Chapter 16 – Rex #2
Rafael parks next to Carmine's vehicle. Phoenix is out first, then Rafael, then Bells pulling me after her because the chain doesn't give me a choice.
When we head inside, Phoenix leading the way for once, Carmine is already there, perched on a stool near the mixing board with his tablet balanced on one knee.
He looks up when we enter. His eyes track from Phoenix to Rafael to Bells to me, then down to the fuzzy handcuffs connecting our wrists.
His expression doesn't change.
"Interesting accessory," he says mildly.
Nobody responds.
Carmine gestures to the ratty couch against the back wall. "Sit. We have a hell of a lot to discuss."
We sit. Phoenix takes the armchair. Rafael leans against the wall with his arms crossed. Bells and I end up on the couch, pressed together because the chain doesn't allow anything else unless we get up and play musical fucking chairs.
Carmine studies us for a moment. Whatever he's thinking, his face gives nothing away.
"I'm going to show you something," he says. "And I need you to understand this isn't to cause more pain. It’s simply reconnaissance. We need to know exactly what we're dealing with before we can address it."
He taps something on his tablet and turns the screen to face us.
The photo fills the display. High-definition. Every fucking detail of my ruined face captured and preserved for public consumption.
I already saw it. I saw it yesterday, right before I turned off my phone and walked to Nash's grave. But seeing it again hits different. Harder.
Because now I'm seeing the comments.
Carmine scrolls slowly, letting each one sink in.
imagine waking up next to THAT
this is literally the scariest thing ive ever seen on the internet
that eye tho... how does he sleep
he doesn't lol he just stares at the ceiling like a demon
Phoenix makes a low sound like someone just punched him in the gut.
I don't react. Because I'm not here anymore.
The dark room has me now. That quiet space in my skull where nothing reaches, nothing hurts, nothing exists except the distant awareness of my body breathing.
In and out. In and out.
Automatic functions continuing without my input.
I'm not seeing anything on the screen. My gaze is fixed on a crack in the wall that's shaped like a lightning bolt. Interesting. Never noticed that before.
Imagine waking up next to THAT.
Bells woke up next to me this morning.
Her fingers in my hair. Her heartbeat against my cheek. Her warmth seeping through my shirt into skin that hasn't been touched gently in over a decade.
They're right.
No one should have to tolerate something like me.
The crack in the wall is really fucking detailed actually. Little branching lines spreading out from the main fissure. I wonder how it got there. Impact damage, maybe. Or just the natural settling of an old building.
"Rex."
Bells's voice. Coming from very far away.
I don't respond. I'm busy studying the crack.
"We need to talk about strategy," Carmine is saying.
The words reach me like they're filtering through water.
"The photos are everywhere. Every major platform, every gossip site, every corner of the Internet that thrives on cruelty.
Trying to suppress them at this point would be like trying to un-ring a bell. "
"So what do we do?" Phoenix asks. His voice is rough.
"That's what I'm trying to determine."
Bells shifts beside me. The movement tugs at the handcuff chain, a gentle reminder that I'm still technically attached to reality.
"People are already questioning them," she says.
Carmine's eyebrows lift. "Questioning?"
"The photos. Look." She leans forward, reaching for the tablet. Carmine lets her take it. "Here. And here. And—" She scrolls, fingers flying across the screen. "See?"
My gaze drags to the screen against my will.
no way this is real
has to be a zombie prosthetic
the lighting is way too perfect, this is obviously manufactured
FAKE. The Reverie are jealous bitches trying to destroy the competition
FAKE FAKE FAKE
"Those comments are buried," Carmine says, dragging a hand through his short hair. "The ratio is overwhelmingly negative."
"But they exist." Bells's voice is steady and certain. "The seed is already planted. All we have to do is water it."
"You're suggesting we claim the photos are fake."
"I'm suggesting we confirm what people are already theorizing. The lighting is too perfect. The detail is suspiciously high-definition for what would've been a phone camera."
"And when someone demands Rex remove his mask to prove it?"
