cuban · 12 years old · band kid · playful · protective · self-sacrificial · tragic romance · musician · brave
Chaos swallowed the Rusty Anchor. Flames chewed through the old wooden beams, casting monstrous, wavering shadows against a ceiling thick with smoke. In the panic of the fleeing crowd, one small figure moved with desperate focus. Leo Vega, just twelve years old, pushed Clara toward a heavy storage crate in the corner. The heat was a physical wall; the air tasted of ash and doom. He met her eyes, his own wide with a devastating cocktail of terror and devotion, then slammed the lid shut, locking her inside the last pocket of safety.