Page 120 of The Ruthless Note

I don’t know how to play.

I really don’t.

I only know how to explode on the keys. I only know how to use that pain to charge forward because the music is too much for me to contain within myself.

The music builds and builds until I slash the volume in half. Abrupt. Unexpected. Not everything has to end in a big bang. Sometimes, it can just be a flutter, one so powerful that it tears the heart out of the chest without a sound.

I dance my thumb and little finger over two notes, letting it rattle in the air, trilling and gaining ground before it ends, shattering the sharp-edged tension I’d been nursing since the first bar.

When I’m done, I’m breathing hard. My wig is a mess around my face, sticking to my neck like a second skin.

I rise unsteadily on my feet.

That damn naked feeling sweeps through me again. Like I’m standing in front of all these Redwood Prep pricks wearing nothing. Not even a bra and panties.

It’s the worst part of playing music.

The worst part of not playing as myself.

When the applause starts, it barely penetrates my focus. I stumble off the stage, not toward Breeze who’s waiting for me. The other direction. Past the sound guys.

Just like I did that night.

Out.

I have to get out.

I crash through the door and suck in a deep gulp of air.

My heart is racing so fast I think I might pass out.

The door opens again. And then it crashes shut.

“Breeze,” I whisper.

But when I hear boots crunching against loose stones, I know it’s not my best friend.

I whirl around and fall into a pair of dangerous hazel eyes.

Dutch.

CHAPTERTWENTY-NINE

CADENCE

I turn to face Dutch in the shadows, my heart still beating fast from the performance and the panic that came right on its heels.

He watches me like I’m something he wants to take apart and study from the inside out. There’s a furrow between his brows. Frustration. Like he knows he wouldn’t be able to piece me together even if he spent every day of his life trying.

And that pisses him off.

Oh, I can see the anger. Rolling off him like waves. Dark and unyielding, a mountain that can’t be moved.

It’s then that I glimpse the truth. What makes Dutch dangerous, what makes the students of Redwood Prep fear him, is that tight control he has on his emotions.

The way others unravel and scream and fret is beneath him. His tightly packed reactions make him seem like someone who could take all the blows life has to offer and still come out on top.

It earns respect.