Rock Redemption (Rock Revenge Trilogy 3)

“But you just said you are literally going to die.” I curled my fingers into his shirt. I wouldn’t cry. That wouldn’t help anything, but he needed to understand me. “Why is that fair?”

“It’s not. Do you think I want to do this?”

“Yes.”

He sat up. “Zoe…”

“You’re taking the easy way out. Stand up for yourself, for me, for us.”

The pale light from the large windows started creeping into our space. His storm-surge eyes were bleak and shattered. “Me for Margo—there is no question. Tell me you see that.”

The impossible situation dragged me under. I curled my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist as I hugged him tight. He clawed at my back, his fingers sliding under my shirt to get to skin.

Right now, we both needed those life-affirming touches.

I curled my fingers into his hair and buried my face into the crook between his neck and shoulder. It was all we could do with so many people around us.

Tears dripped down my face and into his hair as the watery gray light filtered into the buttery dawn.

We pulled apart as the partition opened. Ian lifted me up and set me on the floor before climbing off the cot.

“Glad you could get some rest.” Simon’s voice was flat, but there was anger simmering.

Ian cleared his throat. “Not hardly.” He raked his fingers through his hair.

I passed him one of the ponytail holders from my pocket.

He gave me a sad smile and pulled his hair up into a messy bun. “What do you need me to do?”

“Not fuck this up.” Simon cracked his neck, then his knuckles.

Donovan came around the corner, drying his hands on a towel. Him doing something so mundane felt out of place. He must have splashed water on his face and hair. The unflappable Donovan Lewis seemed a little nervous.

If that wasn’t a dose of reality, I wasn’t sure what would be.

Beside him, the hulking man in black gear who always seemed to have a weapon strapped to him was unstrapping some piece of technology. “All right, the call should be coming in any minute.”

Ian twisted his fingers with mine for a second before he stepped forward.

Donovan met him at the table, clasping Ian’s shoulder once when the phone rang. He nodded to Ian. “Just like we spoke about.”

“Right.” He lifted the cell to his ear. “Hello?” Ian’s eyebrows immediately snapped together. “What? No. I—” His Adam’s apple bounced and a blank, shocked curtain seemed to drop over his face. He turned to Simon. “They don’t want me.” He held the phone out to him.

The big weaponry guy—Aidan, I thought. I couldn’t keep all their names straight. He and another man, lankier and no less strapped with weapons, were typing furiously as they listened in on the call.

Ian stumbled back and I caught him against me. “They don’t need me.”

Relief and horror crashed together inside of me. “What about Margo?”

Seven

The darkness was absolute.

Still.

Always.

To keep herself sane, Margo ran through pieces of music in her head. Familiar ones, like Oblivion’s “The Becoming,” the song that had brought her and Simon together when she’d been called into the studio as a guest musician to sit in with the band. Ones she’d learned years ago, like Beethoven’s “Minuet in G.” Running through chords gave her something to focus on other than the fact she was being held captive by Simon’s mother.