So, I sort of have an idea for this chapter. Not sure how it's going to end, but at least I have a basic idea for the rest of it. We'll see how that goes.

Chapter Eighteen – The Getaway

Apollo

I wasn't sure what I was doing. Part of me never wanted to go out in public ever again. Another part of me just wanted to tell Klavier what was happening and get it over with. But I couldn't. Not if I wanted our relationship to remain secret. And if my blackmailer truly was the one who had murdered Night Stick, then they could do more than just reveal our relationship. So, no matter what, I could not tell Klavier about the blackmail. No matter how much I wanted to.

I kept myself from going insane simply by telling myself that it was over and done with. I had done what the blackmailer wanted. There was nothing else I could do. I told myself firmly that I would not resort to breaking the law for this person. I would gladly let our relationship become public if it meant not killing someone for someone else's pleasure. And I think the blackmailer knew that. Why else would he have me reveal Mr. Curity's secret instead of trying to get me to present false evidence or something?

That's what I kept telling myself. I just wished I knew what this blackmailer's end game was. Why had he murdered a security guard in the first place? Especially one who lived a rather quiet life? Why did he frame Sparky Highnote for it? Why did he blackmail Mr. Curity to frame him? Furthermore, how had he found out about us and how did he manage to set up those cameras in Klavier's house?

It had to be someone with a vendetta against the Gavinners. Someone who knew them. Why else would they go through such extreme lengths? But who could possibly have a grudge against the band? Sure, it was easy to imagine the hundreds of enemies Klavier must have made during his time as a prosecutor, but would they also have a grudge against Highnote? I couldn't really remember what position Highnote had in the force. I think Klavier had said that he was a truant officer or something.

Was this blackmailer a rival band? Unlikely, given the evidence. Perhaps it was someone the two of them had locked away. Or someone on the force. That certainly didn't narrow down the suspects list at all. And I was spending most of my energy trying not to fall apart.

When Klavier asked me to come with him to band rehearsal, I knew I was taking a huge risk. I didn't know where the blackmailer might have eyes. The only reason I felt safe in my apartment was because I never had anyone over and I always made sure to lock my place up tight whenever I went anywhere. But he was right. I would just make myself go insane if I just sat alone in my apartment. Hell, that's what I had been doing before he showed up.

Thankfully, Klavier had a way of distracting me in a manner that no one else could. When I was with him, I could feel so many of my worries just melt away. I wished spending time with him would magically solve my problems, but in the meantime, I could at least forget about my troubles with the blackmail.

Klavier led me on a tour through the building, as if I hadn't seen it enough times with the smuggling case we worked on. I decided to indulge in him for a bit and asked the most inane questions about everything and acting like even the tiniest object was a huge deal. Klavier was next to me, laughing all the while, especially when I started marveling over a cup.

"Come with me, Schatzi," he said eventually. "I must show you my dressing room!"

Then he took my hand, pulling me towards a different hallway. One that I was not familiar with. It was a lot less crowded and more open than the previous hallway, which I was grateful for. And the room he showed me was fancier as well. It was smaller than his previous dressing room, but I figured it was because only one person was using it. But it had a nice looking couch and a couple of chairs, and one wall was just covered in mirrors.

Klavier pulled me over to the couch and we sat down. I didn't know what to do, so I just sat there and looked around the room while he smiled at me.

"So, what do you think, Schatz?" He asked eventually.

"It's nice," I replied. "Nicer than the junk-filled room you were in before, at least."

Klavier laughed before scooching closer and putting an arm around me.

"Are you and Fraulein Trucy still coming to the Gavinners' farewell concert?" He asked. I hesitated. I didn't want to. I really didn't want to. There were a thousand reasons why I didn't want to go a concert that was very public and would have a million fan girls screaming in my ears. But I knew I had to. I had promised Klavier and Trucy.

"Of course," I said, trying not to sigh. "Trucy would kill me if I didn't go."

Speaking of, I suddenly realized that I had just left Trucy at the courthouse and had gone straight back home. I had been a complete wreck during the trial, and even though I had calmed down a bit, I was still upset with the whole ordeal.

I really didn't want to face Trucy or Mr. Wright at the moment. I shuddered to think what either of them thought of me. But I pulled out my phone just to reassure Trucy and was absolutely shocked and ashamed to find that I had over a hundred unread text messages and twelve missed calls from her. I had forgotten that I had silenced my phone the moment I got home.

Klavier must have seen the look on my face because he suddenly laughed.

"Fraulein troubles, Schatz?" He asked.

"Just Trucy," I said with a sigh. "I think she's afraid for me." I opened my text messages and found, not surprisingly, that they were all from the Wrights. They were mostly from Trucy, but there were several from Mr. Wright. Things like "Where are you?" "What happened?" "Are you ok?" flooded my screen. I couldn't help but feel guilty about how much worry I must have given the two of them.

