"I've had plenty of opportunity to see exactly what's under that mask," Bells continues. She delivers this information with the same flat certainty she uses for everything else. "And I'm telling you, the photos are exaggerated to the point of being fabricated." She shrugs. "Maybe they used a zombie filter."
I stare at Bells.
She stares back, those honey-gold eyes unwavering.
She's… lying.
She's lying for me.
We haven't fucked. Haven't done anything except share a bed—platonically, accidentally, while handcuffed together because she's apparently lost her mind. The most physical contact we've had is her fingers in my hair while I slept against her shoulder like some kind of pathetic, touch-starved beast.
But she just told our new manager we've been screwing. With the lights on. As evidence that the photos are fake.
Why?
Why?
I keep staring at her. She keeps not looking away.
Carmine exhales. The sound is loud in the quiet studio.
"I'm not opening that particular can of worms," he says finally. "If only because I could lose my fucking job." He taps something on the screen of his tablet. "Here's what we're going to do."
He turns the tablet back toward us. It displays a rough timeline with dates, venues, promotional events.
"The first show of the comeback tour," Carmine says. "We stage an unmasking."
Every muscle in my body locks up.
Still can't fucking talk even though I want to chew his ass out and tell himno fucking wayin every possible variation that comes to mind.
"Not a real one," he continues, oblivious to what I'm sure is my impending cardiac arrest. Fuzzy handcuffs and chains can't stopthat. "A theatrical one. Rex's mask gets ripped off during a dramatic moment—mid-song, maybe, or during the encore. By Bells, of course. The audience will lose their minds. And they'll see what appears to be his face exposed."
Raf's eyes narrow and darken.
"Appears to be," Phoenix repeats carefully, his jaw ticking.
"Underneath the first mask, there's a second one. Something theatrical. A skull design, perhaps, playing into the existing mystique." Carmine gestures like he's painting a picture. "The leak becomes part of Vespyr's brand. The monster mask underneath the mask. The 'real face' that's obviously theatrical because it looks exactly like the leaked photos everyone's been sharing." His eyes flick to Bells. "Thesupposedleaked photos."
"You want to turn this into marketing," Phoenix says slowly.
"I want to neutralize a threat while generating publicity. The Internet is already obsessed with Rex's face. This gives them something to obsess over that we control."
The dark room is gone. Every part of me is here now, present, feeling the full weight of what Carmine is proposing.
Unmasking. Onstage. In front of everyone.
Even if it's fake. Even if there's a second mask underneath. The motion of it. The moment when the first mask comes off and the audience sees?—
"Rex."
Carmine's voice is sharp now.
I force myself to focus on his face.
"I need you to trust me," he says. "This is my job. This is what I do. And I'm telling you this is the only path forward. If you can't commit to that, if you're going to fight me on every decision, then I need to know now so I can walk away before we waste any more of each other's time."
If Carmine walks, there's no comeback tour. No music. No legacy. Nothing left of Nash except a grave I visit when the pain gets bad enough.