Olivia shows Sly and his abu out, and Jaime, one of my security guards, follows right after.

    Which leaves me alone as the door clicks shut behind them, with nothing but the silence and Sly’s words echoing inside my head.

    “I know you think you froze tonight. But all I saw was you fighting to stay.”

    I don’t know what to do with that. How to think, or even how to feel. I saw the warmth in his eyes as he said it. Thepassion and the understanding.

    Maybe that’s the worst part.

    Because I know he meant the words asfort, but they don’t feel like that. Instead, they feel like a detonation. Like he dropped a bomb straight into the heart of me and now all the scaffolding I’ve built through the years to hold myself together is threatening to copse.

    It’s that thought that catapults me to my feet, that has me stripping out of the dress, the boots, the tights. If I get them off fast enough, maybe—just maybe—I won’t fall.

    The clothes drop around me one by one. Cracked armor still glittering from a fight I’ve always known I couldn’t win.

    I take the earrings off, too, and the rings—my own personal brass knuckles—and drop them on my dressing table as I take a breath. Just one breath, to see how it feels. To see if, this time, I’ll break apart forever.

    I feel the cracks, feel the strain. But the scaffolding holds, so I take another breath. And another. The pain eases off, bes bearable.

    And maybe that’s all I needed. A moment of silence. A second without the weight. An interbeat between one tick of my heart and the next. Because in that space—that tiny, fragile space—the musices.

    Like a loss I forgot to grieve, a thread of a melody curls through the quiet, delicate but undeniable.

    It’s the first time I’ve heard anything new in over a year, and I freeze, terrified to move in case it disappears as easily as it came.

    But it doesn’t. It stays as I fumble for my journal, for my guitar, for anything that will help me hold on.

    Two bars. One line. That’s all I get before it dries up again. But for now, it’s enough to know the dam has sprung a leak. Enough to know that something deep inside of me remembers why I’m still here. Why I do what I do despite all the bullshit.

    It’s the music. It’s always been the music. I may not be proud of everything I’ve done to survive, but I’ll always be proud of my art. It saved me when I didn’t think anything could.

    My phone chimes from my bag, where it’s been all night. I put down my notebook and reach for it.

    Marco: Just checking in. We’ve pulled the SUV up. Let me know when you’re ready to go

    Me: Ten minutes

    Me: Thanks

    It’s past time to get moving, so I shove the journal back in my bag and reach for the sweats and hoodie I usually wear to travel between the hotel and the venue. Then I walk into the bathroom to wash my makeup away—and with it, thest remnants of the ck Widow.

    I grab a hair tie to secure my mess of hair and peel off my false eyshes. I ssh water on my face, using cleanser and a soft, muslin washcloth to rub off the mascara, the eyeliner, the smudged eyeshadow and lipstick. Each swipe feels like peeling off anotheryer.

    Until I look up.

    The first glimpse of myself in the mirror has my stomach plummeting. My cheeks are bright pink. My skin flushed. My eyes soft in a way I haven’t seen them in months, maybe longer.

    And for a moment, I don’t see what the years and the tragedies have made me. I see the sixteen-year-old girl I was—soft, naive, doomed.

    She fell hopelessly in love with a shining, golden boy—Hayden Jeffries, teen heartthrob extraordinaire. She heard music the first time she met him, too. And he wrecked her.

    Wrecked me.

    Just like that, the scaffolding splinters, until I’m nothing but shards of wood and ss held together by sweat and survival instincts. Fear courses over me, has my heart beating overtime and my breath bellowing in and out like I’ve just performed the most demanding song in my set.

    No, no, no.

    I’m not going back there. Not now, not ever.

    That’s why I need the armor. That’s why I need the ck Widow.

    I close my eyes and force the memories back to whatever vault they wed out of. Because that girl died a long time ago. I’m what rose from the ashes.

    My breath steadies. My heart settles, even before a knock on the door has me straightening my shoulders and dropping the mask back in ce.

    “Come in!” I call as I move back to my dressing room and check for any personal items I can’t live without. It’s ourst night in Austin.

    Olivia cracks open the door and sticks her head in. “Just wanted to check in. See how you thought the meet-and-greet went.”

    I have nothing to say about that meet-and-greet that I want her to hear. So I settle for a shrug and a, “Fine. Why?”

    “No reason.” She shakes her head. “They seemed nice, that’s all.”

    For a second, Sly’s brown eyes are right there in front of me, his words a reflection I never wanted anyone to see. “But all I saw was you fighting to stay.”

    I blink the words away, but his face stays stubbornly in my mind’s eye. And before I even know I’m going to do it, I ask, “Do you think you can get me Sly’s number?”