Chapter 15 – REX
Chapter
Fifteen
REX
Everything.
Fucking.
Hurts.
That's the first coherent thought that claws its way through the fog of whatever pharmaceuticals they've pumped into me. Not the sharp, clean pain of a fresh wound, but something deeper. More invasive. Like someone took a cheese grater to the inside of my skull and then lit the shavings on fire.
I try to open my eyes and immediately regret it. The hospital room assaults me with that special brand of burning fluorescent violence I've hated since I woke up from the accident. Everything's too bright, too sterile, too fucking white.
Fluorescent Violence. That would be a good name for a band, I think, because whatever they have in that IV bag apparently has me fucked up.
My right hand flies to my face on instinct—checking, always checking—and freezes halfway there.
Bandages.
The entire right side of my face is wrapped in gauze and medical tape, layers of it covering the scar tissue.
My fingers trace the edges carefully, mapping new territory on a landscape I thought I'd memorized years ago.
The bandages extend further than the mask ever did, creeping past my jaw, up toward my temple.
They cut into me. They fucking operated on my face.
Cold sweat breaks out across my skin. My hands start shaking as I touch the bandages again, confirming what I already know. They saw. They all saw. How many doctors and nurses stood over me while I was unconscious, staring at the monster underneath, taking mental photographs to share over drinks?
You won't believe what Rex Steele actually looks like...
My breathing goes shallow, fast. Too fast. The heart monitor beside the bed starts shrieking, matching my racing pulse. I need to get out. Need to run. Need to disappear before—
"Rex."
Phoenix's voice cuts through the spiral, soft and careful like he's approaching a wounded animal. Which isn't far from the truth.
I turn my head—slowly, because apparently even that hurts now—and find him sitting in one of those uncomfortable hospital chairs that are designed to make visitors leave.
His massive frame dwarfs the thing completely, knees nearly touching his chest. His blond hair is messier than usual, like he's been running his hands through it.
There are dark circles under his blue eyes.
He looks like shit.
"You saw." It's not a question. My voice comes out rough, raw, accusatory. "You fucking saw everything. Didn't you?"
"No, I—"
"Who has seen my face?" The words scrape out of my throat like broken glass. "Rafael? Did you all stand around and get a good look while I was unconscious? Take some pictures for posterity?"
"Rex—"
"Who. Else." My fists clench in the sheets, knuckles white. The heart monitor's going crazy. "How many people in this fucking hospital know what I look like? How many—"
"The surgical team, that's it," Phoenix says quickly. Too quickly. Like he's trying to calm a bomb that's about to go off. "And they're bound by HIPAA—"
"HIPAA doesn't mean shit when someone's selling photos to TMZ for fifty grand." I try to sit up, need to get out, need to leave before— Pain shoots through everything and I collapse back. "Fuck. FUCK!"
"Nobody took pictures." Phoenix leans forward, hands up like he's trying to show he's not a threat. "And nobody took your mask off. In the operating room, yeah, probably. But in the ambulance, no."
"What..." My voice cracks. Actually fucking cracks. Pathetic. "What the fuck did they do to me?"
"Surgery." Phoenix looks away, can't meet my eye, his shoe tapping nervously on the floor. "The infection had spread into the bone. They had to debride the tissue, clean everything out. You're on antibiotics and fluids."
Debride. Clinical word for scraping away dead flesh. I've had it done before, back when the burns were fresh. Back when Nash would sit with me through the screaming because our parents sure as hell weren't going to.
"My mask." The words come out flat. "Where's my mask?"
"Safe." Phoenix gestures to his leather bag on the chair beside him, and he gives me a wary grin. "You can probably wear it over the bandages if you want to look like a shadow daddy again."
The attempt at humor falls flat. Everything feels flat. Like someone took all the color out of the world and left just grayscale behind.
"What the fuck is a shadow daddy?"
"Do you just deliberately avoid everything the fans say about you online?"
"Yes," I grit out through my teeth.
Phoenix gives a tired laugh. "Never mind."
"How long was I out?"
"You've been asleep for two days. They have you on some heavy shit because..." He trails off, and I know what he's not saying. Because they needed to do extra work because my face is fucked to the point I don't even know how—or if—they managed to stitch the cut closed.
My hand reaches for the bandages again to make sure they're there.
"Bells didn't let them remove your mask in the ambulance," Phoenix says, watching me.
Bells?
Bells protected my secret?
Bells, who has every reason to want me exposed, humiliated, destroyed. Bells, who I'm blackmailing into singing for a band she hates. Bells, who saw my face in that tunnel and could have told everyone, could have taken photos, could have—
But didn't.
And now I owe her. Now she has something over me. The knowledge sits like acid in my stomach.
I close my eyes, and immediately I'm back in that alley. Stephen's hands on her. The way she froze. That look in her eyes that I recognized because I've seen it in the mirror. Pure, primal terror masquerading as paralysis. It was something that demanded immediate, violent correction.
And then everything went white.
Guess we're even now.
Except we're not. Because she's seen the real me and kept quiet about it. That's not something you can repay with violence in an alley. That's a debt that hangs over your head forever.
"Is he okay?" I mutter.
