Chapter 7:

PACKING THE BAGS

THE GHOSTWRITER

Blackwater Hall was quieter than I’d ever heard. It was not peaceful, but hollow. The kind of silence that hangs after a scream.

The Polaroids had followed me into my dreams, flickering like broken film reels: Hanna’s eyes, wide and knowing; the smiles from all those girls happy to finally meet their hero; the careful pen strokes beneath each name. I woke up gasping, my heart sprinting through my ribs, the memory of Julian’s voice still echoing:

“You weren’t supposed to see that.”

He’d stood beside me that night, not trying to stop me just watching as I fell apart. When I dropped to my knees, he crouched next to me like a mourner at a grave, wordless, shaking. I’d thought maybe that was guilt, or pity, or both. Now, I wasn’t sure it even mattered.

The sky was a bruised gray. My suitcase sat open on the bed, half-packed ; jeans, notebooks, charger cables, the contract I hadn’t signed all the way through. I stared at it until I could almost hear my mother’s voice saying ;

Ava, you always know when to leave, but never how to stay.

I pulled another sweater from the dresser, folded it badly, and shoved it in. The house sighed around me, wood stretching in the damp. I hated that it sounded alive.

Claire’s voice rang in my head, all clipped and professional:

Charm him, provoke him, something. But get him talking.

I’d gotten him talking, all right just not the way she’d wanted. I zipped the bag, grabbed my coat, and slipped into the hallway. My boots made soft sounds on the marble, like apologies.

The staircase loomed below, coiled and elegant like a serpent carved from oak. The ocean’s roar crept through the glass, steady, punishing.

Noah wasn’t at breakfast. The kitchen smelled faintly of burnt toast and whiskey. One of the housekeepers’ carts stood abandoned in the corridor, a half-folded towel draped over the side. Everyone had vanished.

I should’ve been relieved.

I wasn’t.

When I stepped into the main hall, he was already there.

Julian Vale.

Shirt half-buttoned. He looked like he’d probably been awake all night which wasn’t unusual for him but this time, he looked sickly. He leaned against the banister he looked like a ghost that refused to disappear.

“So that’s it?” His voice was hoarse. “You’re leaving?”

I froze at the base of the stairs, fingers tight on the suitcase handle.

“You make it sound like treason.”

“It feels like it.”

“You think I owe you my presence?”

“I think you owe yourself something better than running.”

That made me laugh, sharp and humorless.

“I think I saw enough yesterday to be repulsed by this place. I’m sorry If my first instinct is to run away from this house”

He winced.

“So when it gets hard, you just give up?”

“You gave up on those girls long ago, Julian by protecting your monster of a brother.”

I was spitting venom.

“You’re right,” he said quietly. “And I don’t want to make the same mistake again.”

“What a change of heart, Mr. Vale.”

The words slipped out before I could stop them, and the way his face shifted, that quiet stunned hurt made me hate myself a little for being right. He rubbed a hand over his mouth, eyes glinting in the watery light.

“You should know something,” he said finally. “Berlin…”

“Berlin! There’s always more with you, isn’t there? Another secret, another excuse.” I was ready to leave but my curiosity won.

He pushed away from the railing, closing the distance between us with slow, deliberate steps.

“You saw the attic. You think you know everything. You don’t.”

“Then enlighten me. What about Berlin? It’s not like I don’t know you lied to everyone, including yourself.” I gripped the suitcase tighter. “But make it quick. I’ve got a train to catch.”

That earned the faintest twitch of a smile more pain than humor.

“You won’t make it to the train,” he said softly.

“Try me.”

He looked down, took a shaky breath. When he spoke again, his voice sounded stripped raw.

“Berlin,” he said. “After the last show.”

I said nothing.

“Like I said before I know you read the headlines. You know the myth: the overdose, the tragedy, the brother found dead in a hotel room. All very cinematic. Except it’s wrong. It’s all wrong…”

My heart was shaking; I knew something was coming.

“Then what happened?”

He laughed once, low and bitter.

