Maybe it's stage nerves.
Maybe it's nothing.
But I find myself glancing back at Bells because that's apparently what I do now.
I look at Bells. Not my guitar.
What the fuck.
She grins at me. "Let's fucking do this."
The stage door opens and the sound hits us like a wall.
CHAPTER 30
BELLS
The roar swallows me whole.
Three thousand people packed into a dark industrial-themed venue, crammed into velvet seats and standing-room balconies, their screams ricocheting off exposed pipe and ductwork that are vibrating from the bass frequency Phoenix is laying down behind me.
I grab the mic stand and lean into it.
"You beautiful fucking monsters ready to bleed tonight?"
They freak the fuck out.
Phoenix counts us intoCrimson Throne.
Rafael's bass slides in, dark and sinuous, and Rex's guitar screams to life beside me with a jagged, furious, beautiful riff.
I open my mouth and sing my fucking guts out.
The crowd surges forward. A wall of hands and phone screens and open mouths, all of them screaming for me.
Forus.
For Vespyr.
By the third song, I'm soaked in sweat. The binder digs into my ribs with every breath and the prosthetic has shifted slightly in my jeans, but I don't give a shit. Not when the music has a death grip on me.
Although if the prosthetic shifts any further south I'm going to be performing with a very confused audience and a dick in my boot.
This is unlike anything I've ever experienced in my life.
Vespyr is more than a band.
We're apack.
A fledgling pack with broken bonds and no marks to join us, but a pack nonetheless, and we play like one.
I tell myself that's what's causing this prickling at the base of my skull, the kind of prickling that makes prey animals freeze mid-step and scan for predators in the tall grass.
I scan the crowd from behind the rabbit mask while belting the bridge ofResurrection.
Thousands of faces.
Phone screens.