Chapter Twenty-One
West showed Skye the photo the next day. His aunt had called him first thing in the morning, concerned about what the tabloids were reporting.
The entire band was on the tour bus, about to set off to the next city. Well, almost all of them.
Remi had slept in West’s room last night, but apparently, he wandered off at some point, and now he wasn’t answering his phone.
Ollie and Liam had searched the closest coffee shops, grocery stores, and gas stations. West called all the hospitals, and Skye walked around, holding her necklace, trying to get the shadows to tell her where Remi was, as if they could work like some locator spell.
No one could find him.
When the rock star in question finally deigned to show up, everyone let out a collective sigh of relief.
Remi wore big black sunglasses and a black hoodie that was pulled up and tied under his chin. He ignored all of their probing stares as he walked onto the bus.
“Where the hell have you been?” Skye asked.
“What’s wrong with you?” Remi said, pushing past Skye and opening the cabinets in the kitchen. “We’re leaving at ten. I’m literally fifteen minutes early.”
“No, we were supposed to leave at eight. Not spend the last two hours looking for you!” Skye said, throwing her arms up. Not spend the last two hours wondering if he was nodding off on heroin and dying in a ditch somewhere.
“Jesus. I’m sorry, alright? I got the times mixed up. Won’t happen again,” Remi said.
“Where were you, mate? We looked everywhere. You weren’t answering your phone. Goddamnit, we were worried,” Ollie said.
“I said I’m sorry! My phone’s dead.” Remi said. “Fuck, since when were you guys all about punctuality? I just took a walk. I swear I won’t fucking leave the five-block radius of the tour bus ever again. Here I was thinking I was being responsible by being early.”
“Responsible? What the fuck is this then?” West asked, shoving his phone in Remi’s face.
Remi lifted his sunglasses; big dark circles cratered under his eyes. He squinted at the screen for a long minute. He let the sunglasses drop back down on his face and turned away.
“I didn’t do it,” Remi said, taking a bowl and cereal out of the cabinet.
“You swear? You swear to god?” West said. “Because I know we’ve all been indulging a little hard in the rock star life, but we agreed heroin and meth were off the table.”
“What do you want from me? Do you want me to take a drug test?” Remi exploded, holding up a jug of milk from the fridge. “You’ll find a shit ton of stuff, but you won’t find dope.”
He poured cereal into a bowl and splashed milk over it, then sat down at the table, hunching over his breakfast.
There was a stilted silence on the bus, only interrupted by Remi crunching his cereal and the tink tink of the spoon against the bowl.
Skye tried to catch West’s gaze, but he wasn’t looking at her. She’d never seen him as frantic as she had this morning. He’d snapped at her more than a few times when she questioned him about what happened with Remi last night.
But they were all under a lot of stress, and this picture wasn’t helping anyone’s mood, even if Remi hadn’t done it.
West shook his head and walked away, disappearing into the back bedroom.
“We all here, Skye?” Larry called out as the bus’s engine roared to life.
Skye waited a beat for Remi to notice his live-in groupie wasn’t here, but he only ate his cereal. She considered for a brief second leaving Jillian, but she had enough bullshit to deal with and didn’t need Remi pissed with her for anything else.
“We’re waiting for one more—” Skye said, but the tour bus door opened with its squeaky hinges, and Jillian hopped up the stairs, fingers flying over her phone and gum smacking in her mouth. “Yeah, Larry, we’re all here.”
The bus groaned as it pulled out of the hotel parking lot. Skye held on to the back of the booth to steady herself.
“Did you see this?” Jillian asked, sliding into the seat on the opposite side of the table. She turned her phone to Remi and showed him the picture they’d all been freaking out over for the last two hours.
“Yeah,” Remi grunted, barely glancing at it. “I didn’t do it.”
“Can you get that photo taken down, Jillian?” Skye asked. “You know, since you’re the band’s publicist now.”
Jillian didn’t look at Skye but furrowed her brows. “Why would I do that?”
“Because he looks like a druggie,” Skye said. “Everything the band does—no matter how good they play—will be overshadowed by this. Get rid of it.”
She really shouldn’t need to explain this to the band’s publicist. It should be fucking obvious.
Jillian shrugged one shoulder. “It’s good publicity. Remi is a real rock star now. He’s got street cred.”
Skye rubbed her temples. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” She was already trying to hold everything together for the tour, on top of double-checking everyone else’s jobs just in case the bargain started deteriorating again, and now she had to babysit the publicist, who wasn’t even really a—
Skye’s jaw dropped as the realization dawned on her. “You did this,” she said. “You fucking did this.”
