Chapter 2

The bikers left as quickly as they came. The silence they left behind was filled with my own ragged breathing. Someone had called an ambulance. Jennifer and Sabrina rushed to my side, their faces now etched with horror and concern.

"Oh, Ethan, my poor boy," Sabrina cried, her hands fluttering near my mangled ones. "I'll find them. I swear to you, I'll use every connection I have. They will pay for this."

Jennifer knelt, tears streaming down her face. "Ethan, baby, I'm so sorry. I was so scared."

They loaded me onto a gurney. The paramedics gave me something for the pain, and the world began to swim. They took me to the small local clinic, but the doctor just shook his head. The damage was too severe for him to fix. They wrapped my hands in thick bandages and left me in a quiet room to wait for a transfer to a real hospital in the morning.

Jennifer and Sabrina stayed. They sat by my bed, holding a vigil. Or so I thought.

The pain medication was strong, but the shock kept me on the edge of consciousness. I lay with my eyes closed, drifting. Their voices were low murmurs, a supposed comfort in the dark.

Then I heard Jennifer' s voice, clear and sharp, stripped of its fake sorrow. "The recording from tonight... it's perfect. It' s the purest Soul Chord he's ever played. We can use it. We can loop it, build tracks around it. It will be the foundation of Caleb's first album."

My heart stopped.

Sabrina's voice was heavy with a sigh. "It's a tragedy, what had to be done. But Caleb deserves this chance. His talent has always been overshadowed." She paused. "Once he's established, once the album is a hit, you can leave him. You'll come back to Ethan. You'll be his loving caretaker. No one will ever suspect."

The words didn't make sense. My brain refused to process them. They had hired the bikers. They had planned it.

Then another piece clicked into place. My weakness. The way I couldn't fight back. I remembered the celebratory whiskey Jennifer had insisted I drink before the gig. It must have been drugged.

A cold dread, deeper than any pain, washed over me. I had told them everything. My deepest secrets. I remembered a conversation, months ago, a foolish, trusting confession whispered to the two people I loved most in the world. I had told them I felt a second, dormant Soul Chord, a different kind of power, sleeping in my right hand. A mirror to the one in my left.

As if she had read my mind through my stillness, Jennifer spoke again, her voice a venomous whisper. "Caleb is worried. He says Ethan is too strong. What if he finds a way back? What if that other hand... what if he learns to use it?"

There was a moment of silence. I could hear the rustle of fabric, the faint clink of glass. A broken bottle from the floor, maybe.

"Caleb's right," Jennifer said, her voice now dangerously close. "We can't risk it."

I felt a slight pressure on the bandages of my right hand. I tried to pull away, to scream, but the drugs held me paralyzed. I was trapped inside my own body.

Then came a sharp, searing pain, a wet, tearing sensation deep within my wrist. It was quick, precise, and utterly devastating. She had severed the tendons. She had destroyed my last hope.