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She doesn’t answer right away.

She moves to the window, stares out at the fading evening, the hills soaked in gold and sorrow.

Then she turns back to me, eyes full and clear. “I don’t know if he’ll be ready,” she admits. “But I know he’ll go. Because that’s what we do when it hurts. We show up. We sing through the breaks in our voices. We play through the pain. We survive the set even when our soul’s still bleeding.”

I stare at her, throat tight.

“I just don’t want him to come back from tour and be even more broken.”

Maggie walks over, sets her hand over mine.

“Then you be his anchor out there, Fletcher Malone,” she says. “You hold the line when he can’t. And when it’s too much, you remind him he’s not alone.”

I nod.

Because what else can I do?

The tour starts in two weeks.

And I have no idea how we’re going to get through it.

I’m still staring at the door Thorin stormed through, jaw tight, breath shallow, when my phone vibrates in my pocket.

But it’s not a message.

It’s instinct.

I need to hear her voice.

Before I fall apart too.

I pull out my phone and hit Mya without thinking. She answers on the second ring, her voice soft and low, laced with hospital quiet and emotional exhaustion.

“Hey,” she whispers. “I’m still in her room. She’s sleeping again.”

I close my eyes and exhale, pressing the heel of my hand to the counter like I need something to hold me up. “How’s she doing?”

“She cried herself back to sleep,” Mya murmurs. “It’s been like that all morning. She wakes up and remembers, and it hits her all over again.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

Silence. Heavy. Weighted. But it’s the kind that only exists between two people who don’t need to fill it with noise.

I finally speak. “Thorin’s not letting me stay.”

She’s quiet for a beat. “What happened?”

“Alex came to finalize the tour schedule. He told Thorin the label won’t move the start date again. MSG’s locked. First leg launches in two weeks.” I rub a hand over my face. “He offered to send the rest of us ahead and let Thorin join us late, but…”

“But he refused.”

“More like imploded.” My voice goes hollow. “Said it’s his mess to carry. Told me I’m not staying. Told Maggie no. Walked out like the walls were closing in.”

Mya sighs softly, and I can picture her pinching the bridge of her nose, head tipped back against one of those stiff vinyl hospital chairs. “He’s trying to outrun it.”

“Yeah. But it’s gonna catch him.”