MIAMI, TAMPA, AND DALLAS — THE WORLD FINDS OUT
The green room at the NBC affiliate in Miami smelled like hairspray and stale coffee, which Ricky had declared to be "the smell of show business" before helping himself to a third doughnut.
Connor watched him with the expression of a man who had made his peace with certain things about the universe.
"You're going to be on national television in fourteen minutes," Connor said.
"I know," Ricky agreed cheerfully, powdered sugar on his lip.
"With powdered sugar on your face."
Ricky licked his lip. "Better?"
"Marginally."
Jace stood by the mirror, straightening his collar. He was the only one who'd worn a button-down, deep charcoal, sleeves rolled to the elbows, and Samantha stood behind him, smoothing the fabric across his shoulders with the calm efficiency of someone who had done this approximately eight hundred times.
"You're going to be fine," she told him quietly.
"I know." He caught her eyes in the mirror. "I'm not nervous about the interview."
She understood. He was thinking about what they might ask. How far they might push. Whether the engagement question would come before or after the music questions, and which version of the morning was easier to navigate.
"You've handled worse than a morning show host," she said.
He smiled at that. "Fair point."
John Kavanaugh appeared in the doorway, his reading glasses pushed up onto his forehead like a second set of eyes. He was already carrying his clipboard, which meant he had opinions.
"Alright," he said. "Couple of things before you go out. They're going to lead with the album: specifically 'How About No' and 'Not Your Possession.' They've been doing their homework. The host, Patricia, she's sharp."
"How sharp?" Erik asked from the couch, where he was apparently trying to disappear into the cushions.
"Sharp enough to ask follow-up questions. Don't give her anything she can chase." Kavanaugh's gaze moved to Connor. "That means you."
Connor spread his hands. "I'm a delight."
"You're eloquent and occasionally too honest. There's a difference." Kavanaugh looked at Jace. "The engagement will come up. That's approved territory. You know what you can and can't say."
Jace nodded. They'd gone over this. Confirm the engagement. Express happiness. Redirect to the music when pressed for more. Don't mention Aelin. Don't mention the Brotherhood publicly. Don't mention anything that required a security clearance.
"Any other landmines?" Nathan asked.
"They might ask about the tour bus," Kavanaugh said. "There was a picture taken in the Orlando venue parking lot. Some crew member got a shot of the new bus before the show. It's been circulating. People want to know why you suddenly have an armored vehicle."
Ricky grinned. "We're very important people."
"That's actually the answer," Kavanaugh said. "Security upgrade. Touring at this level requires it. Keep it boring and they'll move on."
A production assistant appeared at the door, slightly frantic. "Five minutes, gentlemen."
Samantha squeezed Jace's arm. "Go be brilliant."
He kissed her quickly. "Always."
The studio was smaller than it looked on television: bright lights, two couches arranged at an angle, a coffee table between them that existed purely for aesthetics since nobody ever actually put their coffee on it. The five of them took the longer couch, Jace on the end closest to the host with Connor beside him, Nathan, Erik, and Ricky filling out the rest.
Patricia Hensley was forty-five, polished, and had clearly listened to the whole album. That was either very good or very complicated, and Jace had about thirty seconds to figure out which.
"Battle Cry," she said, smiling broadly at the camera and then at them. "Welcome to the Today Show. It is wonderful to have you here."
"Thank you for having us," Jace said.
"Now, I want to get right into it, because I have been listening to Shadowlands since it dropped, and I have watched the video for 'How About No' more times than I am professionally required to admit." She leaned forward. "For viewers who haven't seen it yet, it is striking. The imagery is dark, raw, and very physical. Jace, you wrote the song and you're in the video. When people watch it for the first time, the immediate read is: obsessive fan, stalker situation. But the video goes somewhere deeper than that. What were you putting into it?"
Jace had known this was coming. He let the silence sit.
"The song came out of a place of… reclaiming autonomy," he said. "The idea of someone, or something, pushing past your boundaries. Telling you that your 'no' isn't valid. That your choice in the matter doesn't count. The fan or stalker framing works because audiences can relate to it, but the emotional truth behind it is about something more fundamental. The right to say no and have it mean something."
