Page 28 of The Road to Ruined

Up until the very last verse.

But don’t worry, angel

Everything dies

It's better to be poisoned

Than trapped living half-lives

And you should see the sequel, baby

Because in that one, I survive

I put your heart back in your chest, and we get away with our crimes

We only fight when we're fucking, and we're fucking alive

The road to ruined is paved with good intentions

And you were always mine

The video cuts back to the anchors' voices, but I can't make out what they're saying because I'm climbing into the passenger seat, throwing open the door, and crawling out head-first into the ditch, retching and dry-heaving while my body attempts to expel the contents of my empty stomach. When it finally stops, I wipe my chin with the top of my hand, roll over onto my back in the dirt, and stare up at the stars. My own voice echoes in my head as my mind takes me back to the tour bus that last night, sitting at the edge of the bed after Luca, with a guitar, a sling, and a bad side with a bullet hole, promised me the world and sang me a sad song.

Maybe in the sequel, it doesn't kill them. They get away with murder and take a nice, long vacation. Spend every day on the beach, swimming and sleeping and fucking and bleeding and…screaming but never fighting except for when they're fucking and they never get caught—not even by Death—for a very, very long time.

No, that wasn't a hoax. That was real. It had to be real.

And even if Luca had written the lyrics down somewhere where Declan or some internet troll got ahold of them, no one heard me say those things to him. We were alone.

Luca is alive.

It took me an hour to climb out of that ditch and get back behind the wheel, my entire body shaking from adrenaline for most of the drive. I barely make it back before my curfew, parking on that side street and walking back to my family's home. My mother sits on the sofa with her laptop open in front of her and papers spread out across the cushion beside her.

"Hey, Teagan," she says. "Where were you? You've been gone all day. I called a couple of times. We were starting to worry you weren't coming back."

"Yeah, sorry. I just wanted to be out," I lie. "I went to Spectrum, looked for some new clothes, and tried to get my old job back at Yard House. Then I went to the beach—the quiet one with that old lighthouse in Laguna—and sat there until the sun went down."

"Hmm…" she says. "So, did you get either one?"

"Either one what?"

"New clothes or your job back?"

"Oh…no. I didn't get either."

"Well, that's too bad. Keep trying."

"Right. I'll just grab something to eat and go to bed."

I force a smile before making my way to the kitchen. I grab one of the croissants from the counter, make a sandwich, then stuff a bottle of wine under my shirt before heading upstairs.

I close and lock my bedroom door, and then sit in front of my laptop with my headphones, alternating between scarfing down food and sipping wine as I do the one thing I promised not to do…

I go right down the rabbit hole.

I open Reddit and scroll through fan theory after fan theory. I read and listen to AI lyrics analysis and compare someone's AI-generated Declan voice to the one on the track. Most agree they sound the same, but there's one hole in that theory.

That song was writtenfor me. And no one else in the world knows it.

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