Page 36 of Claimed By the Rockstars: Part One
The threat hangs in the air like smoke from a fired gun. Rafael and I look at each other, having one of those silent conversations that only comes from years of playing together. His dark eyes are full of anger, but underneath that, there's resignation.
We both know Rex isn't bluffing. He's insane enough to throw away the only people he has left just to maintain control of his revenge fantasy. Insane enough to risk the excruciating psychological torture of severing our fragile pack bonds.
"This isn't over," I tell Rex's back.
He doesn't respond, just starts picking up the scattered cymbal stands like we're not even there anymore.
Rafael grabs his bass case, and I follow him out of the studio. The hallway feels too bright after the dim recording space, the fluorescent lights harsh enough to make my head pound.
Or maybe that's from the fight.
We don't speak until we're outside, the Seattle rain immediately soaking through our clothes. Rafael lights a cigarette with shaking hands, offers me one. I don't smoke, but I take it anyway, needing something to do with my hands that isn't punching a wall.
"We can't let him do this to Bells," I say finally.
Rafael exhales smoke into the rain. "What are we supposed to fucking do? Rex has whatever he's using as blackmail. Without knowing what it is..."
"We find out."
"And then what? Go to the cops?" Rafael laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Hey officers! Our lead guitarist is blackmailing our new singer into joining our band! Oh, and by the way, we've been complicit in it for a week!"
Yep. We're all fucked. Rex has dragged us into something that could destroy all of us, something that could land us all in fucking prison, and we let him because we were too afraid to lose the band.
Thepack.
Chapter
Twelve
REX
The mirror is my worst fucking enemy.
Always has been, but tonight it's particularly vindictive, reflecting back something that makes my brain short-circuit like touching a live wire. The fluorescent bulb overhead flickers—I should replace it, have been meaning to for weeks—casting everything in that special shade of institutional despair that makes even healthy people look half-dead.
I'm not healthy people.
My hands shake as I reach for the mask straps, fingers fumbling with the buckles I can usually work blind. The leather's stuck to my skin in places where sweat and something else—pus, probably, fuck—has created a seal that pulls when I try to remove it.
Just rip it off, you coward.
I rip it off.
The white noise hits immediately, a high-pitched whine that starts in my ears and spreads inward until my entire skull feels like it's vibrating. My vision fractures—not blurring, but fragmenting, like someone took a hammer to a mirror and left the pieces hanging in the frame. I can see myself in sections. Theleft side of my face that's still recognizably human, the right side that my brain still refuses to process as part of me.
It's a defense mechanism. Has to be. Because if I actuallysawwhat I look like—really saw it, absorbed it, accepted it as real—I think I'd put my father's old service pistol in my mouth and finally do what I've been too chickenshit to do for ten years.
The infection has spread.
Even though my eyes keep sliding away from it, unable to focus anywhere near the scars, I can see red streaks spidering out from where Bells's blade caught me, angry lines that trace along what used to be my cheek before the fire melted it into abstract expressionism.
The fever makes everything feel like I'm watching myself from outside my body. Like this is happening to someone else, some other poor bastard who made the mistake of surviving when he should have burned.
I grab the antiseptic from the medicine cabinet, the industrial strength shit I buy in bulk from a medical supply place that doesn't ask questions. The bottle's almost empty. Add it to the list of things I need to do but won't because I'm too busy destroying my life one move at a time.
The first touch of antiseptic to infected skin makes me bite down on my lip so hard I taste copper.
Don't scream. Don't you fucking scream.
