Withdrawal

The first two days were hell.

Elara didn't sleep. She sweated. She shook. The withdrawal from the drugs Marcus had been dosing her with was a physical beast tearing through her veins.

Kael didn't hover. He didn't try to comfort her with words.

He acted.

He brought her water. He brought her toast. When she threw the toast at the wall, he cleaned it up and brought her soup.

"Eat," he said on the third night, placing a bowl of pasta on the floor outside her door. "It’s carbonara. Real bacon. No kale. No smoothies."

Elara opened the door. She looked at the pasta. She hadn't eaten a carb since 2018. Marcus forbade it.

She took the bowl. She took a bite. It tasted like salvation.

She walked out into the main room. Kael was soldering a circuit board, a magnifying glass over his eye.

"Why?" Elara asked. Her voice was raspy.

Kael didn't look up. "Why the pasta? Because you're starving."

"Why me?" she clarified. "You hate people like me. The industry. The fame."

Kael set down the soldering iron. He pulled the magnifying glass off.

"My sister was a trainee," he said quietly. "At your label. Five years ago."

Elara searched her memory. "I don't..."

"You wouldn't know her. She didn't make it to the debut." Kael’s jaw tightened. "Marcus Vance told her she was too heavy. Too sensitive. She developed an eating disorder. Then she developed a pill habit to keep up with the schedule. She overdosed in a company dorm."

Elara covered her mouth. "I'm so sorry."

"I don't want your pity, Princess," Kael said, his voice hard. "I want justice. I've been tracking Vance for years. I couldn't save Sarah. But I saw the same patterns with you. The weight loss. The 'exhaustion' hospitalizations. I knew what he was doing."

Elara looked at the pasta bowl. She looked at her hands, which were finally steady.

"He told me I was sick," she whispered. "He told me I couldn't function without him."

"He lied," Kael said.

He stood up and walked over to a stack of equipment. He pulled out a acoustic guitar—an old Gibson, battered and scratched. He held it out to her.

"I saw you writing on napkins at the gala," Kael said. "Before the lights went out. You weren't writing a setlist. You were writing lyrics."

Elara took the guitar. It felt heavy and real, unlike the lightweight props she used on stage.

"Play something real," Kael challenged. "No auto-tune. No producer. Just you."

Elara sat on the dusty rug. She strummed a chord. It was out of tune. She fixed it.

She began to play. Not a pop anthem. A ballad. A song about a bird in a cage who forgot how to fly. Her voice, stripped of the studio polish, was raspy, raw, and haunting.

Kael watched her. The cynicism in his eyes cracked. He didn't see the Pop Princess. He saw the girl.

When she finished, the silence in the bunker wasn't heavy. It was electric.

"That," Kael said softly, "was not a product."

"No," Elara smiled weakly. "That was me."

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