Page 25 of The Darkest Note

I take a deep breath and make sure my voice doesn’t tremble when I say, “Sure. Let’s do that.”

Zane smiles at me. His grin is panty-melting and I’m not surprised that, of all three gorgeous rockstars, he has the playboy reputation.

Zane drops an arm around my shoulder. “Tell me, New Girl, do you have an actual name?”

A flash of something dark passes through Dutch’s eyes, but it’s gone in a blink.

“Cadence.” I side-step Zane so I’m out of his grasp. “Cadence Cooper.”

“Cadence? Like the cadence of a song?” Finn asks.

“Yeah. My dad was a musician. Mom let him pick our names. He called me Cadence and my sister, Viola.” My eyes zip to Dutch. He’s not saying anything, but his jaw is clenching and unclenching.

A foreboding feeling descends on me, but I brush it away. I haven’t done anything to these guys. Or to anyone. I’ve been invisible at this school for a whole month, not getting into anyone’s way or minding anyone’s business but my own. They have no reason to seek me out and hurt me.

“Sounds like music’s in the family?” Finn says.

“Uh… yeah. I guess you could say it’s in my blood.”

“Your mom a musician too?” Finn asks.

“No, not exactly.” Dad gave me all the good traits. Mom handed down her vices like a hereditary disease.

We’re in the hallway now and though it’s crowded with students, it feels like someone pressed ‘pause’ on a movie. No one is moving or blinking. They’re all staring at me and The Kings as if we’re wild hallucinations.

Heat blasts through my chest and I fight to appear unaffected. I saw how the classroom reacted to Dutch and his brothers yesterday. And I saw it again in the hallway earlier.

They’re not flustered by the attention, so I should pretend that I’m not either. Even if this is the most awkward moment of my life.

“Were you at the showcase?” Zane asks, taking me down another hallway.

I tense immediately. “Me? Showcase? No. No I wasn’t.”

“Weird that Mulliez wouldn’t stick someone like you in the show,” Dutch murmurs.

I give him a heated a look. It’s not that I’m ashamed of being a scholarship kid, but the way he said ‘someone like you’, as if I’m less-than because of where I come from, sends the hair on the back of my neck standing up.

“Where exactly are we going?” I murmur. We’re moving far away from any of the practice rooms in Redwood Prep.

“We’re here.” Finn lifts a card and slaps it against a scanner. I jump back when a neon light runs up and down the plastic. It beeps and a door clicks open.

I dig my heels in. “Where’shere?”

“Our practice room,” Zane says, giving me a cocky smile.

Finn steps in first.

Zane follows.

Dutch sticks out a hand. “After you.”

Tension fills me, vibrating through my body like a broken chord.

“Scared?” Dutch taunts close to my ear.

I stiffen and throw him a fierce look. “Not even close.” Then I push the door further and step into the lion’s den.

* * *