He looked for doubt or hesitation in my expression, but I knew he wouldn't find it.
"Okay," he said finally. "We move first. It's important that we document and communicate. We make sure that when they try to contain this, they can't do it quietly."
"Will that work?"
"I don't know, but it's better than waiting for them to set the terms."
Someone knocked on the door. A handler's voice called through: "Thirty minutes."
"Understood," I called back.
Griffin moved toward the door and paused with his hand on the handle.
"Yoon-jae," he said. Just my name. Nothing else.
I heard everything he couldn't say out loud.
Whatever happens, I'm staying.
He left me standing alone in the green room, heart pounding but hands steady. A reckoning was coming in five days, and I would not wait for someone to decide whether I deserved to exist.
Whatever happened next, it would happen because I chose it.
Chapter nine
Griffin - Portland - May 9
Our conversation ended when we stepped into the hallway.
A handler's voice echoed behind us, delivering a thirty-minute warning. Staff moved past with clipboards and headsets. Someone laughed too hard near catering.
I moved first, alert but unhurried. Rune matched my pace without discussion. We didn't speak. Anything left to say would require more privacy than the backstage hallway.
Five days. The timeline was a ticking time bomb, threatening to end not only my Violet Frequency assignment but also whatever was building between Rune and me.
The system wanted me gone before Seattle. They didn't want me around in a city where I had resources, and Eamon could provide backup that didn't answer to the band's management.
I caught Rune's reflection in a mirror as we turned a corner. He was calm and composed. He'd be ready for tonight's performance.
I thought about the decision he'd made in the green room. I'd made one, too. I wouldn't go easily, if at all.
Chief Kang stood near the stage entrance, talking to one of the Korean security officers. He saw us and noted our path before he went back to his conversation.
It was two hours before the venue's doors opened to the public, and something was wrong. I sensed it, and I'd learned to avoid dismissing my instincts.
The lighting trucks were running late. Someone rerouted their equipment through a service entrance that wasn't supposed to be active. An entrance normally sealed off was suddenly a staging space for last-minute technology.
It was only for five minutes, someone said. Ten at most. The change didn't alarm anyone other than me.
I watched a crew member prop open the service door with a wedge. The protocol insisted it be closed, and only those with a badge could enter. Minor violations escalated.
Kang oversaw the lighting issue near the stage, attention divided between his radio and a production coordinator. They were doing their best to solve a legitimate problem as quickly as they could.
That meant no one was watching the service entrance. I stepped into the gap. The overflow space ran parallel to the main backstage passage. It had concrete walls and industrial lighting. No cameras.
Handlers moved through the space carrying cables and costumes without hesitation. I thought about what Rune had overheard.Adjust detail assignments. Limit access. Before Seattle.
I thought about how easy it would be to engineer an accidental moment. My jaw tensed.