“He wasn’t alone. There was a girl. Her name was Emilia.”

The way he said it made me stop breathing.

“She was fifteen,” he said. “Maybe sixteen. One of those backstage kids that was brought for him; always older in attitude, younger in truth. I saw Levi take her to his room, and I knew exactly what was about to happen. So I walked in, and she was terrified. I told him to stop. He laughed, but mostly got angry that I took his prey out of his hand.”

Julian looked past me, as if replaying it against the wall.

“I got her out. Told her to wait by the elevators. I thought I’d scared him sober. But when I came back… he was loading up again. Pills, liquor, anything. He told me she’d ruined his night. Said I’d ruined his life.”

He pressed a hand to his temple.

“He called me weak. Said I was too moral for my own good. Said the band needed a prophet, not a priest.”

The words hung between us, heavy as iron.

“That’s when we fought, hard punches were thrown. I told him to sleep it off. He laughed. So I poured him another drink, and slipped in the rest of the pills without him knowing. I thought it’d knock him out, I told myself it would give me a few hours to get her home, call someone, something. But I…” His voice cracked. “I miscalculated.”

The silence that followed was deafening.

“He started convulsing,” Julian whispered. “And I just… froze. I told myself I’d call when he passed out. But he didn’t pass out. He stopped breathing. I watched. I told myself it was mercy. That maybe I was saving the next girl. In that moment, I just saw all those faces all the hurt he inflicted around him. He looked at me then, his eyes hollow, wet, with a grin on his face like he knew what I was thinking. “Funny. I always thought I’d kill me, not you” he said. I’m haunted by those words, I keep hearing them and seeing them floating all around me. You see I’m haunted.

My stomach turned.

“So you…”

“I put him in the bathroom,” he said, finishing for me. “Wiped the glass, threw out the bottles, and left. By the time the maid found him, I’d already bought my silence with guilt.”

The confession hung in the air like smoke that wouldn’t clear.

“You let him die,” I said, barely recognizing my own voice.

“Yes.”

Our eyes locked, there was an understanding between us ; it was silent, raw but sweet.

His eyes closed, and when he opened them again, they were wet.

“ I thought I was saving her” He finally said. “And all the others. I thought I was redeeming myself… It was my ticket out of this mess.”

The sound that escaped me was half laugh, half sob.

“You killed your brother to stop him from becoming worse?”

“I killed my brother because I was too much of a coward to do anything else,” he said quietly. “I thought one death would end it. I thought silence could save the living.”

I took a step back.

“You should’ve gone to prison.”

“I know.”

“You should’ve confessed years ago.”

“I tried,” he said. “Nobody believed me they all thought I went psychotic after his death. The paparazzi pictures didn’t help”

I felt my throat close.

“And now you want me to write the real one?”

He didn’t move.

“You’re the only one who can. At first I thought the memoir would be another charade, but then I met you and I saw something. Light.”

I shook my head.

“You think this is redemption? Letting a stranger absolve you on paper?”

“No,” he said. “It’s punishment. I want it on record. All of it.”

The suitcase handle slipped from my grasp. It hit the marble with a dull, final thud.

He took another slow step forward, close enough that I could see the tear tracks on his face, the trembling at the corner of his mouth.

“If you walk out that door,” he said softly, “you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering. And I’ll keep rotting quietly. Maybe I deserve that but not you. But if you stay just long enough to write it, you can end this story right.”

My hands shook. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to hate him more. Both feelings burned at once.

“You don’t get to ask that of me,” I said.

“I’m not asking. I’m confessing.”

We stood there, breathing the same ruined air. The storm outside hit the glass like applause for a tragedy.

Finally, I whispered,

“You’re a murderer and a coward.”

He nodded. “Yes.” He said in a whisper.

“And yet I still don’t know if I should leave.”

“That’s because you see the man I was,” he said. “Not the one I became after.”

I stared at him the wreck of a rock god, the man who’d burned his own brother’s shadow just to stop it from falling on someone else.

“I’m not staying for you,” I said at last.

“I know.”