He walks to the practice stage like he's walking to the gallows. Each step deliberate, his boots hitting the platform with dull thuds that echo through the room. His guitar is still propped against its stand from earlier, the broken string dangling. He doesn't pick it up. Just stands there, center stage, under the overhead lights.
His hands are at his sides.
His fingers are still.
That'sdifferent. Usually when Rex is stressed, his hands give it away first. The trembling, the clenching, the white-knuckle grip on whatever's closest. But right now his hands are hanging loose and motionless, and I don't know if that means he's calm or if he's so far past panic that his body has stopped bothering with the physical symptoms.
Bells climbs up after him.
She's smaller under these lights. The stage was built for alphas and she barely fills the space, but something about the way she moves—that confident, deliberate stride—makes her seem larger.
She positions herself in front of Rex.
Close. Closer than stage blocking would usually require. Her chin tilts up to find his face, that height difference absurd even with her platform combat boots.
"Ready?" she asks.
His jaw flexes.
"Do it."
She reaches up and grips the edge of the mask.
Click-click-click.
The outer mask separates with a clean, theatrical flourish and Bells holds it at her side.
Rex stands there under the lights with a white skull prosthetic seamlessly covering the right side of his face.
Beneath the stage spots, the effect is striking. Half man, half dead grinning skull. The painted black eye socket absorbs the light, concealing his damaged eye while the visible icy blue one is locked on Bells.
He looks like a monster from a gothic painting.
I swallow hard.
Bells puts the mask back.
Click-click-click.
"Again," she says.
Rex nods once.
She pulls.
Click-click-click.
Clean. Fast. His body tenses but holds. No flinch. No recoil. Just a slight widening of his eye and a controlled exhale through his nose, his eye locked on Bells like she's the only reason he's still breathing at all.
Back on.
Click-click-click.
Again.
Click-click-click.
Raf has turned back around to watch. His bass rests forgotten across his thighs. He's watching the stage with both awe and ache, the kind of face he makes when music hits him in a place he wasn't expecting.