by Meg Collett
It was ugly and disgusting and everything she used to like feeling back then. The deeper and darker, the better. Bring on the ugly and the pain. Make it as foul as possible. Let her beg Shepherd for more.
That was who she’d been.
That was the night she thought about when she wanted a drink these days. To remind herself she wasn’t that laughing girl anymore.
When she left Los Angeles, the drive to the highway that would take her far away and separate her from Shepherd had been the hardest and longest drive of her life. She’d cried. She’d hated leaving him, but she had, because she’d started seeing through the ugly.
The ugly hadn’t been working anymore.
She’d picked Canaan Island from Google Maps because she liked the name and the thought of a Southern island. She liked the distance and the thought of being surrounded by water, like she was cocooned. She’d zoomed in on the patch of land while sitting at a Denny’s, waiting for the oily food to settle her burning stomach riddled with bleeding ulcers. On her phone’s screen, she’d read the street names. Gardenia and Main. She’d explored the quaintness of the one-street town on Google Images, letting her heart unwind on Main Street with its brightly colored storefronts, and she’d breathed a bit easier.
Canaan wasn’t ugly.
Canaan had felt like peace, so she’d run to it, and her parents had bought her the pretty navy house on Gardenia when she promised she just needed a short break.
But the ugly was here again, nipping at her heels, and if she thought those promotional packages might ruin what she’d built in Canaan, then a sex tape certainly would. A video showing what she did. The drugs and drinking. How she’d laughed afterward as though she liked it. Asking for more. Begging.
The thought of facing Cade after he’d seen it made her crave a drink more than she ever had before. Had her standing right on that cliff’s edge, desperate to fall away into nothing. Even if he didn’t watch it or refused to for her sake, it would be out there, and when people looked at her, they would see her laughing.
“Do you understand now, Stephanie?” Shepherd asked. He might have been talking for a while, but she hadn’t heard him.
She raised her head and looked into his eyes. She hadn’t put enough distance between them.
There weren’t enough miles in the world for that.
18
Stevie left the bus in a haze. Her legs carried her numbly forward, each step a hollow thunk in her ears as they rang with Shepherd’s final words. Her only shot at getting Shepherd out of here and running back to L.A. with his tail tucked between his legs had been proving he was the one siphoning money out of the expense accounts. Now, when she needed it most, she had no ammo against him. If anything, he’d aimed ten more guns at her.
She started down the row of storage pods next to the bus. The thought of being near Cade after what she’d seen overwhelmed her. Shame twisted up from her gut and clenched her throat.
Her stomach ached with hollowness. Her spine itched. Her insides were drier than a desert. She really, really wanted a drink. Maybe she could go to Wardrobe and check the lockers at the back of the trailer where the crew kept some drinks on hand. Just a small sip. Something to make this pain feel less consuming.
With a new destination in mind, she was passing the last pod when its tiny metal door cranked open with a loud screech. Hands reached out from the darkness, latched onto her arm, and jerked her inside.
Stevie stumbled into the dark, a scream in her throat and her fists raised, ready to go.
“I’ll kill him. I swear it. I’ll take his teeny-tiny nuts and flay them like quail eggs and feed them to his mother and—”
Emilie was halfway through her murder plan before Stevie realized what had happened. She blinked into the darkness of the pod. It smelled like wood shavings from the stacked planks of lumber stored in there. The only light came from the screw holes in the metal along the ceiling, like tiny stars far above her head. Surprisingly enough, it wasn’t sweltering inside. By the time Stevie caught her breath, Emilie’s word vomit was dribbling to an end from Stevie’s lack of response.
“Tell me,” Emilie said.
She told Emilie everything, down to the last detail used in the promo packages, but she left out the final video file—the real deathblow Shepherd could deal if he wanted to.
She took in Emilie’s fizzling anger and murmured, “I can’t believe you got fired. He must have known I would eventually come poking around his office. He needed someone to set up, and we played right into his hands . . .”
“Screw that. He’ll get what’s coming to him, believe me. But you know I had no idea about those packages, right? I didn’t even realize the network was having meetings with advertisers yet.”
“I trust you,” Stevie said and meant it. Sometime during the sneaking around, breaking into buses, and yelling vile things at each other, she and Emilie had become something akin to friends.
She saw the sentiment echoed in Emilie’s eyes. “So what are we going to do now?”
Stevie raked her hands over her face. “I don’t know,” she mumbled against her palms. If she closed her eyes, she saw herself on Shepherd’s floor, his hands on her throat, her dress up around her hips. She dropped her hands and sighed. “He outplayed us. By the way, where are your guards?”
“I shook them, obviously.” Emilie scoffed like Stevie was a bit dim for thinking her capable of anything less. “Now why are you acting so defeated?”
“What else can we do? You’re fired and he has me backed into a corner.”
“You’re giving up.” Emilie’s eyes narrowed through the scant lighting. She put her hands on her curvy hips. “You bitch.”
“He beat us, Emilie,” Stevie snarled. “There’s nothing we can do. We’re filming the finale today.”
“You’re pussing out.”
“I’m not pussing out!”
Emilie raised a pointed nail at her, the red lacquer glinting. “You are!”