"He refuses to dignify fake images with a response." Bells doesn't hesitate. "Why would he? Engaging gives them power. Ignoring them makes the hoax theory more believable. Not less."
Carmine studies her for a long moment. Then his gaze shifts to me. "Rex."
I don't move. Don't acknowledge. The crack in the wall is still there, still shaped like lightning, still fucking fascinating.
"Rex. Look at me."
Some distant part of my brain recognizes this as an order and resisting it means fighting with Carmine. Fighting when I don't have the energy to give a shit enough to fight in the first place.
My head turns and Carmine's eyes meet mine, gray and assessing.
"Take off your mask."
The dark room collapses and my hands freeze.
Every instinct I have screams at once. Run. Hide. Die, even. Anything except this, anything except standing—sitting—here under these lights while another person tells me to show everyone in this fucking room the thing I've spent almost half my life hiding.
"I need to see what we're working with," Carmine says.
His voice is still level and professional.
Like he's just asking me to hand over a quarterly report.
"If we're going to build a strategy around plausible deniability, I need to understand exactly what the photos show versus what actually exists. "
I can't move.
Can't even fucking breathe—
"I've seen his face," Bells says abruptly.
Carmine's attention shifts to her, arching a thick eyebrow. "Have you."
"Yes. And the photos are bullshit. Whoever edited them went completely overboard. There's scarring, sure. But what's in those photos isn't even close to reality."
I find myself staring at her in pure unadulterated shock. Why is she doing this? Why is she fighting for me? Is she lying? Does she really think what she saw in that tunnel was different from the leaked pictures?
Maybe she was in fucking shock.
"Your word isn't exactly proof."
"We've fucked."
Phoenix and Raf's jaws both drop at once.
I do the opposite. I clench my jaw until my fucking teeth hurt. Especially the exposed teeth on the right side of my face.
What the hell are you doing, Bells?
"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 him no fucking way in 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 stop that.
"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. "The supposed leaked 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.
Nothing left for Bells, Phoenix, and Raf.
Wait… why the fuck did I think about Bells?
She doesn't even want to be here. She hates me. Hates all of this. She's only pretending to like her simple rabbit mask to get under my skin even though I deliberately wanted to poke at her being a cardboard cutout. I know she is.
She—
"Fine."
It sounds like the word came from someone else. But it didn't. It came from me.
Carmine's eyebrows lift. "Fine?"
"I said fine," I grit out. "Do whatever you need to do. Stage the fucking unmasking. Turn my horrible fucking face into a marketing strategy. I don't care."
I do care. I care so much it's eating me alive. But I can't let this fall apart. Can't let everything we built disappear because I'm too fucking broken to face the music.
Carmine nods once. "Good. I'll have the staging team start working on designs for the masks. Rex, you'll need to be present for fittings to make sure it sits properly over your actual face."
I don't respond. Don't trust myself to speak.
"No," Bells says in a tone that doesn't leave any room for argument. Carmine raises his eyebrows even more at her, opening his mouth, but she isn't done. "We already have a maskmaker. Jamie is the only one who can pull this off without it looking like a cheap shitty trick."
"We'll talk more about the specifics later," Carmine says with a tired sigh, but I can tell Bells won.
He stands, tucking his tablet under his arm.
"For now, go home. Get some rest. And maybe—" His gaze drops to the fuzzy handcuffs still connecting my wrist to Bells's.
"—sort out whatever the fuck's happening between you all. "
He leaves without waiting for a response. The studio door swings shut behind him with a soft whoosh.
Nobody moves.
"Well," Rafael finally says. "That was..."
He doesn't finish. Can't seem to find a word that fits.
Phoenix hauls himself up from the armchair. His face is pale, his jaw tight. "Let's just go home."
We file out of the studio. Phoenix first, then Rafael, then Bells pulling me after her like a pet zombie because I can't seem to make my legs work independently. The chain shifts. Metal slides against metal.
And somehow, in the space between steps, her hand brushes mine.
I should yank my hand away.
I don't.