Chapter 7 Unhinged Filming Chaos
UNHINGED FILMING CHAOS
RUBY
One Week Later
Music videos are not glamorous.
Not even a little.
They are sweaty and loud and disorganized and involve way more “look sultry over your left shoulder” and “try that again but pretend you want to set the world on fire” than any one human should endure before noon.
Also…I really can’t sing.
Nothing has ever been proven this faster than the ten minutes the sound guy spent testing my mic.
“You don’t have to sing,” Freddie assured me, valiantly hiding a grimace. “And for the love of God, don’t.”
Super comforting.
Zane? He doesn’t care. He doesn’t even pretend to care.
The first night after I signed my life, hormones, and sanity away, I finally managed to talk him into letting me go home.
And the second the money landed in my account I quit my job, told Toby I was done frothing his beans and he said I was welcome to “froth something else.”
That his wife didn’t need to know.
I smiled, leaned in, and whispered, “Sweetheart, she’ll know the minute I post your DMs on the church Facebook group.”
He choked so hard he almost frothed himself.
And after that delightful encounter, I did some ‘homework’. As in, I deep-dived into YouTube like a deranged honors student preparing for the SATs of Feral Rockstar Behavior.
I watched every interview, every live performance, every fan cam, every “Zane Draven Growling for 10 Minutes Straight” compilation.
Bad fucking idea.
Because nothing prepares you for how famous he actually is.
Or how feral.
Or how violently adored.
Fans scream All Hail Saint Sin when he walks on stage.
Reviewers gush things like:
“Saint Sin lit up the stage last night at the Forum, dripping sweat, snarling lyrics, and proving once again why Riot Saints are the only band that matters. Silver-eyed and shirtless, Zane Draven doesn’t just sing. He transcends. He devours. And the crowd begs to be eaten alive.”
Or, my personal favorite unhinged fan post:
“Saint Sin looked straight into my soul last night. I swear his eyes glow under the lights. Protect your girls, because if Zane Draven points that mic stand at you… you’re already his.”
That one haunted me.
The more I watched, the more I panicked.
Because while I’ve barely existed in my little ignorant bubble, he’s everywhere.
He’s untouchable.
He’s been papped with women who look like they get paid to eat air. LA-thin goddesses with legs that go on for days and midriffs that have never known the warmth of a carb.
Meanwhile I’m…plump. Thick-thighed. Fat-assed. Squishy in all the places LA insists women shouldn’t be soft.
And now I’ve fucked him.
Which throws a whole new grenade into my self-esteem. Because part of me wonders if I’m insane for being here…and another part wonders if ten million dollars is enough to fake superfandom and pretend the pressure doesn’t feel like a boulder on my chest.
But then…I hear snippets of his lyrics in my head.
The ones that hit soul deep.
“I’d burn down heaven just to taste your sin.”
“Your name’s a prayer… but my mouth makes it blasphemy.”
“You’re the only riot my soul ever wanted.”
Lines that make my chest tighten.
Lines that make me want to write something back—an ode, a story, something that feels like I’m answering him. Something that feels like I’m staking a claim.
But before I can spiral further, he mutters, “You’re not here to sing… you’re here to be mine on film.”
Soothing. Ish.
On then on day three, things detonate.
Zane hits some kind of manic edge I’ve never seen before.
It starts small.
The director wants a shot he hates.
The lighting designer adjusts something he doesn’t like.
His mic cuts out twice.
The drummer misses a beat.
But what makes things go sideways ape-shit in the blink of an eye? A camera guy accidentally bumps into me.
Then the world explodes.
Zane’s mic stand goes flying, metal clanging as techs dive out of the way like he’s thrown a live grenade. He rips headphones off a sound tech so violently the poor guy squeaks before dissolving into full-on tremors.
Someone swears. Several people flee the scene of carnage.
But the band doesn’t even flinch. Looks like this is just another Tuesday for them.
Freddie?
Freddie is nowhere. Probably crouched behind a crate, praying to the gods of rock music and health insurance deductibles.
Zane is pacing back and forth like a caged predator, muttering under his breath, his muscles tight enough to snap. My heart drops to my toes when I see the veins standing out on his forearms like they’re trying to claw out of his skin.
