dangerous exposure levels. I barely tweaked the limiter.
"We've got one more," Alfie shouted, pacing like a caged tiger. "Standard set closer. You know the drill. 'Light It Up' on my count."
I prepared the patch.Bank 4, Preset 2.High energy, synth-heavy, aggressive tempo. Kit clicked his sticks together.One, two, three?—
Alfie turned.
He didn't look at the crowd. He looked at me. Then at Kit.
His eyes were blown wide, the gold in them swallowing the pupil. He wasn't looking at his bandmates. He was looking at his pack.
He shook his head. Once. Sharp.
Abort.
My stomach dropped through the floorboards.Do not deviate,I broadcasted silently, staring him down.We have a cue sheet. We have lighting triggers. We have a curfew.
Alfie ignored me. He stepped back to the mic stand, gripping it with both hands, leaning his weight until the metal groaned.
"Actually," Alfie breathed into the mic, his voice dropping from a shout to a raw, intimate rasp that silenced two thousand people instantly. "Scrap that. I don't want to light it up. I want to burn it down."
He looked over his shoulder at me. "Loop 7, Euan. The heartbeat. Just the heartbeat."
He couldn't meanthatsong.
Panic, cold and sharp, flooded my system. Loop 7 was the base track for "For the Engineer Who Ran." The raw demo. The one he’d uploaded to SoundCloud in a moment of emotional hemorrhage. We had never rehearsed it. We had never cleared it for live performance.
More importantly, Rowan, who was currently standing side-stage, would strip the flesh from my bones if we played an unreleased track that was essentially a public declaration of obsession with an anonymous staff member. Legal would have a stroke. Gareth Blake would try to monetize the romance rumors. It was a tactical disaster.
"Alfie," I hissed into the comms channel, my voice tight. "Negative. We are not cleared for?—"
"Cut the click, Kit," Alfie ordered over the PA, overriding my private channel protest.
Kit stopped. He looked at Alfie, then at me. A slow, wolfish grin spread across Kit’s face. The traitor. He dropped his sticks and picked up the mallets. Soft. Rolling thunder.
"Euan," Alfie said, not looking at me, just staring into the dark void of the audience. "Give me the heart."
My hand hovered over the pad.
Logic dictated I refuse. Logic dictated I force the transition into "Light It Up" and save us from the PR nightmare.
But then I saw Alfie’s thumb. He was rubbing it against the microphone stand. ASK > ASSUME.
He wasn't asking the crowd. He was asking me.Trust me.
