Page 52 of Claimed By the Rockstars: Part One
The bandages itch. Everything itches. I want to rip them off, want to see the damage, want to know exactly how much more disgusting I look now that they've carved into scar tissue that was already a fucking horror show.
"How bad is it?" The question slips out before I can stop it. Vulnerable. Weak.
Phoenix's expression does that soft puppy eyes bullshit thing again. I hate it. Hate the pity, hate the concern, hate that he looks at me like I'm something fragile. Like I'm something broken that needs to be handled with care. And now the whole fucking band knows there's something wrong with my face.
"They said you'll heal," he answers carefully. "The infection's gone. That's what matters."
"That's not what I asked."
"I know." Phoenix shifts in the chair made for betas half the giant alpha's size, stretching out his legs like they're sore. I notice the way he won't quite meet my eye, the way his gaze keeps sliding to the bandages then away again.
"And?" I press, trying my absolute fucking best not to sound like I'm chewing gravel.
"But it's the only answer I'm giving you right now," Phoenix continues, shrugging his broad shoulders. "You just got out of surgery, Rex. Can you just...notbe you for five minutes? Let yourself heal?"
Heal.
Right.
Like healing is something my body knows how to do anymore. Like I haven't been breaking down piece by piece since the accident. Like Nash's death didn't hollow me out until there was nothing left but rage and revenge and this obsessive need to destroy Stephen Hughes by any means necessary.
Including blackmailing a girl who freezes when alphas get too close.
A girl who now knows my biggest secret and protected it anyway. A girl who has power over me now, whether she knows it or not.
This is why I don't take painkillers. They make me feel shit. Shit that feels dangerously close to an emotion I never let myself feel because it isn't fuckingsafe.
Guilt.
"You should go home," I tell Phoenix, closing my eye because looking at his concerned puppy face is too much right now. "It's after visiting hours. They'll kick you out."
"Already bribed the nurses." There's a grin in his voice, even as I start to slip away into another deep sleep brought on by exhaustion and whatever they've pumped into my veins. "Turns out the night shift loves drummers who can actually keep time. I'm good until morning."
Of course he did. Phoenix and his golden retriever energy, making friends everywhere he goes. Making people care about him. Makingmecare about him even when I don't want to. Making me feel almost human when we both know I'm not.
Not anymore.
Chapter
Sixteen
BELLS
Three nights in Nash's room, and I still can't shake the feeling I'm trespassing on holy ground.
The first night was the worst. I sat on the edge of the bed for two hours, hands pressed between my knees, trying to convince myself it was okay to sleep here. That Nash wouldn't mind. That the dead don't care about the living claiming their space.
By the third night, I'm just too fucking exhausted to care anymore.
Since I haven't been practicing or leaving the penthouse, the binder's been off since I locked the door that first day, and the relief of breathing without restriction is enough to make me feel almost sick at the thought of doing it again.
I've been living in Nash's old t-shirts—oversized band tees that smell like incense—because they're softer than anything I own. More forgiving against my bruised ribs and the reddened skin under my arms and breasts where the binder has been rubbing me raw.
I haven't left except to use the bathroom down the hall, and I'm careful to only slip out when I know I'm alone, although thebaggy shirts hide enough at first glance. Rafael's been leaving food outside the door like I'm some feral cat he's trying to coax out of hiding. Sandwiches. Fruit. Omelets. I eat them sitting cross-legged on Nash's bed, surrounded by his books, trying to piece together who he was from the scraps he left behind.
There aren't any notebooks in here. I wouldn't touch those. But Nash apparently wrote notes in all the books he had, underlined the parts he liked and wrote in the margins. His handwriting slopes to the right, confident and flowing. There are doodles in every blank space—little flowers, abstract shapes, snakes, dragons, roses, a phoenix rising from a burned page that smells like weed, as if someone dropped a joint on the paper and it caught fire.
Above the phoenix, someone's writtenmiss youin different handwriting, all caps, messier, and more desperate, the letters practically carved into the paper. I trace the words with my finger, wondering if it was Phoenix himself.
