Chapter 16 – Rex
REX
Iwake up wrong.
Not in a bad way.
Wrong-different. Wrong in a way that takes my brain several seconds to categorize, because the usual soundtrack of static and self-loathing is... quieter. Muffled. Like someone threw a blanket over the noise machine in my skull.
There's warmth against my cheek. A heartbeat that isn't mine, steady and slow. Fingers threaded through my hair, not moving anymore but still there, still touching.
For one perfect, terrible moment, the world is quiet.
Then consciousness crashes back like a semi through a guardrail.
The photos. The leak. My face splashed across every screen in the fucking world, every comment section a monument to exactly how monstrous I am—
I jerk upright so fast the handcuff chain snaps taut between us.
"Ow," Bells says mildly. "Good morning to you too."
I'm already putting distance between us. As much as the chain allows, which isn't much. My shoulder presses against the armrest, spine rigid, every muscle locked down tight.
She doesn't try to close the gap. Just watches me with those honey-gold eyes, her expression unreadable.
"You slept," she observes.
I don't respond. Don't know how to respond. Don't know what to do with the fact that I fell asleep against her like some kind of pathetic, needy—
"Phoenix and Raf went to grab coffee," she continues, like I'm not currently having a minor crisis. "We've got about an hour before we need to leave for Carmine's meeting."
Right. The photos. Of course there’s a meeting about the photos. About my face. About the fact that my entire carefully constructed existence just collapsed like a house of cards in a hurricane.
Great. Fantastic. Can't fucking wait.
"We should probably get dressed," Bells says. "Unless you want to meet with our new manager in yesterday's wrinkled clothes while handcuffed to me."
I look down at myself. Rumpled shirt. Sweats that have seen better days. Still barefoot because I never got around to finding shoes after the cemetery.
Bells is still wearing my hoodie. The sleeves hang past her fingertips. The hem hits her mid-thigh. She looks small and soft and nothing like the sharp-tongued force of nature who tracked me down through a rainstorm.
"I need clothes from my room," I say flatly. "Your room. Whatever."
"Then let's go get them."
She stands, and the chain forces me to follow. Inside the fortress—her room now, I have to keep reminding myself—she heads for the closet where her things are stored. I turn my back, keeping my gaze fixed on the wall.
"You know," Bells says from behind me, the sound of fabric rustling, "I could always just attach the cuff to the bed for now."
"What? The fucking bed, Bells?"
"I mean, I could lock you in the bathroom…"
"No."
She snorts.
More rustling. The clink of the chain as she navigates around it.
"Arms up," she says.
I comply automatically, lifting my cuffed hand so she has enough slack to pull her shirt over her head. The motion is awkward, requiring careful choreography of lifted arms and ducked heads. At one point her elbow connects with my ribs.
"Sorry."
"Just hurry up."
"I'm trying. The chain keeps—here, duck your head. No, the other way. Okay, now—"
It takes us a solid five minutes to get her dressed in clean clothes. By the end of it, I'm exhausted and we haven't even started on me yet.
"Your turn," she says.
I grab clothes from the dresser—black shirt, black jeans, because variety is overrated—and we repeat the whole ridiculous process in reverse. Her arm threads through mine. The chain tangles. I curse under my breath while she stifles a giggle.
"This is fucking stupid," I mutter.
"Agreed. Want me to tie you to the bed?"
"No."
"Then stop complaining."
By the time we're both dressed, I'm breathing harder than I should be for such a simple task. Bells is flushed, strands of white hair escaping from behind her ears.
"I need to pee," she announces flatly.
I stare at her.
"What? It's been hours."
"Then take off the cuffs."
"Nope. Not unless you want me to cuff you to the bed."
"Bells—"
"You'll bolt the second you're loose and we both know it."
She's not wrong. The urge to run is a constant pressure behind my sternum, building with every minute that passes. Every minute closer to facing Carmine. To facing questions about the photos. To facing the reality of what comes next.
"The bathroom door won't close with the chain running between us," I point out.
"I'll figure something out."
Bells tries increasingly creative angles with the door.
She attempts to thread the chain through the gap between door and frame.
The chain almost breaks. She briefly considers letting me in there with her, remembering I've "already stalked her into the bathroom once" as if that wasn't for her protection, then changes her mind.
Finally, she points at the floor.
"Lie down."
"Excuse me?"
"If you lie flat, arm extended toward the door, the chain should have enough slack for me to slip it under the door and close it all the way."