His eyes blaze with a wild, jagged light that should terrify me.
But alarmingly, it…doesn’t.
It draws me. It pulls something deep and primal and stupid out of me. Full moth-to-flame, vampire-to-blood, junkie-to-their-last-hit mode.
A want.
A need.
A wrong urge to soothe him, touch him, anchor him.
It’s insane and dangerous and Jesus, why isn’t anyone doing anything?
I hate that it throws me back to childhood trauma, of hearing my parents go at it like it was World War Z.
When he lifts an industrial-heavy speaker above his head like it’s a toy and hurls it across the stage, I do the only thing I can think of.
I dive into my head. And I hum. Like I used to drown out the noise of my parents fighting.
It’s soft. Barely audible. A shaky, nervous hum meant only to calm me, not him.
But… I hear it louder than it should be. Because I still have a microphone attached to my chest.
It picks it up.
And Zane freezes.
Like he did before. Actually freezes mid-step like someone severed a wire inside him.
His head snaps toward me so fast I swear I hear vertebrae protest as the room stops breathing. His chest rises…falls…rises again, panting like he’s in the middle of a survival sprint.
But as I watch, he sucks in a breath. And grows calmer.
Measured.
Like the sound of my hum has synced itself to the rhythm of his lungs.
His eyes find mine and they’re burning. Starving and yup, most definitely, unmistakably unhinged.
He looks like a man on the edge of something lethal. A creature recognizing the one frequency that tames him. A storm learning the shape of the lightning that owns it.
And God help me, my body answers before my brain does as he stalks toward me, slow and predatory, every muscle wound tight enough to detonate.
I hold my breath and widen my stance, loosen my body.
His for the devastating taking.
“Zane…” Freddie tries, appearing out of nowhere with Clipboard Carl hovering one step behind him.
Zane doesn’t hear him. Or he does and doesn’t give a single damn.
His hands slap the space on either side of my head, caging me against a stack of equipment crates, sweat-slicked, adrenaline-pumped, tattooed perfect with his half-naked body braced over mine.
His voice is pure gravel and a pain I can’t decipher as he stares down at me. “What. The fuck… Did you just do?”
My lips part. “I… what are you talking about?”
His jaw flexes like he’s holding back an earthquake. “That…noise,” he rumbles, eyes devouring me. He yanks my palms to his body, plants them on his pecs. “Do it again.”
My pulse misfires. What on gremlin’s green planet is happening? “Zane—”
“Do it again.”
I swallow. And I hum. Barely.
His eyes flutter shut and a shudder rolls through him, real, visceral, bone-deep.
Like I just flipped a hidden switch he’s been searching for his whole life.
He opens his eyes and they’re wild. Wilder. Silver and little broken, like intercepted lightning.
It’s mesmerizing. And a lot dangerous, rushing over me as if he wants to look everywhere but doesn’t know where to start. “You’re never leaving me,” he whispers.
It’s not a threat. Not that part.
“And Ruby? I hear you humming for another guy, I’ll fucking kill you both. You hear me?”
There it is. A simple, raw, homicidal truth.
A soul-deep vow and a promise forged in whatever hell he was born from.
He breathes out, resolute, even though I don’t answer. And I suddenly…terrifyingly understand.
He means it to the marrow. To the grave and the stage lights and beyond.
And God help me…
A small, reckless part of me?
The one that hums from his unhinged words and declarations. The one his body responds to like a tuning fork?
That part wants to believe him.
Zane
I don’t hear the director shouting. I don’t hear the crackling headsets or the clatter of equipment or the guy swearing because I broke his mic again.
I hear the sound.
The hum.
It’s soft. So fucking soft. A brush of a butterfly’s wing on my fevered rage. Barely-there. Off-key. But it slices through the chaos like a spotlight cutting through darkness.
Every muscle in my body goes rigid.
It’s her.
Her voice.
Her vibration.
Her fucking frequency.
My head snaps toward her before I even know I’m moving, my nerves lit like a blown fuse.
Her lips are parted, her throat moving gently as she hums, completely unaware that she just reached inside me and pulled some lever I didn’t know existed.
