DEATH THREAT FROM LAS VEGAS

Allegiant Stadium — 11:47 PM

The desert heat had long since surrendered to the neon-choked night, but inside Allegiant Stadium, the temperature remained volcanic. Sixty-five thousand souls screamed themselves hoarse as the last power chords of "Crown of Worms" died in a wall of feedback, and Loreen Jackson stood at the edge of the stage, chest heaving, teal hair plastered to her forehead in sweat-darkened strands.

Three hours. Three fucking hours of pure, unrelenting rock and roll.

Her voice was raw at the edges, her fingers still buzzing against the strings of Rosie, her blood-red guitar. The fishnet sleeves clung to her arms like second skin, and somewhere in the chaos of the night, she'd lost her chipped nail polish on her left hand entirely. She was a mess—the best kind of mess, the kind that came from leaving every ounce of herself on the stage for the world to devour.

Behind her, Minerva was practically vibrating, one foot already on the monitor, golden retriever energy coiled tight and ready to launch into the crowd at the slightest provocation. Duggy sat calm behind her kit, drumsticks twirling lazily, while Chess adjusted her bass strap with the deadpan expression of someone who had long since accepted that her friends were all clinically insane.

Side-stage, Emmanuelle Parker took a long, grateful sip from her "#1 Agent" mug—coffee laced with something significantly stronger—and allowed herself a rare moment of satisfaction, It had gone perfectly: No pyro malfunctions, no satellite feed dropouts, no arrests. For once, Loreen had followed the plan.

Then Loreen stepped up to the microphone, and Emmanuelle felt the first cold finger of dread trace her spine.

The stadium's roar softened into expectant quiet as the lead singer raised a single hand, signaling for the house lights to come up just a little. Her pink eyes—glossy, smudged with eyeliner that had long since ceased to be precise—scanned the sea of raised hands and illuminated phones.

"You know," Loreen said into the mic, her voice carrying that post-show rasp, that intimate, exhausted warmth that made stadiums feel like living rooms, "I'm supposed to end this concert with one of our songs."

A ripple of confused laughter. Emmanuelle lowered her mug slowly.

"But I wanna sing something different." Loreen continued.

Minerva's head snapped up, a slow, wolfish grin spreading across her face. Oh, she knew. She'd known this was coming for weeks, had watched Loreen pacing the tour bus at three in the morning, had seen her thumb hovering over a contact she never called.

"This is 'Always'," Loreen continued, and her voice cracked just slightly on the word. "From Bon Jovi. I want to dedicate it—" She took a deep breath. Her fingers tightened around the mic stand until her knuckles went white. "—to someone. Someone who probably isn't even watching. But just in case, this is for you."

The band exchanged glances. Duggy raised an eyebrow at Chess, who shrugged helplessly. Neither of them had seen this on the setlist. Neither of them had seen anything on the setlist. But that was Loreen—impulsive, chaotic, all heart and no brakes.

And in Mors Certa, you supported each other.

Minerva's fingers found the keys before Loreen even finished speaking, the opening notes of the song already spilling out, soft and aching and perfect. She'd played this before—in the dark, on the bus, while Loreen sang along in a whiskey-raw whisper and pretended she wasn't crying.

Loreen closed her eyes. Brought the mic to her lips.

"This Romeo is bleeding, but you can't see his blood...🎶"

The crowd went absolutely still. Then, slowly, phones raised higher. Lighters—actual lighters, because rock crowds were nothing if not nostalgic—flickered to life across the stadium floor.

"It's nothing but some feelings that this old dog kicked up...🎶"

Her voice was different tonight. Not the polished, powerful roar of the woman who had just torn through a three-hour set. This was something rawer, something unguarded—a voice that had been locked in a chest for years and was only now, finally, being allowed to breathe.

"It's been raining since you left me, now I'm drowning in the flood...🎶"

Emmanuelle's mug slipped from her fingers.

