When we’re settled in his SUV, he presses the call button on the steering wheel. “Call Orion.”
My stomach tightens so fast it feels like someone hooked a fist under my ribs. I am so unbelievably screwed. When Orion finds out, the fallout is going to be nuclear. My body braces before I even realize I’m doing it. My shoulders are locked, my breath caught halfway up my throat.
The phone rings twice before Orion answers with a tone so casual it makes my skin crawl. “Lucy, are you calling to finally explain what’s going on between you and mylittlesister, or are you still hiding like a little—”
Lucian cuts him off, his voice razor-sharp. “Not now. We’ll fight about that later.”
“Later?” Orion scoffs. “Oh, so you admit there’s something to fight ab—”
“Orion—stop,” Lucian snaps, and the sound of it slices straight through the cab. “You need to stay calm and listen; this whole situation is FUBAR’d.”
His words and the shift in his voice are enough to make Orion go silent. Lucian’s knuckles go white against the wheel.
“What happened?” Orion asks, and this time the chaos is gone. He sounds like he’s rushing around, there’s rustling like he’s packing a bag, and halfway out the door.
Lucian lays out the entire situation. Starting with the ad, then Alex, ending with the possibility that James isn’t involved. I stare out the window, watching the world smear into streaks of green and gray, but all I can see is Alex’s face, that awful smirk, the way his fingers dug into my arm like he had a right to me. Then, the look of horror once he realized what he had done.
Orion doesn’t say a word. The silence stretches so long I start to think the call dropped.
“Where are you now?” Orion’s voice is furious, then it softens. “Silly… are you okay?”
Lucian gives me a gentle look, telling me to answer first.
“No,” I say, and my voice sounds thin, scraped raw. “But I will be. It could’ve been worse.”
Lucian lets out a sound that’s half growl, half disbelief. “I’m driving her back to the rig. Rowan’s still at the park dealing with the police. She’s not hurt, but she is angry. No matter what, we need to take this seriously.”
“You said you think it’s connected to the vandalism.”
“Yes,” Lucian says. “We all do. It feels personal. But this—” he glances at me, jaw tight, “this feels like the violence is directed at Celeste, not Korbyn or Ara. Whoever’s behind this is clearly escalating. They used pictures from Celeste’s private social media.”
“Lucy, gimme a second, Ro’s calling.”
When Orion comes back on the line, his voice is clipped. “He just finished up with the police. They flagged multiple Craigslist ads from KC, and the rest of the tour stops in the cities the tour will be passing through. Police are opening a formal investigation. I merged Ro in on this call.”
My chest is a band of pressure, too tight to take a full breath without it hurting, and the rage that’s been humming under my skin all afternoon is still there, but fear keeps slipping in at the edges, a slick, cold thing that makes my limbs go light and my mouth taste metallic. I can feel both of them at once: the animal heat that wants to hunt and the small, brittle part of me that wants to curl up and disappear.
“So what are we doing?” I ask, feeling like I’m trying to anchor myself with a question that demands an answer.
Rowan answers first. “The tour’s off, Celeste.” The sentence hits harder than Alex’s hands did. It’s not a postponement or a reschedule; it’s a full stop. The achievements I’ve been building toward for years go quiet in a way that feels like a loss before I’ve had time to grieve.
“No,” I say, because I need to know if there’s a way to keep moving, some compromise that lets me keep being what I am without handing myself over to fear. “We have put too much into this tour. I’ll be careful, I swear I won’t leave Lucian’s side. Can we not indefinitely postpone it?”
Orion’s answer is flat and final. “No. It is off the table until we can find the person behind this. Rowan, can you have astatement drafted and have it go out by this afternoon? Umbra’s world tour is canceled.”
“I’ve already spoken with the label about what happened today. We’ll frame it as an attempted abduction and let them know Ara is safe but shaken, and the band’s safety has been compromised, but we are actively investigating the threat. The plan is designed to stop the mob and the rumor mill.”
“Don’t make me sound fragile,” the words come out sharper than I expect. I am not fragile, and I’m not something to be wrapped in cotton and hidden away.
Rowan’s voice is firm on the other end. “You won’t. But we can’t be honest either. If Umbra’s fans find out someone tried to assault you, they’ll burn the whole internet down trying to figure out who. And if they get the wrong name—” He lets the sentence hang.
“They’ll ruin someone’s life,” I finish for him, because I know how this works. Or worse, they’ll ruin the Alex, and I’ll carry that. The thought tastes like iron in my mouth. I can feel the edges of panic and fury sharpening at the same time: panic that the wrong person will be dragged into this, fury that anyone would think they have the right to map my life and use it against me.
Orion’s voice comes back. “Framing it as an attempted abduction is genius, that lets people know how serious it was, and we’re technically not lying. This gives us narrative control without inviting a witch hunt.”
I shake my head, but I don’t argue. I let them plan and spin while the rage and the fear trade places inside me, each one claiming the space the other leaves. I will not be made small.
“We go dark,” Rowan says, and the words land in my chest with the weight of a verdict. “We buy time to find whoever the fuck is doing this. And we keep you breathing long enough to getyou back on that stage whenyou’reready—not when we want you to be.”