My pulse slams, my breathing steadies and my vision sharpens.
She did that.
With a hum.
I stalk toward her, slow, determined, my whole body rewiring itself with every step I take. “Zane—” someone tries behind me.
Doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except her.
I cage her against the crates, crowding into her space so she feels every inch of what she just unleashed. Her eyes widen and her breath stutters.
Good.
It’s imperative she should know exactly what she’s playing with. What she’s just unleashed. My voice scrapes out like gravel dragged across metal.
“Do it again.”
She hesitates, and it guts me, terrifies the fuck out of me, because…what if she doesn’t? What if she never does it again? What if this is the only time I ever feel this…peace? This close to heaven?
My wiring has been wrong since I was a kid. Too much noise, too much light, too much emotion and my brain misfires and detonates. Mama used to call it my “storm episodes.” Doctors had uglier names for it.
Sensory-emotive dysregulation. Volatile thresholds. Hyper-reactive responses.
Labels.
None of them helped.
I was the boy who shattered windows when fireworks went off.
The teenager who punched through drywall because a guitar amp squealed too loud.
The man who learned to channel the chaos into a microphone because there was nowhere else safe to put it.
And I’ve spent my whole life ashamed that I can’t always control it. Worried it makes me flawed, broken, unlovable, something to manage, not something to keep.
But she’s here.
She signed a contract.
She’s not going anywhere.
No…she can’t. I won’t fucking allow it.
Her eyes search mine and I want to lower my gaze, don’t want her to see the damaged darkness inside me. Finally, she hums again.
It hits me like a drug. A bolt of sound straight to the spine.
My eyes flutter shut again.
My body shudders…again. My heartbeat slows to match hers—two rhythms syncing into one.
Holy hell.
Holy fuck.
I open my eyes, and I know I look insane. Because I am.
“You’re not leaving me,” I repeat, just so we clear, in a voice hoarse and raw and carved from the center of my chest. “Do you hear me, Ruby? I’m never letting you go.”
She swallows, eyes wide, legs trembling.
Behind us, I hear a sharp inhalation.
“Holy shit,” Jude murmurs from a few feet away. “Did anyone else see that?”
“Bro,” the bassist whispers, “he looks like he just… ascended.”
“Or snapped,” the drummer offers.
I don’t care. I don’t hear anything but her breath.
Freddie finally appears, pale and sweating like he sprinted across three counties.
“Okay, okay,” he mutters, attempting to slide between us like he’s trying to prevent a landmine explosion. “Why don’t we…Ruby, honey…come here. Just for a second.”
My head snaps toward him and I growl.
He blanches. “I’m just—I’m just talking to her, man. No touching.”
Ruby shoots me a look of half warning, half plea, and lets Freddie usher her a few steps away.
I can’t breathe, can’t move.
Everything inside me is clawing in the same direction. Toward her.
I hear it loud and clear when Freddie whispers urgently, “He’s… never like this. You…whatever you just did—he’s not built to handle it. You need to—”
“I know what I need,” I snap, stepping forward so fast the band flinches.
Ruby stiffens.
I suck in a breath and lower my voice, eyes locked to hers. “I’m done pretending this is temporary. I’m done pretending this is just a video. I’m done pretending I can let you walk away.”
Her lips part and she shakes her head once.
I take another step…close enough to inhale the hum off her skin. “Accept this now. You’re not going anywhere, Ruby Lane.” My voice drops, dark and final. “Or ever.”
Her breath catches, right before a gurgling noise erupts from her throat.
The crew goes silent.
Freddie mutters, “Oh fucking hell, we’re screwed,” under his breath.
Again… I don’t care. Agitation spikes beneath my skin and I’m primed to pace. To rip and rain mayhem.
She hums again, barely, involuntarily…like she’s testing it out, testing me, and my whole goddamn world tilts into place.
Sweet heavenly saints. I don’t know where this creature came from. Don’t know how I lived before this.
Before her.
Before the sound she makes that feels like it was crafted for my bones alone.
And I know, with a clarity sharp enough to cut me open.
I meant every word I said.
I’ll drag hell with me before I let her go.