“Let’s go!”Remi shouted to West, squeezing his shoulder.He couldn’t stand by while Skye and West got hurt, and there was nothing left for them to do here.
With graceful, supernatural speed, Skye hopped over the barricade.West and Remi ran behind her.Liam dragged Ollie out of the mess and helped him limp over to the side of the stage.
A blowhorn sounded, cutting through the noise.Someone official-sounding bellowed out a threat to disperse or risk getting pepper-sprayed.
Remi whipped around to Skye.“What the fuck were you thinking?Running out there like that?You could have gotten hurt.Don’t fucking do that again.”He pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her.His heart was hammering.His entire body buzzing like he was vibrating off the earth.
“I can take care of myself,” Skye said, but her arms settled around his back.“And I had to take care of my band.”Her voice lowered into a whisper as she spoke the next words into his neck.“You.I had to take care of you.”
Something shifted inside Remi.The tectonic plates that shielded his heart.They’d already been moving, but the overwhelming quake of his feelings crumbled anything that remained.
Every moment he experienced with Skye—in real life and dream life—all of it jumbled up in his head.His brain was slower than his heart, but his body caught up to the awareness that cleared all of their past transgressions against one another.
He cupped her face and slammed his lips to hers, pouring all the intensity and passion of his realization into the kiss.
Remi had never fallen in love before, but he knew with every piece of his soulless being that he was in love with Skye.
All of his past anger and resistance had just been a useless fight against the inevitable.
Their mouths slotted together, and Skye’s fingers twisted Remi’s shirt.She made an intoxicating little moan, and Remi responded in kind with his own growl of approval as her tongue swept into his mouth.
It wasn’t slow or sweet.There was hunger and something almost destructive in the way the energy exploded through them, destroying all the past distrust between them, destroying every moment of hurt, and leaving only what had always been there underneath it all—care, obsession, possession, need.Visceral aching need tugging through his body.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”Jillian screeched.Remi pulled back, dazed and lost, magnetized by a similar look on Skye’s face.They needed to get to the tour bus.They needed to get to the hotel.They needed to get somewhere, anywhere.He needed to get her alone and never separate from her again.
“This is all her fault!And you’re kissing her like you just came back from war?”Jillian asked.
Skye blinked, her face sobering.“My fault?”
Jillian put her hand on her hip.“This crowd was never going to accept them.This gig wasn’t the saving grace that you promised it would be.You’re a shitty band manager.”Jillian turned to Remi.“She did this, Remi.She’s manipulating you, probably stealing from you.I know people who would be so much better at managing your band—”
“I don’t think it’s Skye’s fault,” Liam said, staring down at his phone.Remi had sort of forgotten that his bandmates were there.“Metalfest’s social media has been blowing up for the past two hours about how Tilted Haze got Crushing Skulls kicked off the lineup.That’s why the crowd was pissed.It was a tinderbox about to light up.”
“Why would they think that?”West asked.
Liam shrugged and continued scrolling on his phone.
“Remi, I didn’t—” Skye started.
He kissed the back of her hand.“I know,” he said.“I know you didn’t do this.”He didn’t need to question whether she’d sabotaged them.Skye always found some way to turn things around, even when the deck was stacked against them.
A cautious hope bloomed in her eyes as he interlaced their fingers together.
“It’s my fault,” Remi said.“I wanted to win them over, but it was never going to work, and I just couldn’t stand up there and watch our fans getting trampled like that.I’m more to blame for this than anyone.”
“You did the right thing,” West said.“I was watching those girls get pushed around too.The security people weren’t even bothering to help.”
“Fuck this place,” Ollie said.
Remi nodded.
“Okay, someone with the username CrushAllTheSkulls started the rumor,” Liam reported.“See?”He turned the phone around to show everyone the forum, and they read the damning comment that the entire internet rallied behind.
“I want to find those girls,” Remi said as he looked at Jillian.“Can you message them?I’m pretty sure that I recognized them from that photo.Maybe we can check the medical tents too?I don’t want any of our fans to walk away from this festival with a bad taste in their mouth.Let’s get them t-shirts, concert tickets, whatever.”
Jillian smiled like she’d tasted something sour.“Sure.I’ll get right on that.”
“And I want to do a livestream,” Remi said.