My hackles bristle immediately at the softening in Phoenix's expression, like he's touched I care and happy to find out I give a shit about our bandmate. Joke's on him, because I don't. I would've done the same damn thing for anyone vulnerable in that position.
The fact it was Stephen whose face I got to rearrange is just the icing on the cake.
"Yeah," Phoenix says quietly. "He's okay. Rafael took him back to the penthouse."
The penthouse. Our pack's territory. The place where we're supposed to be safe, where outsiders don't—
"So he's in your room?" I ask pointedly.
Phoenix looks away, and that tells me everything I need to know.
"Tell me," I grit out, my fingers gripping the hospital sheets hard enough that my knuckles creak, "that you did not put Bells in Nash's room."
The silence that follows is answer enough.
"Get him out." My voice comes out low, dangerous. The kind of quiet that makes smart people leave. Too bad Phoenix is a giant himbo. "I don't care where he goes, but get him the fuck out of Nash's room."
"It's just for now—"
"I don't give a shit if it's for five minutes. That's Nash's space. His things. His—" The words choke off, tangled up with the IV in my arm and the bandages on my face and the fact that my brother is dead and some girl I'm blackmailing is sleeping in his bed like that's fucking normal.
"Nash would want someone to use that room," Phoenix says softly, like he's trying to coax down a wounded beast that's about to take a bite out of his jugular vein. "He'd hate that we turned his room into a shrine. Into a coffin we're too afraid to open."
"Don't." I force my eye open, glaring at Phoenix with enough venom to strip paint. "Don't you fucking dare tell me what Nash would want. You don't get to use him to justify—"
"To justify what?" Phoenix's voice gains an edge I rarely hear.
"Letting someone stay in an empty room instead of a shitty hotel where Stephen Hughes can find him?
Because that's what this is about, Rex. Bells needs to be somewhere safe right now.
Somewhere Stephen won't go. He's afraid of you. We all know that."
The name brings everything rushing back. The sick satisfaction I felt with every crunch of bone beneath my knuckles.
"Did he survive?"
"Yeah." Phoenix's jaw tightens. "Multiple facial fractures, severe contusions, broken nose. But he'll live."
Shit.
I must make some sound, some indication of disappointment, because Phoenix's expression shutters.
"Rex, you can't—"
"Can't what?" I shift in the bed, and pain shoots through my face, my ribs, everywhere. "Finish what I started? Watch. When I get out of here, I'm going to find that piece of shit and—"
"And what? End up in prison?" Phoenix demands. "Rex, they're already asking questions. The only reason you're not in custody right now is because Bells told them Stephen attacked him first. That you were defending him."
Her.
Defending her.
The correction sits heavy in my skull, wrong and right at the same time. I defended her because some fucked-up wiring in my brain won't let me watch women get hurt. I'm not a good person. But there are some lines I won't cross, and anyone else who crosses them in front of me is fucked.
She covered for me. Again. The debt keeps piling up, and I fucking hate it. Hate owing her anything when I'm supposed to be the one with power here.
The bandages itch. Everything itches. I want to rip them off, want to see the damage, want to know exactly how much more disgusting I look now that they've carved into scar tissue that was already a fucking horror show.
"How bad is it?" The question slips out before I can stop it. Vulnerable. Weak.
Phoenix's expression does that soft puppy eyes bullshit thing again.
I hate it. Hate the pity, hate the concern, hate that he looks at me like I'm something fragile.
Like I'm something broken that needs to be handled with care.
And now the whole fucking band knows there's something wrong with my face.
"They said you'll heal," he answers carefully. "The infection's gone. That's what matters."
"That's not what I asked."
"I know." Phoenix shifts in the chair made for betas half the giant alpha's size, stretching out his legs like they're sore. I notice the way he won't quite meet my eye, the way his gaze keeps sliding to the bandages then away again.
"And?" I press, trying my absolute fucking best not to sound like I'm chewing gravel.
"But it's the only answer I'm giving you right now," Phoenix continues, shrugging his broad shoulders. "You just got out of surgery, Rex. Can you just... not be you for five minutes? Let yourself heal?"
Heal.
Right.
Like healing is something my body knows how to do anymore. Like I haven't been breaking down piece by piece since the accident. Like Nash's death didn't hollow me out until there was nothing left but rage and revenge and this obsessive need to destroy Stephen Hughes by any means necessary.
Including blackmailing a girl who freezes when alphas get too close.
A girl who now knows my biggest secret and protected it anyway. A girl who has power over me now, whether she knows it or not.
This is why I don't take painkillers. They make me feel shit. Shit that feels dangerously close to an emotion I never let myself feel because it isn't fucking safe.
Guilt.
"You should go home," I tell Phoenix, closing my eye because looking at his concerned puppy face is too much right now. "It's after visiting hours. They'll kick you out."
"Already bribed the nurses." There's a grin in his voice, even as I start to slip away into another deep sleep brought on by exhaustion and whatever they've pumped into my veins. "Turns out the night shift loves drummers who can actually keep time. I'm good until morning."
Of course he did. Phoenix and his golden retriever energy, making friends everywhere he goes. Making people care about him. Making me care about him even when I don't want to. Making me feel almost human when we both know I'm not.
Not anymore.