Patricia studied him. "And was there a specific moment, or a period of your life, that brought that feeling to the surface?"
"There have been a few," he said simply. "This one got turned into a song."
She accepted that. She turned to Connor.
"Connor. 'Not Your Possession.' This song is… quite something. The imagery is visceral. Chains, violation, something being taken. The line 'you carved yourself into my soul, left a frozen shard of you to remain,' that's not a metaphor that comes from nothing."
Connor held her gaze steadily.
"No," he said. "It's not."
Silence on the set.
"The song is about violation," Connor continued. "The kind that someone else puts inside you and leaves there. The kind that doesn't go away when the experience ends. Anyone who has experienced that, any kind of assault, any kind of taking of something that wasn't offered, will understand what that song is actually saying. That's who it was written for."
"Yourself included?" Patricia asked quietly.
"Yes," Connor said. "Myself included."
The studio was very quiet.
Then Connor's expression shifted, a slight warmth returning to his face. "But the song ends in reclamation. 'I am still my own man.' That's the important part. Whatever was taken from you, you are still yourself. Nobody gets to keep that."
Patricia let that sit before nodding. "Thank you," she said softly. "For being willing to share that."
"It matters that people hear it," Connor said. "That's why it's on the album."
Patricia let the tone lighten. She looked at Nathan. "Now, I have to ask about 'Thank You Very Little,' because it is a very different energy than the rest of this album."
Nathan's smile bloomed immediately. "Connor was having a day."
"I was having a day," Connor confirmed, dry.
"The video," Patricia said, turning to the camera. "For our viewers who haven't seen it, Connor is sitting in a recliner, and his bandmates are doing unhinged things behind him in stop-motion." She turned back to them. "How did that video come about?"
"Honestly?" Ricky said. "We decided the best way to get Connor's actual facial expressions was to actually annoy him in real time. So we just… did that."
"We spent about four hours finding increasingly creative ways to irritate him," Erik confirmed.
"And it worked," Connor said flatly. "Every face I make in that video is a completely genuine reaction to whatever idiotic thing one of these people was doing behind me."
The audience laughed. Patricia with them.
Then Patricia turned back to Jace. Her expression had shifted.
"I have to ask, because the internet is asking, is it true that you and Samantha Wallace, your drum tech, are engaged?"
Jace smiled, the easy one, the real one, nothing performed about it.
"It is," he said.
The audience went up. A sound like the studio itself was pleased.
"Tell us about her," Patricia said.
Jace glanced off-camera toward the green room, where he knew Samantha was watching.
"She's brilliant," he said. "And she has been the most constant thing in my life for a very long time. She knows exactly who I am, all of it, and she's still here. You don't take that for granted."
"Do we get a wedding date?"
"Not yet," Jace said pleasantly. "Soon."
"Fair enough." Patricia smiled. "Battle Cry, Shadowlands is out now. Miami tonight, Tampa on Friday. Thank you all so much for being here."
"Thank you," Jace said.
Next to him, Connor exhaled. They'd made it through.
Miami — That Evening
Gideon had watched the interview on the green room monitor alongside Samantha, the two of them standing in comfortable silence while the band talked on screen.
He'd said nothing during 'How About No.' He'd watched the video twice, alone, after Kavanaugh sent the band's media package. The imagery had sat with him, and he hadn't fully understood why until he watched Jace talk about it now, calm and precise, translating something real into words a morning show audience could receive.
He'd said nothing during 'Not Your Possession.'
But when Connor said yes, myself included and the studio went quiet, Gideon felt something shift in his chest. Not surprise. Something more like confirmation of a thing he'd already half-known, the pieces settling into a shape he recognized.
Samantha had glanced at him sideways. He'd met her eyes briefly, and then they'd both looked back at the screen.
Nothing was said. Nothing needed to be.
Later, on the bus heading toward the venue, Gideon kept his eyes on the road and his hands relaxed on the wheel. The band was in the back lounge, the energy running high and loose the way it does after something hard goes well.
