Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Sean seems to be considering my answer. “What about Ben? Imaginary child aside, would you choose him over everything else? No matter what?”
It’s ridiculous to say yes. It’s been a few long, intense days, but the truth is . . . I would. I asked about visiting California, but when Ben was arrested and when I missed him last night, I was thinking about moving there, about creating a life together, wondering if I’d fit into the life he has there already and if he’d even want that.
I swallow thickly—not on Rosemary’s impeccable french toast, but on the lump of emotion in my throat—as I nod.
“Would you say you’re a trustworthy person?”
I frown, feeling like Sean’s leading me not to water, but to my own destruction. Still, I nod.
One of his acidic smirks stretches across his mouth, and he says, “We’ll see.” He pulls his phone from his pocket and clicks around for a second. I have no idea what he’s doing, but then he hands the phone to me and I see it’s a YouTube video.
It’s probably something disgusting or pornographic or stupid. Any of those would seem right up Sean’s alley.
“Hit play.” His right brow raises as he watches me look back and forth between him and the phone.
I don’t want to do it. I’m not sure what game this is, but Sean is infinitely better at it. But Roy might be right about me, that I obey too easily, because when Sean tells me to play the video, I do.
Or maybe it’s because I’m so curious what he thinks some concert video is going to prove.
A superfast, screaming guitar solo starts, and then booming drums join in at the same high-speed tempo. This is not my style of music at all. The stage is dark, with bright white, red, and green laser lights shooting across the black background. And then there’s a deep, guttural roar that reminds me of a video I saw once of an alligator growling.
Suddenly, the lights begin to strobe flash, highlighting three monsters onstage. In the back, the drummer wears black clothes and a chrome mask with horns that covers his face. The guitarist on the right of the stage has what appears to be blood dripping down his black-painted face. Hopefully, the red is paint, too, and not actual blood.
And then there’s the lead singer.
He has one foot up on a speaker, and he’s playing a bass guitar that’s slung around his body. He’s dressed in all black, wearing a tattered hooded cloak that covers his head and drapes from his shoulders to a few inches above the ground. The lower half of his face is covered by a black mask with an evil, skull-esque grin painted on it, and the paint continues on his upper face, which is solid black, including blackout contacts. The total effect is that he looks like a demonized shadow and sounds like death is consuming him from the inside out right before me, live on video.
“What is this?” I mutter, flinching at the ear-piercing, rapid-fire singing over the incessant drum beat and wailing guitar.
Is this considered music? Is that considered singing? I don’t know, it’s nothing like I’ve ever listened to.
“Keep watching. Keep listening. Wait for the chorus,” Sean instructs, and like a mindless robot, I do.
The chorus starts with a tempo change. The guitar sounds more like a cry than a screech, and the drums slow by maybe a beat or two. And then the devil up front screams a few words I can semi-understand: “Once upon a mental obliteration, there came a midnight destruction.” The pace of the delivery makes it sound like a freestyle spin on Edgar Allan Poe’s opening to “The Raven.” As the singer repeats the line over and over, the audience joins in, sounding crazed and going wild, with fists punching the air above their heads and grimaces on their faces.
After a few rounds, something hits me. “Midnight Destruction. That’s one of Ben’s band T-shirts. You think because we like different music, I’m gonna bail on him?” I ask Sean with my brows furrowed. “That’s stupid.”
He raises his right brow again. “Listen.”
I close my eyes, taking out the visual onslaught of pandemonium happening on the screen, and focus solely on the demon monster’s voice. It’s all over the place—guttural growls, higher-pitched notes, some held long and others staccato short.
“Until I am nothiiiing moooore!”
Sean’s right. There’s something about the voice. It sounds vaguely familiar, and I try to think of any singer I might know who would have a secret, second band that does this type of music. Like The Masked Singer but real. I don’t think this is T-Pain in disguise, though.
And then it hits me.
“Is that Ben?” My jaw falls open as I squint, trying to focus on the small screen to see the singer better. The Demon Monster is waving one arm around theatrically, almost like he’s conducting the audience to fall under his hypnotic sway, which they’re doing while singing along with him.