Page 32 of Never Sleep with the Enemy

“Oh, boy, folks!”Jonny Red crows into his mic, his grin wide and wolfish.“Looks like we might get that interview after all, as Knox Benton has reentered the studio—and he doesn’t look happy!”

Through the glass walls of the studio, I watch Knox barrel toward me, his fury a living thing. His band calls after him, but he doesn’t slow. He throws open the door so hard it smacks the wall behind him.

“Knox!”Jonny Red says.“Welcome back. Please, have a seat.”

He doesn’t sit. He doesn’t look at Jonny. His gaze is locked on me. On either side of me, Tesla and Goldie snicker, but I don’t take my eyes off Knox. I smirk instead, just to see if his scowl deepens. It does.

He yanks the nearest microphone toward himself.

“The fuck is your problem, man?”he growls into it.

“Whoa!”Jonny Red chimes in.“Careful with the language, Knox. We’re a family show.”

“Then you should think twice about the kind ofgentlemanyou invite.”Knox doesn’t look away.“Because the man you have in your studio today is a lying opportunist.”

“Am—” The words halt in my throat, a flicker of movement pulling at the edge of my vision. I glance past Knox to the outside of the booth, where a crowd has gathered. Harmony the popstar. Jonah the billionaire. Bronson. Addison. And?—

Katrina.

She stands just behind them, untouched by the rising tension in the room. She doesn’t look at her brother, doesn’t look at the spectacle unfolding around us.

She looks at me.

And everything else blurs.

“Uh, Logan?”Jonny’s voice comes from nowhere and everywhere at once.“Were you saying something?”

“Harmony wanted nothing to do with you,”Knox continues, the memory trying to right itself, to play out the way it should.“You approached her, and from the way she told it, you begged her?—”

His words turn weightless, lost beneath the way Katrina is watching me. Her eyes soften, the noise around me dulls, and for a second, the whole world holds its breath.

“A man doesn’t choose his muse,”Knox rages on.“But once he finds her, he chooses her. Always.”

Katrina raises her hand to the glass.

“Logan?” she whispers.

Something shifts. A ripple. The edges of the dream flicker like a dying bulb.

“Won’t that be something?” I say, knowing I’m supposed to say it now. Or was it earlier? Did I miss my cue?

“Logan?”

“Katrina?” I ask.

She taps against the glass.

Once.

Twice.

The sound magnifies, echoing, pressing against my skull.

Tap.

“Hello?”

Tap.

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