He pressed the intercom.
"For the record," he said, "you all handled that beautifully. Every single one of you."
Then Connor's voice: "Thanks, Gideon."
Gideon released the button.
He drove.
Miami — The Show
Sixty-three thousand people.
The stadium was a living, breathing entity by the time Battle Cry took the stage, the crowd noise building to something that was less like sound and more like pressure, the kind you felt in your ribs, in the back of your throat.
Gideon stood stage right, arms folded, watching.
He'd been to war. He'd stood in rooms where every person was operating past the edge, where the stakes were life and death and the air tasted like adrenaline and fear. He knew what it felt like when human beings pushed past the limits of ordinary existence.
This was different, and it wasn't different. The stage was a battlefield of another kind. The stakes were emotional rather than physical, but the commitment was the same: everything, every night, held nothing back.
They opened with 'Shake Up The Night,' and the first note hit the stadium like a physical force. Sixty-three thousand people were on their feet before the second bar. Gideon watched the crowd surge forward in a controlled wave, the energy building and building, and understood why this was the opener: it was a declaration. We are here. We are loud. Pay attention.
He tracked the set with his eyes on the crowd and his peripheral vision on the stage, threat-assessing and watching in equal measure. The show moved through its paces, the band running at full power, the kind of performance that made the weeks of travel and logistics worth it.
Then came the moment that made Gideon blink.
Jace stood up from behind the kit.
It happened between songs, during the crowd noise, smooth enough to miss if you weren't watching. Samantha was there before Jace had fully cleared the riser, not hesitating, not asking, just sliding into the seat with the ease of someone who had done this a thousand times, which she had. She picked up the sticks, checked her position once, and was ready.
Jace came down to the stage floor.
The crowd, realizing what was happening, lost their collective minds.
He let the noise build, standing at the front of the stage with the microphone, and then the opening of 'How About No' hit, and Samantha drove it from behind the kit like she'd written the drum part herself, which in a sense she had, she'd lived alongside it long enough to know every breath of it.
Jace sang.
Gideon had seen the video. He thought he understood what the song was. He did not fully understand what the song was.
Jace was already more than halfway through a set, already soaked through, hair dark with sweat, his shirt gone somewhere around the third song because that was apparently standard practice and nobody had thought to mention it to Gideon. Black leather pants, black boots, and six-foot-four of Paiute-Aelinian Guardian moving like the stage floor was somewhere he owned.
The song was hard rock. Metal at its edges. Samantha drove it from the kit with a precision that was ferocious, and Ricky's guitar tore through the opening riff like something with teeth, and then Jace opened his mouth and the baritone that came out of him hit the front of the stadium like a physical object.
It wasn't Connor's voice, nothing was Connor's voice, Connor existed in a separate category of human vocal capability that the rest of the band teased him about regularly, something about notes that made dogs chase the bus, but Jace's voice was its own thing entirely. Deep and controlled at the bottom, climbing through his range with authority, cracking into his head voice on the bridge in a way that was deliberate and completely effective. The kind of voice that told a room it was being addressed.
And he moved. Down the stage, headbanging into the riff with his hair flying, crouching near Erik's bass line like he was listening to the earth move, spinning to point directly at Ricky during the guitar break. The same song that had been described on morning television as dark and visceral was all of those things and more performed live: it was an argument, a refusal, sixty-three thousand people screaming the answer back at him until the word no filled every corner of the stadium and became something larger than itself.
Gideon felt it in the place behind his sternum that he'd thought was a closed room.
It was not a closed room.
Then the song built to its final chorus, and the opal lit up.
Gideon had seen it before, working security at shows, watching from the perimeter, filing it the way he filed everything, as a variable. He'd been briefed on the powers, on the amulets, on what the Brotherhood was and what it meant. The glow was in the file. He'd seen it half a dozen times.
It was different now.
Not the phenomenon itself: the same white-gold light from within the opal, spreading faint at the edges, pulsing with Jace's breathing and the music, unmistakably real and unmistakably him. The crowd closest to the stage had gone that kind of still that people go when they see something they can't categorize. Not frightened. Something more like awe.