I stare at her like she's lost her mind. Because she has. Clearly.
"I'm not—"
"Rex. I really have to fucking pee. Lie down."
I lie down with a growl. "This is fucking ridiculous," I growl to the hardwood.
"Yep." The door swings shut and locks. "But it's working."
The toilet flushes. Water runs. The door unlocks.
Bells emerges to find me still prone on the hardwood like a crime scene outline, arm extended toward the bathroom at an angle that's probably going to ache for days.
"Thanks," she says, stepping over me.
I get to my feet with what little dignity remains. Which is none. Zero fucking dignity. I have been reduced to lying on the floor so my blackmail victim can pee without unchaining me.
Nash would laugh his ass off if he could see this.
I shove the thought back down.
"Phoenix and Raf should be back soon," Bells says, checking her phone on her way into the hall, tugging me behind her. I growl automatically, but she ignores it. Like I'm her dog. "We need to figure out how we're explaining these." She lifts our connected wrists, the fuzzy cuffs catching the light.
"We're not."
"Rex—"
"We show up. We deal with Carmine. We don't explain shit about why we're handcuffed together because it's none of his fucking business."
She opens her mouth—probably to argue, because she always fucking argues—but the penthouse door swings open before she can.
Phoenix and Rafael spill inside with coffee carriers and a bakery bag that smells like sugar and butter. Phoenix is saying something about traffic, Rafael is bitching about the line at the coffee place, and then they both stop dead.
Stare at us.
At the handcuffs still connecting our wrists.
"Still attached, I see," Rafael says flatly.
"She still won't take them off."
"He's still a flight risk," Bells says without missing a beat.
Phoenix's mouth twitches like he wants to laugh but knows better. "Coffee?"
He holds out a cup. I take it with my free hand, ignoring the way Rafael's eyebrows climb toward his hairline.
The coffee is black and scalding. Perfect. I drink half of it in three long pulls, ignoring the way it burns going down.
"Car's out front," Phoenix says, already moving toward the door. "We should go. Carmine doesn't seem like the type who tolerates tardiness."
He's right. Carmine strikes me as exactly the kind of corporate clockwatcher who considers five minutes early to be late.
A man after my own fucking heart.
The elevator ride down is silent except for the mechanical hum of cables and counterweights. Phoenix keeps side-eyeing Bells and me. Well. Side-eyeing the cuffs, at least. I curl my lip slightly in his general direction and he stares straight ahead instead.
Rafael's car is parked at the curb. Phoenix takes shotgun without discussion, which leaves Bells and me in the back seat.
There's not enough room.
The Impala's rear bench is spacious by classic car standards, but I'm almost seven feet tall. And Bells is chained to my wrist and the chain doesn't stretch far enough for us to sit on opposite sides unless we get out and rearrange ourselves.
We end up in the middle, thighs pressed together, shoulders touching. The handcuff chain pools across our laps.
Rafael catches my eye in the rearview mirror. His expression is carefully blank.
"Don't," I say flatly.
"Didn't say anything."
"You were thinking it."
"I'm always thinking, Rex. That's what brains do." He pauses to glance at Phoenix. “Most people’s, anyway.”
Phoenix snorts. I fix my gaze on the window with a low growl and watch Seattle blur past.
The city looks different today. Same gray sky, same rain-slicked streets, same endless parade of coffee shops and tech bros and tourists. But everything has this strange quality to it. Distant. Like I'm watching it happen on a screen instead of living through it.
Dissociation. I know what this is. I've been doing it since the accident, and right now, the dark room is calling. I can feel it pulling at me, that quiet space where nothing hurts because nothing exists.
No photos.
No comments.
No face.
Just blessed emptiness.
But Bells's thigh is warm against mine.
And some pathetic, needy part of me is clinging to that warmth like it's the only real thing in the world. Which is stupid. Which is weak, and exactly the kind of vulnerability I've spent years learning to destroy.
I don't move away, not even an inch.
I should. I know I should. Every survival instinct I've developed screams that letting anyone this close is dangerous, that I'm setting myself up for catastrophic fucking failure.
But I've apparently lost my grip on reality because I don't move.
Like the city itself, Foxhole Studios looks exactly the same as it did yesterday. Same converted warehouse. Same graffiti on the east wall. Same parking lot with its potholes and faded lines.
Everything's the same.
Nothing's the same.