"No," Rex says immediately.
"This isn't optional."
"I don't do interviews."
"You will for this tour." Carmine's voice stays level, but there's steel underneath. "Meridian has already booked preliminary press. The whole band participates. That's non-negotiable."
The silence that follows is fuckingthick.
I watch the tension coil through Rex's shoulders, his spine, every line of his bodyscreamingthat he wants to tell Carmine exactly where he can shove half these plans.
But he doesn't.
He just breathes. Once. Twice.
"Fine," he grits out.
Phoenix's eyebrows climb toward his hairline and Rafael looks like someone just told him pigs have learned to fly. I'm pretty sure my own expression mirrors theirs, but I keep it together somehow.
Rex just agreed to do press. Rex—who hasn't given an interview in years, who treats journalists like disease vectors, who would rather chew broken glass than answer questions about his personal life—just saidfine.
What the fuck.
Carmine either doesn't notice the seismic shift or is too professional to acknowledge it. "Good. I'll send over some standard interview prep materials. Common questions, suggested talking points, topics to avoid. The goal is to seem accessible without actually revealing anything you don't want public."
Sounds like my entire existence.
Business as fucking usual.
CHAPTER 9
BELLS
My voice is finally finding its fucking place.
We're three songs into the setlist when something clicks. Like a key turning in a lock that's been stuck for years.
I feel it in my bones. In the way Phoenix adjusts his tempo to match my phrasing without me having to ask. In the way Rafael slides into the pocket I leave for him, filling space I didn't know I was creating. In the way Rex's guitar answers my vocals like we're having a conversation in a language neither of us knew we spoke.
This is what music is supposed to be.
"Crimson Throne"bleeds into"Ashes"without anyone calling for a break. The transition happens organically, like the songs have been sitting next to each other all along, just waiting for us to notice. I pour everything into the lyrics. The grief that isn't mine but feels like it could be, the rage that definitely is, and the desperate hope underneath all of it.
When the final chord fades, the silence is different than the tense, awkward silence of before.
"That was..." Phoenix starts, then shakes his head, grinning like an idiot. "That was fuckingit."
Rafael spins his bass around, letting it hang from the strap while he stretches. "We haven't sounded like that since?—"
He cuts himself off. Doesn't finish the sentence.
We all know what he was going to say.
Since Nash.
Rex doesn't move from his position by the amp, guitar still in his hands. But his posture has shifted. Less rigid. Less like he's bracing for an attack. He's looking at me, and for once I can't read what's behind that single visible eye.
"Again," Rex says. "From the top."