What was different was that Gideon knew him now. Not the Guardian, not the file, not the man observed from forty feet away through a security headset. He knew that Jace was afraid of spiders. He knew how Jace's voice sounded through the bus intercom at two in the morning when he checked in on everyone. He knew how Jace looked at Samantha when he thought nobody was watching.
And he knew, in the way you only know things about people you've sat with and driven through the dark with, that Jace was still a young man learning what he was. Still growing into the size of what he carried.
The opal burned against his chest. Jace finished the song exactly as he'd started it, like a man with something to say who had said it completely.
The roar that followed was enormous.
Gideon exhaled and went back to watching the crowd.
They played 'Not Your Possession' midway through the set. Connor stood at the front of the stage for the whole song, barely moving, just the voice and the microphone and sixty-three thousand people who had either heard the morning's interview or could feel the weight of it in the music itself. When he sang I am still my own man, the crowd sang it back. Every word.
Gideon had to look away.
He'd trained thousands of young men and women to be Marines. He'd drilled into them the ability to endure, to push through, to remain functional when everything in their body was screaming otherwise. He knew what survival looked like in the physical world.
He was learning what it looked like set to music.
Near the end of the set, Connor came to the front of the stage while Ricky launched into the opening notes of something older, a song from earlier in their catalog that the crowd recognized from the first four bars. The noise was extraordinary.
"Miami!" Connor's voice carried even over the roar. "You have been..." He paused, hand briefly pressed to his chest. "You have been extraordinary tonight. Thank you."
The crowd answered in a single human voice.
Gideon unfolded his arms. Refolded them. Looked at his shoes for a second.
He was in serious trouble.
He was going to love this job.
Tampa — Three Days Later
Tampa was sixty-eight thousand, and a Good Morning America crew had flown down to film backstage footage, also conducting a brief segment before the show. The interviewer this time was a man named Derek Marsh, mid-thirties, the kind of journalist who was good enough to be dangerous and knew it. He'd done his homework, which had led him to a set of questions Kavanaugh had reviewed and flagged with two different colored highlighters.
"The album's emotional weight is remarkable," Marsh said, seated across from Jace and Connor in the backstage interview space Kavanaugh had approved. "And the video for 'How About No' has been out for less than a week and it's already everywhere. The images are… they stay with you. Captivity. Restraint. Exhaustion. And then defiance. Jace, people are asking whether you were in a situation that put you in real physical danger."
Jace held his gaze. "I've faced situations that required me to assert my boundaries very firmly, yes."
"And Connor, you were quite open on the Today Show. The imagery in 'Not Your Possession' is specific enough that..."
"The song says what happened," Connor said calmly. "The song is where I chose to put it. I don't have anything to add beyond what's in the music."
Marsh nodded. He'd hit the wall they'd built, and he was experienced enough to recognize it without resenting it.
"The resilience message across this album," he said, adjusting course. "'Scars Like Medals,' 'Not Your Possession,' even 'How About No': there's a throughline of we survived and we're still here. Is that a deliberate statement?"
"It's not a statement so much as a fact," Jace said. "We made this album because we needed to. The songs exist because we lived them. If other people hear them and feel less alone in whatever they've been through, then that's the only purpose an album like this needs."
Marsh studied him. "You're good at this," he said.
Jace smiled back. "I've had practice."
Behind the camera, off to the left, Kavanaugh exhaled and made a small checkmark on his clipboard.
The Tampa show was different from Miami. Not in the ordinary way. A heightened edge ran through the crowd, one Gideon noticed from the moment the doors opened.
He'd been paying attention to fan behavior since Miami, the way the Today Show interview had rippled outward, the way people now arrived having already heard Connor's words, already knowing what they meant. Some of them held signs. I AM STILL MY OWN PERSON. HOW ABOUT NO. BATTLE CRY SAVED MY LIFE.
That last one especially.
He'd mentioned it to Sidney after Tampa's sound check, standing in the wings while the crew finished the stage setup.
