REX
The mask comes off.
Click-click-click.
Clean. Fast. Three magnets releasing in sequence and the performance mask is in her hand and the fog hits the prosthetic skull underneath and I can't breathe.
Can't think.
Can't—
"See?" Bells says, holding up the mask like a trophy. "Easy."
My whole body is shaking.
Every nerve ending from my scalp to my feet is firing at once, adrenaline dumping into my bloodstream like someone opened a floodgate, because my mask just came off and there'sairon my face around the thin white skull prosthetic and someone islooking at meand?—
She's not looking at me.
She's looking at the mask in her hand, turning it over, examining the magnetic contacts. Deliberately, obviously, giving me time.
"Putting it back," she announces.
Her fingers find my face. The prosthetic, technically—the skull that's still covering everything—but her fingertips brush the edge where it meets real skin at my hairline and my whole body jerks.
Her legs tighten around my waist. Steadying us both.
"Easy," she murmurs. "I've got you."
The performance mask presses back into place.
Click-click-click.
The magnets engage and the familiar weight settles against my face and I can breathe again.
Barely.
"Again," she says.
"Bells—" I bite out.
"Again, Rex."
I want to smash through the wall behind her and jump off this fucking roof. Every instinct is screaming at me to flee, to hide, to put as much distance between myself and her as physically possible.
She knows what's under the fucking prosthetic.
She saw the pictures.
She knows.
But my knot is locked inside her and my legs are shaking and I literallycannotmove without?—
She reaches up.
Click-click-click.
The mask comes away.