Beautiful Monster 2 (16 page)

“They’d do that?” I asked, appalled. “They’d just disrespect her memory and make a fake ghost story?”
That made me angry. I had always thought that TV was so glamorous, but the more I was involved with it, the more I saw its ugly underbelly that the public never saw.

“Sure. You remember when Kamy Tan died?” he asked
.

That
reminded me of the young movie star who had died of a drug overdose a few years ago. I realized he must have been in Hollywood during that time.

“Sure. How could I forget? Her family had a huge estate battle at her funeral, didn’t they?”

He snorted, shaking his head and rubbing my back gently. “No. But that’s what the media told you. I was at her funeral. Her family cried their eyes out, and made tearful speeches and that was it. There was no epic money battle, no hair pulling and no hat throwing. But the media needed some sort of story because she died so controversially.”

“Wait. Was it drugs?”

He shook his head. “Brain aneurysm. Unexpected, but genetically predictable. “

“But then why didn’t the family sue or something?”

He sighed. “They were too upset with the grief of her passing. They, like most of us, recognized it didn’t matter what the media said, and that they would make up something no matter what happened.”

“Mmm
.” I leaned forward as the TV show came back on. My part was pretty much over, so I could relax a bit and watch the footage.

I was not prepared for what I saw.

A voiceover narration that was not my own walked the camera in the dark through the theater, and set up on the spot, where months ago, we had sat, crying. If I squinted hard enough, I could almost see the remnants of the ghosts of us sitting there.

“Ballerina Porsche De Ritter of the Russian National
was backstage helping Liam with the production of Beauty and the Beast, starring Amy, Liam’s now girlfriend. It was a well-known fact that Porsche suffered from AIDS, and no one expected her to live long. But who knew it would be tonight? During Beauty and the Beast, in the final act, Porsche, alone backstage, collapsed, her heart giving out. After a standing ovation, the cast rushed backstage to find their former teacher expired. Porsche was also the first scholarship winner of Leopard Academy, although she was only a student for a few months. Watch what we believe is her ghost perform for the camera.”

Another commercial break came in and I thought Liam was going to strangle the TV. He got up
and went to my open laptop on the desk.

“I really don’t want t
o watch this anymore, Amy,” he said, turning his back to me.

My heart broke and I was about to go over to join him, but he must of read my mind.

“You stay there, and let me know,” he said, clicking on the Internet and logging into the school website, presumably to do some work.

With a glance outside, I saw that the sun was already starting to set. We had so few moments left, and I
felt annoyed. But I understood, I guess, and so I stayed, waiting for the commercials to end.

The announcer repeated basically the same thing she had just said, which had always bothered me. They made TV shows these days
where you could pick them up at any time, and still understand what was going on.

And then I saw the white mist that they had
referred to. The white mist I had seen when I was in the Red Theater.

It swirled and smoked, and I searched the TV and my mind from every angle, trying to figure out where it was coming from. But then, the camera angle changed and it began to take a shape. It began to stand up like a human being, the misty outline blurred.

“Amy…” Liam said, but I held up my hand, staring at the TV.

The shape became clearer, and if you looked at just the right angle, a face appeared.

“Liam, ghosts are real, right?” I asked, my voice trembling.

“Yes, but
, Amy, what the hell is this?”

“Sssh
.” I was rooted to the TV, staring at it. Hair formed around the face, and if I hadn’t seen her face a thousand times, I wouldn’t have known her. But I knew that face, engraved in my memory forever.

“AMY!”
Liam yelled and I turned my head to the laptop, where he had an article pulled up.

On the top, in scrawling black script, was
Amy cheats on Liam?
Below it, a picture of me at the doorway of the audition room, my hand in Drago’s. I swiveled my head back to the TV from the laptop and then back to Liam. I couldn’t decide if I was seeing things or what needed priority. The media fabricated things all the time, I knew that. In a perfect world, both of these stories would be fake, and Liam would believe me. Yet he looked pretty angry about it.

I wanted to believe
Sites
had faked it. But they couldn’t have known, couldn’t have done it just to mess with me.

“Liam
.” I pointed to the figure, now freeze-framed on the TV. “Liam, that’s my mother.”

“And the worst part is that he doesn’t believe me.” I leaned against my chair on set, keeping my voice low as I talked to Drago.

It had been over a week since
Sites
aired, and Liam had found that article. That night had been the worst night we had ever had. He didn’t quite believe me when I explained that nothing happened. It’s true, I was mad at him when I went to the audition for Ranger, but the anger had come out in my audition, not in cheating on him.

And on top of that, I was still trying to come to terms with the fact th
at I had seen my mother’s ghost. I didn’t quite believe it myself. Even though I was in the Red Theater every day, I had never seen it again. I watched the footage from
Sites
over and over again, going through it frame by frame, and each time I saw it. I even had a picture of her and got everyone I knew to compare it to the image. Most of them said I was right, even if they were just indulging me.

The only person I felt like I hadn’t shown it to was my father. I couldn’t imagine how he would react, and s
o I kept it from him. If he had seen that part of the show, then he didn’t say anything to me. Or maybe he just didn’t recognize her. I mean, after all, he had seen ever every day, looked into her face. All I had was images to go off of. I didn’t want it to dominate my life, but I couldn’t get it out of my head.