"Does this happen a lot?" Gideon asked, nodding toward the floor where a group of fans had already gathered despite the doors being a full two hours from opening.
"More every tour," Sidney said. He didn't seem troubled by it. Proud, in Sidney's quiet way. "They mean it."
"I can see that."
"There are people in those crowds who have been through things," Sidney said. "The band knows it. It's part of why they do what they do every night." He glanced at Gideon. "You're starting to understand them."
"I'm starting to understand why Dave loved this job," Gideon said.
Sidney smiled. "Same thing."
Dallas — The Day Everything Changed
The dressing room at the Dallas venue was larger than most: a conference table in the middle, a row of mirrors along one wall, a couch and two armchairs along the other. Someone had ordered sandwiches that nobody had touched yet. Jace had his feet up on the table and was reading. Connor was doing something with his vocal warm-ups in the corner. Erik was sprawled on the couch. Nathan and Ricky were playing cards.
Gideon stood near the door, because he always stood near the door.
It was three hours before showtime when Kavanaugh came in.
He didn't say anything immediately. He closed the door behind him. He set his clipboard down on the table with unusual care, like he was trying not to make noise. He took off his reading glasses and set those down too.
The room noticed.
Ricky put down his cards. Connor stopped mid-exercise. Erik sat up.
"John," Jace said quietly, feet coming off the table. "What happened?"
Kavanaugh sat down.
That was the thing that made Gideon's attention sharpen completely. In the weeks he'd been with this band, he had never seen John Kavanaugh sit down uninvited. The man stood. He paced. He occupied spaces with authority. He did not sit down and take a breath before speaking.
"A man named Daryl Voss gave an interview two days ago to a reporter in Albuquerque," Kavanaugh began. "Voss was one of the men from the 1986 incident. He was denying involvement in a separate criminal matter and in the course of the interview, he made a reference to having been involved in the kidnapping and assault of, quote, 'one or two members of that amulet-wearing band.'"
The room went completely still.
Gideon felt the air change.
"Voss was specific about who," Kavanaugh continued. He looked at Jace, and then at Connor, and held their eyes. "Specific enough that the reporters have connected it to both of you by name. And specific enough about the nature of what occurred that the coverage is not using vague language. The word being used is assault. Sexual assault. The neighbor's account corroborates the timeline: two people taken by ambulance from the property. That detail, combined with what Voss said, is what the media has matched to you both."
Silence.
Jace's jaw tightened once. Then released.
Connor had not moved. He was standing with his arms folded, looking at the floor, and his face had an expression Gideon recognized, not devastation exactly, and not anger. Something older than both. Something that had already been through this and didn't want to go through it again.
"How wide?" Jace asked.
"Every wire service," Kavanaugh said. "Every major outlet. International pickup. It will be on every television in the country by tonight." He paused, and his expression changed, the manager setting down the clipboard and the man picking it up. "I am deeply sorry that this is how it came out. That it came through him."
Another silence. Gideon stood very still near the door.
Erik stood up from the couch. Slowly. Like a structure rising. His expression was flat in the way it went flat when something reached a certain temperature inside him. He said nothing. He didn't need to.
Ricky had gone very still. He was watching Connor.
Jace crossed to him and put his hand on Connor's shoulder.
Connor didn't look up.
"Hey," Jace said quietly.
Then Connor exhaled. His shoulders dropped. He raised his head, and his expression had shifted back to something more contained, more his own. "I'm okay," he said.
Jace kept his hand where it was.
"We were going to make a statement today anyway," Connor said, steadier now. "About the album. About what the songs mean. We were already in the process of…" He stopped, then almost laughed, a hollow, wry sound. "We were already almost there."
"We don't have to say anything," Nathan said from the table. He had put down his cards. "Kavanaugh can put out a statement. We don't have to be the ones to..."
"No." Jace shook his head. Something settled in him. "If it's out there, it's out there. We don't hide from it. We've already been on national television talking around it. That's done." He looked at Kavanaugh. "What do we have control over?"