“Just stop it!” Stevie hissed, leaning down to get into the associate’s face. “This isn’t a game. This is my fucking life, okay? Do you get that? He’ll ruin everything with those packages and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.” Not now. Not anymore. Not after seeing the video of her laughing. “It’s over. We lost. He won.”
“Wow,” Emilie said, drawing out the word.
Stevie straightened away from her, her eyes going to the door they’d hastily pulled closed behind them.
“I never took you for a pussy, Stevie Reynolds. I thought you had more steel than that.”
Tears pricked the backs of Stevie’s eyes, but she refused to cry in front of Emilie. She took back all the semi-nice thoughts she’d had about the woman. What kind of—
“Oh,” Emilie said, realizing something. Her shoulders slumped. Stevie turned to her right as she said, “He’s got something else on you, doesn’t he? Something bad.”
Stevie’s stomach burned. How did she know? She licked her dry lips. “No . . .”
“Don’t lie to me. Not now. Not after we knocked over a Port-A-Toilet with a man inside it. You can’t come back from that, you hear me? We’re bonded for life.”
A long breath loosened from Stevie’s mouth. The look in her eye must have been confirmation enough for Emilie, because she asked softly, with something that almost—almost—sounded like kindness, “What is it?”
“A video—of me and him.”
Emilie’s lips parted in surprise. “Oh.”
“I didn’t know he was filming.”
“That’s illegal, Stevie. You can sue him.”
She was already shaking her head. “No. I don’t want it getting out. No one can see this thing.”
Cade could never see it.
“Fuck that!” Emilie spewed, snapping out of her brief bout of kindness and whirring back into the bitch-tastic robot. “You shouldn’t be ashamed. Everybody screws. Yours just happens to be on film. Forever. Possibly all over the internet in a few d
ays. Who cares? Own it! Be empowered and take down his ugly ass!”
“It’s. Not. Happening.” Stevie ground out every word between clenched teeth.
“Then you’ll be yet another victim who lets the douchebag get away with it.”
She didn’t have the energy to stand anymore. The pod was too dank, too dark, and her insides felt like they’d been scraped over sandpaper. Too weak and flimsy. She sank to the gritty floor, tracked through with dirt and bits of metal, and sat with her legs folded up, her head in her hands. A minute later, she heard a muffled curse and a scuffle.
Emilie hiked up her jeans and sat in front of Stevie to the sound of ripping denim. “That better not have been the crotch tearing out, or you’re buying me a new pair with the show’s expense account.”
Stevie didn’t look up or have the heart to berate Emilie for her awful joke.
They sat like that for a while. Stevie should have been outside, preparing for whatever Shepherd was going to have her do this afternoon during the final judging segment. Somehow, she would have to figure out how to stand back up and face that. With or without a drink. The thought of making that decision exhausted her.
The light Stevie had sheltered inside her heart after getting sober flickered, and she lost sight of it in the dark. She knew the choice she was going to make.
Because more than anything in the world, she wanted to wrap her lips around a cool bottle and feel the fire scorch her as the liquid poured down her throat. She wanted to feel the fizzing warmth in her blood. She needed that curtain to hide behind again. Because of what she would have to do today, she needed to hide from herself.
It would be almost as ugly as what Shepherd had filmed, maybe even worse, because it would break Cade’s heart. Of course he would know she’d had to do it for the show, for the drama, but he would hate himself for it, for being the reason she’d done the show. If he saw the damage it was going to do to her—and he would, because he would have a front-row seat of the hate she’d get from the community in Canaan—he would be ruined.
No matter how hard she’d tried, she would still be the reason his heart broke. She couldn’t save him from this one. Just like she couldn’t save Emilie from getting fired because of her and her scheme to get Shepherd kicked off the show.
“The video is that bad?” Emilie asked, pulling Stevie back into the present.
“That bad.”
“And you don’t want Cade seeing it because you love him.” It wasn’t a question, just a statement, because Emilie knew. She’d directed cameras at every darting glance between them, every quick touch they thought no one had seen.
“He deserves better than that,” Stevie said.
“You should give him more credit. He’s not some little shit. He can handle it. Hell, I think he’s stronger than all of us put together, including that burly brother he tries so hard to impress.”
Stevie’s eyebrows rose. “How did you know about that?”
Emilie snorted. “I had my contacts in when Hale was on set yesterday. But my point is, he can handle this. It’s just television.”
Stevie hated when people said that, and it was only people in the industry who said it because they were jaded enough by the process. They knew how fake it was, but to everyone else, it wasn’t. Television made it real. With a little clever editing, a person could be made to believe anything. This wasn’t just television; this was her life.
“I wish we’d been the ones secretly filming him when he practically confessed he stole the money,” Stevie spat, bitterness welling in her heart. Why did Shepherd always win? “That would’ve fixed everything.”
Emilie blinked, her thoughts suddenly spinning so loudly that Stevie thought she might see smoke coming out of Emilie’s ears. “What did you say?”
“It would fix everything. You wouldn’t be fired. He wouldn’t be running the show anymore. Those damn promos wouldn’t air. And he wouldn’t have any leverage over me with that freaking video.”
