The phone lay facedown on the nightstand where I'd dropped it three hours ago.
The hotel room in San Diego looked like every hotel room: beige walls, blackout curtains, furniture bolted to the floor. I'd stopped cataloging differences between cities years ago. The view didn't matter when you only saw it in darkness or didn't see it at all.
My body felt hollow. Not sore—we'd barely performed last night before the evacuation. Not injured. Just empty, like all the mechanisms that usually animated me had been removed, examined and deemed not worth reinstalling.
The bus ride from LA had taken two and a half hours through the darkness. Taemin had tried to joke about something. Minjae had fallen asleep against the window. Jinwoo had sat in silence, scrolling his phone with the brightness turned down.
I'd counted exit rows.
6:42 AM according to the digital clock. Forty-eight minutes before someone would knock to confirm I was awake and functional.
I was the variable.
Every route change and schedule change. Every nervous look from staff who suddenly had to account for threats they'd never expected.
They existed because of me.
Micah Nakamura was in a hospital because someone had used the chaos around me to hurt him. They were scrutinizing Griffin because protecting me made him visible. The band was operating under restrictions because I was the reason protocols kept failing.
If you removed me from the equation, the math simplified.
I thought about packing for home. I'd write a statement prepared in careful language that blamed no one. Medical leave. Mental health. Both were approved reasons for disappearing.
The relief that came with that thought was the most disturbing part.
A knock came early.
6:58 AM. I stared at the door.
After crossing the room, I checked the peephole.
Griffin.
He stood in the hallway in plain clothes—dark jeans and a gray henley. He appeared more relaxed than usual, but his attention was outward, tracking movement even in an empty hotel corridor at dawn.
I opened the door.
"Sorry," he said immediately. "I know it's early. I was doing a floor sweep and saw your light was on."
"You can see light under the door?"
"Yes."
Of course, he could.
"Is something wrong?" I asked.
"No. I just—" He stopped. Reconsidered. "I wanted to check on you."
The honesty of it caught me off guard. I stepped back, letting him in. The door closed. We stood facing each other in the small entryway.
"Couldn't sleep?" he asked.
"No."
"Me neither."
Griffin scanned my face, reading exhaustion how he read everything else—noticing details and assessing risk. He saw too much.