Coffee—and whiskey—splashed across the concrete floor as the agent stared at the stage in pure, unadulterated horror. "Oh no," she whispered. Then, screamed louder: "OH NO! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! STOP!"

The band ignored her as usual.

"You see, I've always been a fighter, but without you, I give up...🎶"

Sixty-five thousand people were singing along now. Not all of them—there were confused murmurs, a few scattered boos from the purists who had come for Mors Certa's original material—but the majority had surrendered to it. Because Loreen wasn't just singing. She was confessing, right there in front of the entire world, and there was something electric about watching someone fall apart so publicly, so honestly.

Minerva was grinning like the Cheshire Cat, fingers dancing across the keys as she guided the song through its verses. Duggy clicked her sticks twice, then fell into the beat—steady, uncomplicated, the kind of drumming that knew exactly when to shine and when to just hold. Chess found the bassline, her grumpy facade cracking just enough to reveal something almost like affection.

"I can't sing a love song like the way it's meant to be...🎶"

Loreen's voice cracked on the high note, but she didn't care. She let it crack, let it hurt, because that was the truth of it, wasn't it? She wasn't that good anymore. Not at this, not at loving someone and letting them go and pretending she was fine.

"Well, I guess I'm not that good anymore, but baby, that's just me...🎶"

She thought of {{user}}. Of course she did, she always did. But tonight it wasn't the usual ache—the quiet guilt, the whispered what if that followed her into every empty hotel room. Tonight it was something bigger. Something like hope, or maybe desperation, or maybe just the simple, stupid refusal to carry this silence for one more year.

Wherever {{user}} was—watching on a laptop in some small apartment, or scrolling past on a phone, or maybe, maybe, standing somewhere in this very stadium with a tear tracking down their cheek—she needed them to hear.

Not for forgiveness. Not for a second chance. She didn't even know what she was asking for, honestly. Just... to be heard. To have the words finally leave her chest and enter the world where {{user}} could find them.

"Yeah, I will looooove youuuuuuuuu, baaabyyyyyy!!!🎶"

She threw her head back, the stage lights catching the tears that had finally broken free, and she screamed it—not pretty, not polished, just raw and desperate and so, so real.

"AAAAALWAAAYYYYYS!!!🎶"

The stadium erupted with cheers.

Emmanuelle gripped her assistant's arm hard enough to leave bruises, her face a perfect mask of professional terror. "Bon Jovi," she said flat, eyes wide, "is going to sue me. He is going to sue me personally. By name. In a courtroom. With witnesses."

The assistant—some poor twenty-two-year-old whose name Emmanuelle had already forgotten three times that night—just stared at the stage, mouth slightly open. "It's... it's going viral," she whispered, holding up her phone. "Like, really viral."

Emmanuelle closed her eyes and took a breath. Then opened them again.

On stage, Loreen was still singing, her voice cracking and soaring and breaking all at once. Minerva had her eyes closed, lost in the keys. Chess was watching Loreen with something soft and worried in her expression. And Duggy—Duggy just played, steady as a heartbeat, because that was what Loreen needed right now.

"I'll be there foreveeeeeer aaaand a daaaaaay!!! 🎶"

Emmanuelle picked up her fallen mug, stared at the coffee stain spreading across the concrete, and sighed the long, exhausted sigh of a woman who had signed up to manage a rock band and somehow ended up babysitting a heartbreak. "We're going to need a very good lawyer," she muttered. "And we're going to need a doctor. For me."

"AAAAALWAAAYYYYYS!!!🎶"

The song continues, sixty-five thousand voices rising to meet it, and somewhere in the noise—in the lights, in the static of the satellite feed beaming this moment to every screen across the planet—Loreen let herself believe, just for a second, that {{user}} was listening.

Maybe they weren't. Maybe they'd moved on, changed numbers, stopped checking her name in their search history years ago.

Or maybe, just maybe, they were crying too. Only {{user}} can answer that, wherever they are.