Emilie wasn’t listening. She’d gone into associate-producer mode, seeing the angles and coaxing out the story, her little white teeth gnawing on her lip like it was licorice, her eyes darting back and forth, following her thoughts as they flashed marquee-style across her mind.
“What?” Stevie asked, realizing she’d lost Emilie. “What are you thinking?”
Emilie finally focused back on her. “I think I have a plan, and it might even stop the network from using those promos.”
“Are you serious? How the hell—”
“You’ll have to grow some balls,” Emilie cut in, her knees jigging with excitement, her eyes wide and feverish.
“I’ve got balls,” Stevie growled.
“Lady balls?”
“Are there any other kind?” Stevie shot back, pissed off again.
“You won’t like it, but get over it, cause this shit is good, and it’ll get Shepherd fired. Hopefully even arrested.”
“Okay.” Stevie frowned, trying to keep up with Emilie’s rapid-fire train of thought. “But what about the promos?”
“Follow me here. If you sneak off set right now, you’ll delay filming the finale today. It won’t buy us much time, but it might work. It’s the only chance.”
Seeing the burning flame of rage and vengeance glowing in Emilie’s eyes, Stevie felt her own fire rekindling. “But what about Cade? What if we can’t get Shepherd fired and he releases the video anyway and Cade doesn’t win the show?”
“There’s no room for us to screw this up. Now shut up and let me tell you the plan.”
Emilie laid out her half-cocked plan as it was still forming in her mind, and Stevie supplied her own vicious details, layering them in and coming up with solutions when Emilie stumbled. They went over it again and again, looking for where they could have overlooked something or missed a detail.
It was almost too easy—aside from the fact everything could blow up in their faces and ruin their entire lives.
But other than that . . .
“There’s something else you’ll have to accept,” Emilie said after they’d brainstormed for a few minutes. “Nothing is stopping Shepherd from leaking the sex tape anyway, just for spite. You know he’s capable of that,” Emilie warned. “If it comes to that, there won’t be anything we can do to keep people from seeing it.”
“It won’t come to that. I mean, Emilie, it can’t. In that video, I was . . .”
Emilie held up her hand. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. Honestly, it doesn’t matter what you were doing. He shouldn’t have filmed you without your consent. That’s what’s fucked up about this. Not what you did.”
Stevie nodded. “But—”
“Um, hey, guys?” The voice—a third voice—came from the back shadows of the pod.
Stevie yelped and launched forward, straight into Emilie, who’d yelled and started cutting her hands through the air like she had a black belt in karate. Stevie landed on top of her and they fell back into a stack of wood. Planks rained down around them, whacking into shins and elbows. When the clattering and banging stopped and the pod fell silent, Stevie somehow had Emilie’s leg wrapped around her neck.
“Who’s there?” Emilie held up her fists, ready to go as she tried to disentangle herself from Stevie.
Stevie raised her head and squinted into the darkness. “Violet?”
Like the ghost people claimed she was, Violet materialized from the back of the pod and crept forward, head ducked to avoid hitting it on the ceiling. She gave them a little wave.
“Uh, what the hell?” Emilie spat.
“Sorry,” Violet almost whispered. She didn’t meet their eyes. She wore strappy sandals and high-waist cotton pants. Her shirttails were tied in a knot at her waist. She even had a little bandanna wrapped around her head. “You guys came in here and started talking and I didn’t know what to do . . .”
“How ’bout telling someone you’re in here? A little warning maybe?” Emilie snapped.
Violet gri
maced at Emilie. “It was awfully sudden.”
“What are you even doing in here?” Stevie asked. She stood—or as much as she could—and dusted off her pants.
Violet’s shoulders hunched up to her ears, and Stevie suddenly understood. The pod was dark and away from prying eyes. Its seclusion probably felt safe for Violet.
“Sometimes,” the young woman said, “when it’s too bright outside, I sit in here.” Her voice was barely more than a squeak and cracked with uncertainty.
“How much did you hear?” Emilie sounded hostile, like she was ready to break out mafia torture tricks or some shit.
“All of it,” Violet said honestly.
Stevie held up her hands before Emilie could go full-on Scarface. “Okay. No big deal. Violet is on our side. Right, Violet?”
“It won’t work.”
“Erm, excuse me?”
Stevie slapped an arm out to keep Emilie from advancing. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“The plan has flaws. It won’t work.” Violet shrugged like the cracks in their precious plan were obvious.
“Why don’t you just beam back up to wherever—”
“This isn’t Star Wars, Emilie.” Then, to Violet, Stevie asked, “Do you have any suggestions?”
“Star Trek,” Emilie muttered under her breath.
“You have to film today.”
“But then Shepherd has the footage he wants to finish the packages.” Emilie crossed her arms over her chest, ready to defend her plan to the death.
“And I really don’t want to film whatever he has planned for me today,” Stevie added.
“You will have to film it, but if Shepherd is fired at the end of the show and he’s liable for damages against you, then the network is liable too, especially if he blackmailed you into filming today, which he already has. The network won’t be able to use them. It’s the most failsafe way to get the network to align with you and not Shepherd. Right?”