I was too afraid to call Trucy outright. So I left her a text, telling her that I was fine and I was "cooling off" with a friend. I hoped that would calm her down and that seeing my text would be enough that she wouldn't call me. Klavier was giving me a sympathetic look, but before either of us could speak, my phone started ringing. Flinching, I had no choice but to answer.

"Hello?" I greeted, trying to keep the exhaustion from my voice.

"Apollo!" It was Trucy. "Are you ok? What happened? Why weren't you answering your phone? You're not hurt are you? Where are you?"

"Trucy, calm down," I said, as gently as I could. "I'm ok. I'm just… tired from what happened at the trial today. I just didn't want to be disturbed. That's all. I'm fine."

"Th-That better be true!" She sounded like she had been on the brink of tears. That just made me feel worse. "But Polly, why did you tell the court Mr. Curity's secret? We could have won just by presenting the letter! You could have asked that the line about the secret be redacted or something! Why did you tell everyone?"

"You don't have to make me feel worse, Trucy," I sighed, running a hand over my face. "I know what I did was wrong! Don't you think I'm not upset about what happened?"

"But why did you do it?" Trucy asked. I froze, casting a nervous glance at Klavier.

"I… can't… tell you that…" I muttered eventually. Out of the corner of my eye, Klavier's expression changed, but I tried not to look at him. Trucy was silent on the other end.

"I understand," she said quietly. "Just… try not to do anything too rash again, ok Polly?"

"I'll try not to," I replied.

"Are you sure you're ok?"

"I'll be fine, I promise."

"Good," she said. "I have to go now. I need to call Daddy and tell him he doesn't have to break into your apartment after all." I nearly dropped the phone in shock.

"Wh-What do you mean?" I stuttered.

"Well, what did you expect?" Trucy chastised. "We were so worried about you that Daddy decided he was going to go and check on you!"

"How does he even know where I live?" I asked.

"Oh, that was easy!" Trucy said cheerfully. "We just looked at the forms you filled out when you started working here!" I had completely forgotten about that. It was true that after the Kitaki case, Trucy had slammed a large pile of papers in front of me and told me to fill them all out. It just never occurred to me that they would still have those.

"Polly…" Trucy said, hesitantly. "Are you sure you're ok?"

"I promise," I replied. "I'm hanging out with a friend right now, so I'm fine. I promise."

"Ok, good," she huffed. "Then get some rest Polly. Don't do anything crazy and I hope you feel better soon." Then we said our good-byes and hung up. I couldn't help but sigh. I didn't know if I would ever recover from something like this.

"You work with wonderful people if they care about you that much, mein Liebe," Klavier said suddenly, startling me out of my thoughts.

"Sometimes I think they care a little too much," I muttered.

"I'm sure you don't really mean that," he replied with a smile.

"So?" I growled under my breath. He laughed and wrapped his arms around me, pressing his face into my neck. Feeling his breath on my skin sent a shiver down my spine.

"So, what would you like to do for the rest of the day?" He asked me. Well, what I really wanted to do was sit in my bedroom and figure out where my life went wrong, but I had a feeling that he wouldn't accept that, so instead I shrugged.

"I don't know," I said with a sigh. "I don't really want to go out, but is there anything to do around here?" He thought for a moment before giving me a charming smile.

"I could play you a song I've been working on," he suggested. "It's never been heard by anyone else." I blushed and looked away.

"You don't have to do that," I muttered.

"I know I don't have to," he said. "I want to!"

He went over to a table that sat one of his many guitars and picked one before going back over to the couch. I noticed that he had chosen an acoustic guitar, which meant that it wasn't going to be obnoxious like his Gavinners songs.

He took a moment to tune it before gently beginning to strum, smiling gently at me as he did so. There was something in his eyes that heated up my face and I had to look away.

"I call this one 'Love the Sun,'" he stated. And then he began to sing.

"I look up at the sky,

I think of you as the day goes by,

I look up at the sky,

And I think I'm a lucky guy.

A hard night, fighting for love.

And then he comes, shining red from above.

Heaven have no angel like him.

Olympus cannot contain him.

He warms my heart, He warms my soul.

With his eyes, my heart he stole.

The Sun is my God, I cherish him always.

The Sun is my Love, I hope he stays."

That's where he stopped strumming and looked at me.

"That's as far as I've gotten," he said with a shy smile. "It needs a lot of work, I know. And I don't know if I'll ever release it. I just wrote it for a special someone. What do you think?"

I didn't reply and instead just stared at him with wide eyes. My heart was hammering in my chest and I could feel my face heating up. Had he really written a song… for me? And just how long had he been working at it?

He was staring back at me, worry starting to show on his features.

"Was it really that bad?" Klavier asked. I blinked at him before looking around.