Kavanaugh picked up his clipboard. Back on professional ground. "The narrative. What we confirm, what we don't. We issue a statement this afternoon. I read it, you're available for one follow-up question each. We keep Aelin, the Brotherhood, the supernatural elements completely out of it. We confirm a kidnapping took place. We thank law enforcement generally. We do not name the rescue operation, we do not name the SEALs, we do not discuss details. We let the music speak to the experience."
"And the show tonight?" Erik asked.
"Your call," Kavanaugh said. "But my recommendation is you play it."
Erik nodded once. "We play it."
Gideon had not spoken. This was not his moment to speak. He was learning the shapes of this family. This one, the way they braced against something together, automatically, the five of them pulling inward rather than outward when the pressure came. The way Jace moved first and the others oriented around him, not because he commanded it but because they trusted him.
He was watching the Brotherhood work.
He understood now, on a level he hadn't before, exactly what he was protecting.
Dallas — The Statement
Kavanaugh held the press conference in a hotel meeting room three blocks from the venue, at two-thirty in the afternoon. The band was present but seated, arrayed behind the podium in a line that communicated solidarity without any of them having to say a word. Jace sat in the center with Connor to his left, Nathan and Ricky and Erik to his right. Samantha stood just off to the side, not part of the official statement but visibly there.
Gideon was positioned against the back wall, watching everyone.
The room was full. Camera crews, reporters, people who'd clearly driven from wherever they were based the moment the AP wire ran. The noise before Kavanaugh stepped up was substantial.
It stopped the moment he put his hands on the podium.
Kavanaugh had the voice of a man who had delivered difficult news many times and knew exactly how much weight each word needed.
"On behalf of Battle Cry," he began, "I am here today to confirm, and to address, reports that have emerged regarding an incident involving members of this band in 1986."
He looked up from the paper.
"In the spring of 1986, members of this band were abducted. They were held against their will and subjected to harm. Law enforcement and other agencies became aware of the situation and a rescue operation was conducted. The individuals responsible have been or are in the process of being brought to justice. Battle Cry has cooperated fully with the relevant authorities throughout that process and will continue to do so."
Pause.
"Battle Cry's current album, Shadowlands, was written and recorded in the aftermath of this and other experiences. The band chose to channel what they endured into their art rather than into silence. They stand by every song on that record and by every word they have spoken publicly about what that music means. The decision to go public with their experience in the form of music was a deliberate act of survival and of service to others who have faced similar circumstances."
Another pause. Quieter now.
"The band will not be discussing the details of what occurred. They will not be naming individuals, locations, or operational specifics of the rescue. They ask that the privacy of all involved, including those who risked their lives on their behalf, be respected."
He set the paper down.
"Jace Elias will take one question."
The room erupted. Kavanaugh pointed to a woman in the third row whose hand had gone up fastest.
"Jace," she said, "the songs on Shadowlands are clearly autobiographical. Particularly 'Not Your Possession' and 'Scars Like Medals.' Now that the story behind them is public, what do you want people to understand about why you made this album?"
Jace leaned forward to the microphone. He didn't look at notes.
"We made this album," he said, "because silence is what they wanted from us. What anyone in a situation like that wants from you: to stay quiet, to carry it alone, to let the shame of it become yours when it was never yours to carry. Shadowlands is the refusal to do that."
He paused.
"We didn't make it to be brave. We made it because we needed to. And if there is one person in one city in one part of this country or anywhere in this world who hears 'I am still my own man' and feels less alone, then the album did exactly what it was supposed to do. That's all we have to say."
Kavanaugh stepped back to the microphone. "Thank you."
The room came apart into noise, but Jace had already turned from the microphone. Connor was there beside him, and then Nathan, and then the others, and before the security detail moved them out of the room, the five of them stood in a cluster that was quiet at its center even as everything around it was loud.
Gideon watched them from the back wall.
He'd been a Marine for twenty-three years. He knew what the aftermath of battle looked like. He knew what it looked like when soldiers came back through something and stood on the other side of it, still standing.
He moved to the door and opened it. Held it.
Jace came through first. Their eyes met.
