Or at least, I intend for it to be for just a second.
Then I kick up my feet on the arm of the couch, pick up my bass, and start tuning again.
CHAPTER 24
REX
The rooftop of Foxhole Studios isn't much of a rooftop.
It's a flat patch of tar paper and industrial venting accessed through a fire door that technically requires a key I technically don't have because I technically broke the lock six fucking months ago when I needed somewhere to scream that wasn't a parking lot.
Tonight, the fog has swallowed Seattle whole. The city exists only as smeared light below, amber and white bleeding through gray, and up here there's nothing but damp air and the faint hum of the HVAC unit and the mask case sitting in my lap like an IED.
I've been staring at it for twenty minutes.
The case is matte black. Unremarkable. Inside it is the performance mask replica fitted with a magnetic release mechanism and, in a separate padded compartment, the half-skull prosthetic that's supposed to make the whole world believe the leaked photos of my hideous face were a publicity stunt.
I opened the case once already. Ran my thumb along the jaw edge of the performance mask, feeling the recessed magnets beneath cool metal.
Temple. Cheekbone. Jaw.
Three points of contact.
Three points where Bells's fingers will land.
Three points where she'll pull, and the mask will come away, and?—
I closed the case.
That was eighteen minutes ago.
The fire door groans behind me.
"Found you."
Bells emerges onto the rooftop in her rabbit-ear hoodie, the ears drooping sideways in the fog. Her combat boots scrape on the tar paper. She's got a vibrant pink can of energy drink in one hand.
"I came up here to be alone, you know," I mutter.
She ignores me and drops onto the ledge beside me, kicking her feet like we're not several stories above fucking concrete. She sets the energy drink between us.
My eye flicks to it automatically.
There's a muscular unicorn on the can with lasers firing from its eyes. It's vomiting the same lasers. And shitting them. Out of its ass. The fluid gathered on the rim is bright neon green.
Does she drink fucking battery acid?
"Phoenix checked the bathroom," she says, grinning triumphantly. "Raf checked the alley. I checked the roof because I knew you'd be brooding up here." She takes a sip of her drink. "Process of elimination."
"Congratulations. You found the monster on the roof. How atmospheric."
Her grin falters and her eyes soften.
An irritated growl rumbles in my chest.
Then the grin blooms again, wider than before. Full teeth, canine poking over her full lower lip. "See?That'smore like it."
I narrow my eyes at her. "Why the fuck are youhappythat I'm being a dick?"