"Marcos, can you help me carrying the instruments?" Troy asked me.
"Of course."

I silently walked behind the musician, too nervous to engage a conversation. It had been a week since I met the band, today was my first official day as their manager. However, in that short time I had noticed something that honestly, worried me. Whenever Jack and Troy were in the same place, tension could be cut with a knife, they clearly had some type of hate against each other that could be confused by friendly ranting if you didn't pay much attention to it.

As we approached the stage, I saw the girls excitedly chatting while they practiced.

"The concert is in 5 days, I'm excited." Lucy's voice appeared from the stage.
"Me too." Roxane briefly replied.

I chuckled at Reaper and Queen's excitement. Both of them were practising with a little Bluetooth speaker connected to a painted phone, which I guessed that was owned by Lucy. The rhythm of that song was upbeat, an electric guitar making a solo in that exact moment. Roxy's movements were precise and sharp, while Lucía's were entrancing and mysteriously fluid.

We entered the backstage zone, where I left on the floor the musical instruments that I was carrying, being careful to not damage them. While I did, I took a moment to analyse them. 

The first thing that caught my attention was Jack's guitar. What looked like an usual customised guitar, was a simple black guitar that had a hand-made drawing. My father had told me that Umbra had studied art, but I never expected him to have painted his guitar.

I took a look at all the instruments, all of them had been modified in similar ways, probably by them.

"Hey blondie, are you finished?" Troy asked, a hint of annoyance in his voice.

I hastily got up and followed the male, who was already leaving the room.

When we got outside, I looked around me and observed the band. Jack and Sin were composing songs and readjusting melodies in the seating area, Troy had taken his bass from the previous room and was cleaning it, the girls were chatting while they sat on the stage and well, I didn't really know where the others were.

I sighed and relaxed, enjoying the contagious excitement in the air. 

But sadly it didn't last.

Skull ran in from the concert hall's front door. He was clearly tired and nervous. 

"We have a big problem!" 

John hurriedly approached the stage, where all of us wereshowed us his phone. In it, an open online newspaper that was rather famous. Troy gasped and grabbed it, not letting the others see anything. But soon, he started reading aloud what had made Skull a nervous wreck.

'Children of Pain, the hunting of identities'

This group was founded in 2015 with 5 members, lately joined by 2 more in 2016. They started off in internet, uploading only audio tracks of their songs. Soon, in 2017, they reached nine million followers in their main network and over 5 millions in all the others. That group, attracted many producers, Kannadashi and Amadeus between them. The two rival companies battled ferociously for signing a contract with the band with no face, but at the end Sebastian Tooru became the winner.

The owner of Amadeus Productions has made a global announcement this morning, in it he offered 1,000,000 dollars for the identities of these seven ghost members of Children of Pain.

The only things known about this mysterious band is that there are a total of 7 members, 5 males and 2 females. They all have some type of distinctive but cover them up with masks and bandages. And finally, that the members are all young, probably less than 25.

The time limit of the reward is in 5 days, when Children of Pain will sing in New York their first live actuation. All the tickets have already been sold and all the reselling offers have added a minimum of 100,000$ to the anterior price. Good luck to anyone interested.

"Fabulous." Jack rolled his eyes. "At least we got free publicity."
"Okay..." Sin gulped. "What the hell do we do now? Wait for our death?"
"Chill Sin. Panicking won't help in anything." Reaper growled.

Suddenly, the sound of a door startled us. Soon, my father appeared from the backstage zone.

"We must be more careful from now on. I have a plan"
"Dad, what do you mean?" I asked him, kind of scared about his plans thanks to previous experiences.
"From now on, all of you guys will be living in a shared apartament and won't get out until the concert. I got the biggest suite in the Royal Hotel for you all, it ocupes an entire floor." 

"WHAT?!"

"Get in!" My father ordered us, dark purple limousine by his side.
"Whoa! I have never been in one of these." Joker muttered.
"Come on! We don't have all the night!" Dad ushered us into the waiting car.

On our way towards the hotel was full of curious looks towards our vehicle, along with some photos taken. Some even followed us.

In a few minutes, we reached the huge building that would be the band's home for some days. All of them were excited, probably because they had never placed a foot in a place that was this exclusive and glamorous.

"Welcome to the Royal Hotel, what can I do for you?" A young man in the counter greeted me with a smile.
"I'm from Kannadashi Productions, we reserved the suite."
"Can I get your ID?" He asked, a little unsure.
"Sure."

The male examined the ID and returned it after a few seconds.

"Everything okay. Here you are, eight keys for the Stellar Suite." The employee gave me all the keys. "Have a wonderful stay sir." He smiled.
"Thanks." I smiled back.

I walked back to the lounge, where a huge mass of people was around the guys. The seven were sitting on a sofa zone that was empty, all of them wearing their bandages and masks while security guards from both the hotel and our company prevented the fans from approaching the band. I started walking towards them, ready to give them the keys and leave for our room.

However, I was distracted by one of the people breaking through the security before the guards could stop him. He ran as fast as he could towards the guys, without a visible objective. However, he quickly corrected his path and headed towards Reaper, who judging by her body language, was on guard. 

The man was around his 30' or older, short dark brown hair, slight beard and a small scar over his eye, covered slightly by a cap. He probably decided that Lucy was the weaker objective, since she was the shortest and a girl, so he reached out towards the young female's mask to take it off. Or tried to.

Reaper grabbed his arm without even looking towards his direction, in what I would classify as some sort of reflex, and flipped the man over her figure, making him crash on the floor, draining his lungs from air. He started coughing violently as result.

Everyone became quiet, looking at the scene with surprised expressions.

"Come on guys, we are going." I nervously sighed as I led the band towards the elevator.

They all got in the huge elevator without complaining and the doors closed slowly. When they were totally closed, chatter started.

"That was awesome. How could you flip that man like that?" Joker asked curiously tilting his head.
"Yeah!"
"The shrimp knows how to defend herself." Umbra sighed, putting his arm on top of his sister's head, although I could tell he was worried about her even with his mask on.
"Oh come on. Is it so surprising?" Reaper huffed. "Maybe I'm a girl but I'm quite strong, thank you."