Page 75 of Claimed By the Rockstars: Part One
I blink. Was that... a joke? FromRex?
"I'd rather not go back to Stephen," I say.
He snorts.
I got a fuckingsnortout of Rex Steele.
"No," he mutters as we pull up to a tower. "Stephen doesn't deserve that much credit."
Not like, a radio tower or a cell tower.
An actual stone tower that looks like it was ripped out of a gothic fairy tale and dropped in the middle of the Pacific Northwest woods. Ivy crawls up weathered gray stones. Gargoyles perch at intervals like sentries. There are actual fucking battlements at the top.
I stare up at it through the rain-speckled windshield, my brain refusing to process what I'm seeing.
"You know I'm not going in there, right?"
Rex kills the engine. "It's perfectly safe."
"That's what people say right before they die."
"You watch too many horror movies."
"You literally brought me to a murder tower in the middle of nowhere." I cross my arms, sinking deeper into my seat. "And you're menacing as fuck even in broad daylight in the middle of a fancy restaurant, let alone the set of Silent Hill."
His mask shifts against his temple, which means his jaw is clenching. He doesn't say anything. Just sits there in silence, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. Then he breathes inslowly, his broad chest expanding, and lets out a long sigh that sounds almost…
Sad?
Did I actually hurt his feelings?
Fuck.
"Menacing because of your winning personality, not the way you look," I add, and his head turns slightly so he can glare at me properly and not just through the mask.
Whew. That's better. Sad Rex is by far my least favorite variant. I'd take Deluxe Pissed™ Rex any day over that.
Just when I'm starting to worry he's going to keep sitting there and staring at me like he doesn't know what the hell to do with me, he speaks again in a dry, flat tone that's clearly meant to be forceful but comes off as vaguely exasperated instead.
"You're going into the tower."
"Not doing it. You can blackmail me into joining your band, make me sing until my throat's so raw I have to guzzle honey, you can even make me sleep in your creepy camera-filled room. But you cannotmake me walk into that fucking tower."
"It's just a mask shop," he grits out, clearly exasperated.
"I don't care if it's an unmarked van full of candy and puppies."
But that does pique my interest, just a little bit. Until I glance at the tower again and spot a shadowed figure moving in one of the windows that looks a hell of a lot like a golden skull. It's gone almost as soon as I see it.
"That's aghost, Rex."
He follows my gaze, brow furrowing. "I'm sure it was just?—"
"Nope!"
Rex's eye closes for a moment and he lets his head fall back against the headrest like he's praying for patience from a god that abandoned him years ago. Then he pulls out his phone and starts typing.
"What are you doing?"
