Skye shivered as his smooth voice resonated with her on a deeper level, a frequency that she felt especially attuned to.
“Age is just a number.”Liam’s voice popped in.“And I’d like everyone listening to hear me when I say that MILKs are one hundred percent welcome at Tilted Haze concerts.”
A rustling noise came through as if someone put their hand over the microphone, and the announcer’s muffled voice asked, “Can we say”—bleep—“on the radio?”
“I didn’t say”—bleep—“I said M-I-L-K, which stands for mothers I’d like toknow.In a very radio-friendly kind of way, of course.”Liam cackled.
“Ollie, did you know there is already a social media page for your beanies?”a woman radio host asked.
“Uhm,” Ollie said, laughing self-consciously.“What?”
“Fans have collected photos of you from shows and have dedicated themselves to cataloging all of your beanies,” she said.
“Huh,” Ollie said.“Can you send me that link?I gotta show my dad cause he’s been trying to get rid of my hat collection since primary school.”
They all laughed.
The male radio disc jockey asked, “West, do you have any comment for the disgruntled people who are, shall we say, less than supportive of a gay guitarist in America’s most popular rock band?”
“People have been angry that I kiss dudes since I started doing it,” West said.“I don’t have anything to say to them other than”—bleep—“you.”
“I have something to say to them,” Remi said.“Rock ’n’ roll is about saying”—bleep—“you to the establishment, and in my opinion, there is nothing more rock ’n’ roll than being queer.”
“Is that how you identify, Remi?”
“I don’t identify.”
“What do you mean?”
“You only want me to answer that question so you can put me in a box,” he said, annoyance in his voice.
“The only thing Remi identifies as is a rebel,” West said diplomatically.“While being gay upsets homophobic people, refusing to label himself at all gets everyone in a tizzy.”
“And getting people in a tizzy is what rock ’n’ roll is all about!”Remi said.
“And there you have it,” the original radio host said.“That was Tilted Haze.I’m Johnny Summers, and you’re listening to Radio X, LA’s number one rock station.”
“Isn’t that the band whose singer’s soul you bargained for?”Zara asked.
Skye jumped in her seat, practically swerving off the road.“What the fuck, Zara?”
Zara stared at her fingernails.They were red and sparkly and cut into a blunt, round shape.“If you weren’t staring off into space, mooning over him, you’d have noticed me sift in.”
“I’m not mooning over him,” Skye protested.
“Uh huh,” Zara said in that all-knowing way that only demons who had been partners in crime for two decades could.“So if you aren’t busy fucking the singer, then where have you been?I haven’t seen you in like six months.”
“I’ve been soul hunting,” Skye said.
“Mmm, I did see the one you brought in.What’d you get for it?”
“Five years,” Skye said.
Zara whistled, impressed.“I’ve never heard of anyone getting five years from one deal.Must be a pretty soul.”
“Yeah, it is,” Skye said a little dreamily.The onyx encasement that Skye saw with her demon vision had just been the outer shell of Remi’s soul.The shell cracked when he agreed to the bargain, and the inner core was ice-blue like his eyes.It shimmered with a milky glitter, like a marble.
“The soul was worth five years,” Skye said.“So naturally, it took six months of nurturing the lead to get it.”
