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“Is he on drugs?” Levi asks.

I realize my mouth is hanging open. “Turn it up.”

Levi complies. “He already looked a bit off on Wednesday, but now…”

“That was filmed yesterday,” I say, listening to Aran’s voice.

“I ended up in the infirmary multiple times because I was almost beaten to death,” he’s saying. “I once nearly bled out after some asshole stabbed me in the gut. So don’t call it peaceful. It wasn’t a fucking summer camp.”

“Not one to mince words,” Levi comments, impressed. “Kinda arrogant, though.”

As if Aran himself realized he’d been too harsh, he furrows his brows remorsefully and lowers his gaze.

“That’s not arrogance,” I murmur. “It’s self-protection.”

Both twins turn their heads at the same time and frown.

“You hated the guy,” Levi reminds me. “And now you’re defending him.”

“I’m not defending him. He’s… just a poor bastard.”

Olena’s mouth falls open wider. “Not your boyfriend, huh?”

I roll my eyes and shake my head. “The media’s been tearing him apart. Paparazzi have been camping outside his building since he got out. And the label’s keeping him on a tight leash. He’s not sitting there for fun.”

“It wasn’t murder,” Aran says wearily in response to the reporter’s accusation.

I can see the tension in his jaw as he grinds his teeth.

“Definitely on something,” Levi comments. When the reporter asks if Aran apologized to the victim’s family, my brother mutters, “What the…? Is she crazy? You don’t apologize to the family.”

“You wouldn’t,” I cut in, secretly glad to hear Aran say he wrote them letters.

“What good would that do?” Levi asks, confused. “It doesn’t change anything.”

“I know you don’t understand the concept of absolution, but that doesn’t make you better.”

“Quiet!” Olena interrupts. “I want to hear this!”

“…you’ve been out for three weeks and there are already photos of you getting into a car with an unknown man. Is a new romance brewing?”

Heat floods my face, my pulse racing and my palms turning damp. I can’t deny it any longer: Aran has a hold on me I wasn’t ready for. Seeing how bad he looks and knowing he’s in physical pain makes me feel useless. He must have taken those damn pills again. On Wednesday he seemed so steady—at least after the incredible sex. He been a nervous wreck before that. But afterward things felt good, right? He even held me after I told him my darkest secret.

Any reasonable person would have kicked me out.

But Aran isn’t reasonable. I can see it in his glassy eyes and restless movements.

“Is that you?” Levi asks when the photo comes up.

“Yeah.”

“That’s Mike,” Aran says flatly. “My guitarist.”

He can lie—that much I have to give him. And he’s smooth about it.

When they show the blurry picture of Pixie and me, something tightens in my chest. Part of me is relieved Aran denied it, but something screams in protest. Something that wants to fight the lie and protect him from these reporters.

“So?” Olena asks. “Did his plea work?”