Gideon gave a single nod.
Jace nodded back.
They went to get ready for the show.
Dallas — The Engagement Announcement
Kavanaugh found Jace alone in the corridor outside the dressing room about an hour before the show, leaning against the wall with his head back and his eyes closed. Not asleep. Just still.
"Here." Kavanaugh held out a piece of paper.
Jace opened his eyes and took it. Read it. A press note, separate from everything else that had happened today, about the engagement. Jason Elias, drummer and founding member of Battle Cry, has announced his engagement to Samantha Wallace. The couple has asked for privacy and wishes to share their happiness with fans who have supported the band throughout their journey.
"I wasn't going to let today be only about what was done to you," Kavanaugh said. "This goes out tonight, after the show. Something good, from you, on your terms."
Jace stared at the paper.
"Thank you, John," he said quietly.
"Don't mention it." Kavanaugh straightened his glasses. "Also don't mention it publicly because I have a reputation to maintain."
Jace almost laughed. "Your reputation as what, exactly?"
"A man who is all business," Kavanaugh said primly. He retrieved the paper and walked back down the corridor.
Jace watched him go. Then he found Samantha in the dressing room and told her. She pressed her forehead to his shoulder, and he held on.
Then she straightened and told him to go get ready to play.
So he did.
Dallas — The Show
The news was everywhere by the time the lights went down.
Sixty-seven thousand people in a stadium, and most of them had heard. The signs were different tonight: more of them, the handwriting more urgent, the messages more personal. WE BELIEVE YOU. WE STAND WITH YOU. YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
One sign near the front read, in enormous red letters: SCARS LIKE MEDALS.
Gideon stood stage right and watched the band assemble in the dark.
The usual pre-show energy was present but altered. Jace was still. Connor was quiet. Erik cracked his knuckles twice. Nathan checked the keyboard levels one more time even though they were already correct. Ricky bounced on his heels, once, and then went still too.
Five men. Whatever they'd walked through today, they were here.
The opening note hit.
The crowd lost their minds.
And then Battle Cry played Dallas like they were reclaiming something.
It wasn't different, same set list, same arrangements, same choreography built over years of touring. But the intention behind it had shifted. Gideon could feel it from forty feet away. Every song delivered with the weight of this is ours and you can't have it. Every chorus a perimeter around themselves and around sixty-seven thousand people who'd shown up tonight not just for the music but because of what the music meant.
When 'Not Your Possession' came, Connor walked to the front of the stage and stood in the light.
He didn't do anything dramatic. He didn't speak. He just stood there and waited.
The crowd went quiet in sections, moving toward silence the way a field moves toward stillness before a storm. Not a held breath, something more than that. Sixty-seven thousand people choosing quiet at once.
Then Connor sang.
I am not your possession.
The crowd answered him. Not just the chorus. Every word. All of it. They had learned the whole song, and they gave it back to him now, sixty-seven thousand voices carrying it, the stadium walls containing something that couldn't really be contained.
Gideon unfolded his arms.
He stood there with his hands at his sides, no longer posturing as security, just a man in a room that had become something else, and he felt the song land in the place behind his sternum that Vietnam had built and twenty-three years of service had reinforced and he had thought was a closed room.
It wasn't.
Later, he would not tell anyone about that moment. It was his.
But he understood now, completely, finally, in the way that some things can only be understood when you're standing in the middle of them, why Dave had loved this job with everything he had.
Why Dave had died for it without hesitation.
Gideon looked at the stage. At Jace on the riser with his amber-gold eyes closed and his hands moving and his whole body given over to the music. At Connor at the front of the stage, holding sixty-seven thousand people in the palm of his voice. At Nathan and Ricky and Erik, solid and present and entirely themselves.
Dave got you through the first half, he'd told them on day one. I'm here for the second.
He meant it then.
He understood it now.
He would be here as long as they needed him.
For all of it. Every city, every show, every morning that followed a day like this one.
The song built to its final chorus and the crowd carried it and the sound was enormous and human and worth protecting.
Gideon folded his arms again, and he watched.