Page 30 of Claimed By the Rockstars: Part One
"Is it?" He's in my space now, close enough that I can see my reflection in his visible eye. "This song is about want. Raw, desperate, carnalneed. The kind that makes you want to tear someone apart just to get closer. And you're singing it like it's a grocery list."
"Maybe because I don't particularly feel like tearing anyone apart right now."
"Liar." The word is soft, dangerous. "You want to tearmeapart. I can see it in your eyes. Use it."
Something hot and angry unfurls in my chest. He wants emotion? He wants feeling? Fine. I'll give him so much feeling he chokes on it.
Rex steps even closer, and now I can feel the heat radiating off his body. My back hits the mic stand, the cold metal pressing against my spine through my jacket. He's got me trapped between him and the equipment, and we both know it. His visible eye tracks over my face, searching for weakness and fear.
He won't find either.
"Again," he commands, his voice low enough that Phoenix and Rafael probably can't hear from across the studio. "And this time, stop pretending you've never wanted anything but mediocrity in this life."
The jab lands exactly where he intended it to. My hands curl into fists at my sides, nails digging crescents into my palms.
"Back the fuck up," I growl, but he doesn't move. If anything, he leans in closer, until I can see the silver studs on his mask catching the shitty fluorescent lighting.
"Make me."
The words ghost across my skin.
That's it. That's fucking it.
I shove him back—hard—and grab the mic like it's a weapon. "Phoenix, count us in again."
Phoenix looks between us, clearly confused by whatever the fuck is happening, but he does it. The drums kick in, Rafael's bass sliding underneath, and Rex picks up his guitar again, that single eye never leaving mine.
This time, I don't hold back.
I channel every ounce of rage I've been swallowing for the past two weeks into the opening line. All the fury at being blackmailed, at having my life torn apart, at being forced to stand here and pretend like this is anything other than extortion.
"Taste of copper in my teeth?—"
My voice comes out raw, bleeding at the edges. I think about the blood on my hands when I cut his mask strap, the metallic tang of fear when I thought he might actually kill me in that storage room.
"—like I've been biting through my fucking tongue?—"
I move with the music now, letting my body tell the story my voice is painting. Every word drips with the kind of venom I've been storing up since that night at Restaurant Elysium, when he sat there in his expensive suit and calmly took my life apart.
"—just to keep from saying what I really think of you."
Rex's fingers move easily over his guitar strings, but I catch the slight tension in his shoulders, the way his jaw tightens behind the mask.
The chorus hits, and I lean into it with everything I've got. My voice cracks on the high notes, not from inexperience but from pushing too hard, too fast, too much. It sounds like I'm being torn apart from the inside, which isn't far from the truth.
By the time we hit the bridge, I'm practically snarling the words. My voice has gone rough and ragged, nothing like the polished performances I gave with The Reverie.
This is raw.
Unfiltered.
Real.
Phoenix and Rafael are locked in now, feeding off the energy I'm putting out. The music swells around us, dark and hungry and violent. This is what I'm supposed to sound like.
Not pretty, not safe.
Visceral and dangerous.
