She had Remi’s soul.The bargain was solidified.Her wings were safe.There was nothing left to stay for.She sifted away as a shadowy, foreign power burned through her veins.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Remireachedintotheflames that encircled Skye—the thought of being burned didn’t even cross his mind until he yanked his hand back from the kiss of the fire.
“Ouch.Fuck,” he said, shaking out his hand and staring at the blistered skin as it rose along his palm.
Skye had vanished before he made contact with her.A faint trail of smoke was left in her wake.
Some weird magical heat sizzled through him and then disappeared again.The skin on his right hand bubbled, turning white in the middle and angry red on the edges.The wound almost seemed fitting.He never considered the consequences of his actions when it came to Skye.He only acted.And those actions always left him burned in one way or another.
What the hell had just happened?
The bus felt like it was tilting under his feet.Something in the air felt wrong, creating a stomach-dropping dread.
He wanted to blame the orgasmic endorphins for how he’d tried to get her to stay, but he couldn’t even lie to himself about it, since he’d never once felt that way post-nut with Jillian or any of the other groupies.He couldn’t remember the last time he felt so needy and pathetic over someone.
His hands curled into fists, and he pounded the table, wincing as he agitated his burn.“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath.This.This right here.This needy and pathetic feeling.This was exactly what she wanted him to feel.
He blew out a breath through his nostrils and readjusted himself into his boxers and zipped up his jeans.Well, fuck that.Fuck her.He hardened himself to whatever cascade of emotions she’d been trying to orchestrate in him by fucking him and disappearing like that.By letting him see her fragile and vulnerable and—
Fuck,no.Just no.Enough was enough.
Skye was an expert in manipulation.She knew Remi’s weaknesses and played on his humanity.He overheard West telling Liam and Ollie to let up on him when it came to Skye.West wasn’t exactly running around, pointing fingers and claiming that he finally believed that Skye was the wicked witch that Remi had been trying to warn them about, but he was at least more suspicious of her.Skye had known that.She’d known if she lost West’s trust, it would only be a matter of time before the rest of the band turned on her.
So she tried a new tactic.A “let’s work together” tactic.She played dirty.Her disappearing act was just another tool to make him feel guilty.
Remi ran his hands through his hair to straighten it out as best he could.He should check a mirror to make sure his makeup looked alright, but he didn’t think he’d be able to stomach looking himself in the eye right now, so he put his sunglasses on to hide behind.
He walked off the bus, pushing through the paps, and into the venue, looking for his bandmates, but they weren’t around.He flagged down one of the stagehands, who told him everyone went to a diner.Remi was too ashamed to text them to ask where they ended up—if they’d wanted him there, they would have texted him—so he ate what was left of the catering in the dressing room and scrolled on his phone with his non-burned hand.
Skye didn’t come back for showtime, which was the moment when Remi realized she’d never missed a show since she’d become manager.She didn’t appear when it was over either.Or when Ollie and Liam went off with a couple of girls.Or when West shut himself up in one of the bunks.Or when Remi fucked Jillian in the back room, hoping Skye would just sense it somehow and come yell at him for it.
No one mentioned her absence when the tour bus pulled away the next morning.His bandmates only spoke to him about perfunctory logistics, and he let the awkwardness between them fester until his self-righteous indignation calcified in his gut, and he didn’t even know how to fix it or where to start or if he even wanted to.
He stopped going out to bars and getting fucked up in hotel rooms.Reasoning that he couldn’t be yelled at for not being in the right place at the right time if he only went from the concert venue, to the bus, and back every single day.
His self-imposed grounding was also necessary since the paparazzi still tried to follow him, though the venues had been better about keeping the scum outside the gates.
The tour went on in that same limbo for three weeks.Their home may have been moving city to city every few days, but the air was stuck and stagnant.The corners of the bus were encrusted with a filmy sludge that somehow only seemed to grow the more Remi put his mind to figuring out how to clean it.Except, maybe, he wasn’t trying hard enough, because a cleansing conversation was too impossible to consider.
Where to start?
The dishes in the sink, the clothes that hadn’t been washed in weeks, the socks stuck between the cushions of the couch, the crumbs in the fridge, their own person’s unwashed in the truest sense—with too infrequent showers and the general malaise of drugs and alcohol ingested for weeks.
Where to start?
An apology was stuck inside him like the clog in the bathroom sink drain, lodged there by the heavy debris of his own pride and indignation.
The burn on his hand started to heal, but Skye didn’t come back.Her name wasn’t even spoken in passing.Remi had been waiting for the band to notice she was gone and confront him about what he did to make her leave.He’d been waiting for an excuse to become outraged that they assumed it was his fault, even though itwas.
Mostly, he just wanted them to question it, to look for her, to bring her back so he didn’t have to admit to himself he considered doing just that every single day.
They were in Tulsa when he finally caved.
“Do you know where Skye is?”Remi asked, sitting at the dining room table on the bus with Liam and Ollie.
Ollie furrowed his brow.“Are you just now noticing she’s gone?It’s been weeks.”