"This room… doesn't have any security cameras… does it?" I asked him instead of answering. He looked at me with confusion.

"N-No," he replied. "That's another reason why we switched venues. There's a lot more privacy in these dressing rooms."

"Oh good," I said. I stood up and walked over to the door, silently turning the lock into place. When I turned back towards him, the confusion had grown on his face. Instead of explaining myself, I hurried back over to the couch, took his face in my hands and kissed him deeply.

His confusion melted into ecstasy and he quickly kissed me back. Our hands were all over each other as I pressed against him, kissing him furiously. Suddenly, he was on his back and I was pulled on top of him, but our mouths never left each other. My hands ran under his shirt and he sighed with pleasure.

"Wow, Schatz, I don't know what's gotten over you, but I like it," he murmured when I pulled back to catch my breath.

I didn't reply, but instead kissed him again, thrusting my hips into him and causing him to gasp. I'll put it bluntly, I was way too horny to take the time to even remove our clothes, so fully-clothed it would have to be. He thankfully seemed completely fine with this because he was all over me as well, moving his hips with mine and letting out pleasured moans.

I continued on while he pressed his face into my neck, his arms wrapped tightly around me. We moved in unison, gasping and panting and thrusting. It wasn't the best, but we were certainly passionate. I don't know what had come over me. Hearing Klavier's song and knowing exactly what he was trying to say just awakened something in me.

We ended up on the floor at some point and I had no idea how long it was before we finally came down from our high. We just laid there, side by side, catching our breaths and staring up at the ceiling. Finally, Klavier spoke.

"I already knew how passionate you were before, but that was just… incredible," he breathed. I couldn't help but blush, refusing to look at him. "You really are incredible, Apollo."

"I'm not that great," I said, averting my gaze to the opposite wall.

"You're greater than you know, mein Schatz," he said. "You've helped so many people and saved a lot of lives. That's certainly not something I can boast about."

"I've ruined a lot of lives too," I muttered under my breath. He sat up and looked down at me, but I refused to look him in the eye.

"You need to stop being so hard on yourself, Apollo," he said in a gentle tone. "You can't let this one thing eat away at you. You have to remember all the good you've done. You've stopped so many innocent people from going to jail. Even Herr Curity won't have to be worried about being branded a murderer anymore."

"He's probably not thankful that I ruined his life though," I noted bitterly. He let out a sigh.

"It would have come out eventually," he argued. "You are too busy focusing on the negatives. You still saved him from a worse fate."

I highly doubted it, but before I could argue with him, he was rolling over on top of me and kissing me deeply. I gently kissed him back, but before we could get too into it, I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket. With a groan, I pushed Klavier's face away and pulled my phone out, not even bothering to check the ID.

"Hello?"

"Mr. Justice." It was Mr. Curity. I felt my blood run cold. "I was hoping you could meet me at the detention center. I must speak to you."

Oh crap. What could he possibly want with me? Hadn't we both already suffered enough? I didn't know if I could look into the eyes of the man whose life I had effectively destroyed. But I had to. I had to at least apologize.

"I-I'll be right there," I promised. There was a bit of static that I took to be a sigh.

"Thank you," he replied. "I'll be waiting, Mr. Justice." Then he hung up.

"Is something wrong?" Klavier asked, giving me a concerned look.

"Mr. Curity wants to talk to me about something," I told him, running a hand over my face. "I don't know what he could possibly want with me now, but I have to go to the detention center." He continued to stare down at me.

"Do you want me to go with you?" He asked eventually. I really did. I needed to have someone there with me. And Klavier was able to calm me like no one else could. But I couldn't. It was extremely dangerous. The blackmailer, hell, anyone could see us. My life was already messed up enough, it didn't need any more complications.

"I-I don't think that's a good idea," I said. He frowned in response.

"Visiting hours are over," he pointed out. "If I come with you, I can pull some strings and get you in anyway. If anyone asks, I'll just say that Curity asked to meet with me as well."

I opened my mouth to argue, but there was really nothing I could say. Klavier was just as stubborn as I was. It would be midnight before we would be able to reach an agreement if I let the argument carry on, so I was forced to yield.

"Fine," I said with a sigh. "I don't have the strength to go there by myself anyway."

He pushed himself off of me, then helped me to my feet. Pressing a kiss to my mouth, he gave me a soft smile.

"Don't worry, Apollo," he said. "I'll be with you every step of the way."

I tried not to let him see the shudder that passed through me and instead started leading the way out of the room. Every step of the way. That's exactly what I was afraid of.

I am so, so, so sorry for taking so long to update this and leave you hanging for so long! Between work, stress, life and another interest taking over, it's been a little hard updating. I promise I'm not abandoning any of my works, but it will take some time for me to update this. Again, I'm so sorry for not updating this sooner.