Jillian stared blankly at Skye. “Did what?”
“You took the picture. You leaked it,” Skye said. “Are you trying to sabotage the band?”
Remi snorted. “No, that’s your job, Skye.”
She ignored him. “Give me your phone.” She put a hand out to Jillian.
“No. Fuck off.”
“Give it to me,” Skye said, towering over her.
Remi stood up and stepped in front of Skye. “Just leave her alone.”
“Remi, she did this,” Skye said. “The proof is going to be on her phone.”
“She didn’t do it,” Remi said. “She wasn’t in the room last night. There were like twenty people in there, and any of them could have done it. I have a fucking headache, so can you for once just stop bitching at everyone?”
Skye slapped him; his stupid fucking sunglasses went flying and clattered on the ground. Someone gasped. Skye didn’t know who. She couldn’t have broken the heated gaze between her and Remi if she tried.
Remi curled his lip and narrowed his eyes. He stepped closer, putting one of his feet between her legs. Skye rose her hand to slap him again, but he grabbed her wrist. “What are you doing, Skye? Trying to turn me on?”
Skye yanked her wrist away and shoved him back against the table. A breath of air whooshed from him, and she grabbed his chin with one hand and glared at him.
“If I was trying to turn you on, you’d know it,” she said.
He didn’t move, just flared his nostrils as the tension built between them. The air crackled with it.
“Remi.” Jillian whined. “The picture really isn’t a big deal. We could do a livestream and explain it if you want?”
Skye blinked and stepped away as Remi slid back into the booth.
“I don’t care,” he said.
Skye just shook her head. Hellfire sparked in her veins, heating her from the inside out. She grabbed her laptop and walked down the hall to the back bedroom, needing to escape from the sound of Jillian’s grating voice.
Skye opened the door to the bedroom. West sat cross-legged on the bed, his head hanging in his hands. He looked up as she closed the door and sat beside him.
“I haven’t seen him like this since Em died,” West whispered.
“I don’t know why he’s acting this way.”
West’s eyes swung over. “Really? You don’t know at all?”
Skye hesitated only a second. “No.”
“I know you got our shows canceled for our summer tour,” West said. “Before we got our record deal.”
Skye’s mouth parted as she started to deny it, but West shook his head. “Don’t lie to me. I heard you. I heard you admit it to Remi.”
Skye wet her lips. “It wasn’t—I didn’t—”
“Look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t manipulate him somehow,” West said.
Skye was a demon. Lying was second nature. “I…” So why couldn’t she do it now?
“If you messed with him before the record deal, then maybe you’re still messing with him.”
“West, I’m not! Remi is crazy. He’s out of control. He’s—”
“I’m not saying you deserve the way he treats you, but I know it’s not as one-sided as you try to make the rest of us think. Whatever you are doing to him—stop.”
“Oh, so blame the girl for how the guy acts? I really expected better from you, West. I’m not responsible for his behavior! You’ve seen the way he talks to me. I only slapped him because he was out of line.”
West tilted his head, and his eye started twitching. “You sound just like her,” he whispered. “I don’t know how I didn’t see it before.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
West didn’t answer. He stood up from the bed. “Fix it, Skye. Either you fix whatever the fuck you are doing to make him this way, or I will call a band meeting and get you fired. I can persuade Liam and Ollie of anything.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Skye said. “This tour will fall apart without me.”
“Maybe,” West said, narrowing his eyes. “But I’m willing to risk it. See, I haven’t been sleeping too well. There’s something haunting me, something dark, and the longer I’m sitting next to you, the more I feel like it might be coming from you.”
Skye clenched her jaw. West had a drop of witch’s blood. He might not know what he was sensing, but Skye had no doubt that he was reading her demonic energy. He might not be aware of his magic, but if she continued to deny everything, it’d only make him more suspicious.
Skye sucked on her front teeth and stared straight ahead. She nodded. “Yeah, okay. I’ll figure something out.”
She didn’t look at West as he left the room.
Everything was so delicate now, but she couldn’t afford to get kicked off the tour just yet.
She should use her demon magic to compel the tabloids to get rid of that stupid photo, except she couldn’t be sure if the demon magic that she was funneling into Remi’s soul was part of what kept the bargain from deteriorating, and she didn’t want to use it up on something that, with any luck, would blow over.
Luckily, Laurie’s lead had panned out while the band was on break in Milwaukee, and she’d made the soul bargain and stole the devil magic from it. She just needed to get Remi alone to solidify his bargain one more time.