Page 122 of The Rogues

My heart cracks at the casual way she says it, so callous and undermining. As if I chose to find my scent matches. As if she actually dated Cyrus, when they hated each other the entire time.

“Were there any signs?” he asks her.

“She was distant, always making excuses not to hang out.” She laughs, seemingly buddying up to the pap, unbothered by their intrusion. The New York streets are busy, and I think I recognize what club they are outside of when a flash of black hair enters the frame, a cigarette idle between her two fingers.

Raven.

“Yeah, so she could go blow them in their hotel rooms,” she snickers, bringing the cigarette to her lips. My blood boils.

“So, what does this mean for the band then?” the man behind the camera asks. “What does the future of Vicious Velvet hold?”

“We’ll keep performing. I love my job, love our music. She can do what she wants. She’s still my bandmate.” Her last words crack a little and Raven laughs beside her, inhaling her cigarette.

“She’s always been a sneaky one,” she adds. “Come on, the taxi’s here.”

Raven pulls Cleo after her, leaving the pap behind, but the video ends on Cleo’s face, hurt flashing over her features.

My blood is boiling. For the first time in a long time, I feel unfiltered rage toward Cleo, and it’s so foreign, but it radiates from the inside out.

How dare she do this? Even after our team got together to form a solution, how dare she go out on her own and make a new narrative? I know she took the news of my connections with the guys hard, but I never thought she would do this.

I look at my texts, but there are too many to decipher besides the group chat sitting there.

Lark: what the hell, Cleo? we had a plan! why did you do that?

Lark: this is literally worst case scenario

Nicola:

Lark: I hope Donna fucks you up!

But there is no response from Cleo, and I realize I can’t wait for her to pull her head out of her ass to give me one. I run to the room and slide on one of Cyrus’s T-shirts, his bittersweet scent doing its best to lull me, and slide on my jeans from last night. Then I’m marching out the door, prepared to deal with this issue between Cleo and me once and for all.

I’ve never felt this hot before, red fuming beneath my skin, boiling and sizzling to the touch. I can’t help the way my feet practically stomp to Cleo’s hotel room that she shares with the other girls. Technically with me, too, but I haven’t stayed in my own room since I first moved to the guys’ bus.

I’m hoping Lark or Nicola will be here as a buffer, but that dream is futile when the door opens and Cleo is standing there, her expression bored and her lip curled.

“Why are you banging on the door? I haven’t had my coffee yet.”

She turns and walks into the suite, her feet dragging her along. I just barely resist the urge to slam the door shut as I follow her in, completely not in the mood for the nonchalance she is showing me right now.

“Are you serious?” I ask her, my eyes bugging. “You did what you did last night and you’re wondering why I’m banging on the door?”

Something akin to confusion flashes over her face before she shrugs. “I’m just saying, I thought you had a key on you. Just because you’re not staying here doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have an access card.”

My fists tighten by my side. “Stop trying to make this a normal conversation. I need you to tell me why the hell you said those things. Why did you do that?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she says, her tone so indifferent that it makes me see red.

“You’re trying to make me the villain, Cleo!” I scream. “You do know that I couldn’t control this, right? They are my mates.”

She looks at me, her brown eyes glassy. “I just have to continue the narrative, Josie. It’s nothing personal.”

My hands go into my hair as I have the urge to pull on the strands, my body completely at a loss for words. “Nothing personal? The narrative? Our team was going to tell the truth for once and you went and fucking ruined it.”

She avoids my gaze as she sits on the cream colored sofa. “Well, a guy was asking me questions. I answered them. End of story.”

Her words slur a bit, and I narrow my gaze at her. “Are you fucking drunk?”