Part 6
Three months had passed since the night they took her away.
Three months since the sirens, the rain, and the way Mira's eyes never left his — even as she disappeared into the flashing blue lights.
The world forgot.
Adrian couldn't.
He was still the number one idol.
Still adored. Still perfect.
Every smile, every bow, every note flawless.
But inside, something trembled — small, constant, waiting.
He'd see her in the blur of lights sometimes — in the reflection of the stage monitors, in the crowd's endless faces.
Sometimes it was just a shadow that moved wrong.
Sometimes it looked exactly like her.
His manager said he needed rest.
His fans said he looked "more emotional lately."
But Adrian knew what it really was.
He still felt her there.
One night, during a concert in Berlin, he sang a new song — something he hadn't planned.
He called it "Forever in the Crowd."
The words spilled out as if someone whispered them to him.
You were the light that burned too near,
I close my eyes, and you're still here.
The crowd went silent.
And then — from the upper balcony — a sunflower drifted down.
He froze mid-note.
The microphone caught the tremor in his breath.
The fans thought it was art.
They cheered louder.
But his hands wouldn't stop shaking.
After the show, he sat in his dressing room, staring at that same sunflower on the floor.
It hadn't been part of the concert gifts.
Nobody knew who threw it.
He picked it up with trembling fingers.
The scent was faint — rain and sweetness and something like memory.
On one of its petals, barely visible, a few letters written in pen:
Still watching.
Adrian's chest tightened. He dropped the flower like it burned.
His phone buzzed then — an unknown number, one message:
Did you mean it when you sang that?
He stared at the screen until it dimmed, hands cold, pulse stuttering.
"Mira?" he whispered.
No reply.
Just the sound of the wind outside, pressing against the windows, soft and steady like someone breathing close by.
When his driver asked if he was ready to leave, Adrian's voice barely worked.
"Yeah," he managed. "Take me home."
But all the way there, through the city lights, he couldn't shake the feeling that the car behind them — the one that never passed, never turned — was following him.
And as he stepped inside his apartment that night, the air smelled faintly of sunflowers.