“If you want,” Drago said, bringing me back to reality. “I could talk to him. Tell him you’re great, but I’m not interested.”

“Uh, thanks but no thanks.” I shook my head. “Liam would probably freak out even more. And I really can’t take any more freaking out from anyone.”

At the moment, the only person that I wasn’t worried about was Sarah, who was with Connor.
Now that Isabelle was gone, they spent every waking moment with each other. Hopefully, they were using birth control. Connor didn’t seem to be grieving his wife too much, although whenever I asked Sarah about it, it was apparently a private point. Whatever it is, I made her pinky swear me she was safe, and that she wouldn’t ever hurt herself again, and she assured me she was alright.

The police investigation had drawn even more attention to the school, with paparazzi everywhere trying to figure Sarah’s connection to it. So far, though, no one could draw a connection besides the fact that she was an unfortunate victim. Which she was, they just didn’t know the part about her also being the mistress of a centuries old vampire with a very jealous wife, who moonlighted as a
fourteen year old child. I highly doubted the media could come up with a more bizarre story than the truth.

“Did you practice that knock out?” Drago asked, changing the subject.

“I did. But are you sticking around to watch it on camera?”

“Yep, so make one mistake and I’ll knock you out,” he teased me.

I grinned, getting up as they called me. On set, things were as normal as they could get. The regular cast was great, and the crew was even nicer. It wasn’t like Gatsby where they yelled at me for every little thing, and then ignored me the rest of the time. I felt like I actually mattered here, people asked me what I wanted and how I wanted it. Drago and I had a million jokes from the summer show. Everything was relaxed, we could joke around and not wonder if one of our friends was having their life threatened. It had only been a week, but I was starting to enjoy set a lot more than rehearsal at school, which was a swap from last year.

The only thing I gave Liam credit for at the moment was his great idea for my independent study. Every night, for about an hour, I wrote a journal entry segregated into two parts
Today
and
The Past
where I recounted stories from the previous year. It was the easiest project I had ever done.

Of course, I couldn’t write how mad I was at Liam
for not believing me, or the fact that I hated Phantom of the Opera and much preferred Ranger. My independent study would go in a display case at the front of the school, so a lot of my feelings had to be highly edited. I consoled myself by writing them and then deleting them after.

At least I had a lot of fuel to play Cassandra.
She had a dark past and was so angry all the time. She was also judged for being a girl ranger in a male dominated field. It was every actor’s dream, and she always had great lines. She was also very different from the innocent, straightforward characters I had played before. I had gotten used to these innocent young characters, but I had to think about every single one of Cassandra’s steps, her words, and her expressions, and it felt great. I was obsessed with her already, and I hoped my episode arc would be extended.

I headed onto set to film a scene where she was about to knock someone out, surprising the regular
ranger boys. My skirt and corset were incredibly restricting, but luckily, Drago was the master of adaptation when it came to stunts. He had taught me how to accommodate for both costume pieces, and how to move in a way that looked good on camera, but fake and easy off camera.

It had taken hours to choreograph
a stunt that took less than 15 seconds to execute, and only half an hour to film. Anyone who said TV was glamorous was crazy, because they didn’t see how much work went into it behind the scenes.

“Alright, Amy, that’s it,” the director called. “
Thank you and see you tomorrow!”

“Cool
.” I gathered up my skirts and bid goodbye to the cast. Drago held his arm out, helping me back to the dressing room.

“So, you have rehearsal this evening? Or maybe we can wear masks and sneak around town and get some actual decent food
?”

“I can probably sneak out and use the back alley to your place
.” I grinned at him. “I’ll call you later? Anything is better than watching Sarah and Connor cuddle, or fighting with Liam.”

“Cool. I’ll await the phone ringing
.” He kissed my hand, just like the boys on Ranger, and I giggled, and went to change.

I changed
and took off most, but not all of my makeup. It was perfect; I could show up at rehearsal looking like something the cat dragged in every day.

Gathering up my backpack, I
said goodbye to those in the area, and then headed out. My stomach rumbled but I didn’t have time to grab anything here. I preferred getting to rehearsal on time and getting food there. Liam and I didn’t need another reason to snap at each other.

I came through the front doors and then paused outside the basement door.
This door, when you think about, changed my life. Had I chosen to never walk down it, perhaps I never would have known Liam’s secret, never would have been involved in this mess.

There was a loud bang from below, which confused me
. It was the middle of the day, no one had a reason to be down there.

Then I did
something that I usually yell at characters in horror movies for: I descended down the stairs alone, my backpack over my shoulder.

There was silence down there, as if I had been imagining things. I wanted to call out, in case it was Liam’s grandfather, Peter, down there,
since I didn’t want to scare him. But something at the last minute told me to stay quiet.

I peered around the corner as I came down the winding steps, but could see nothing until I went a few feet further.

It was Nina, slumped down against the post that Liam was normally tied to. I didn’t particularly want to talk to Nina, not when she was constantly hanging off his every word, and his arm, but something about her body posture made me go a little further.

“Nina?” I called, taking small steps.

The chains were on her tiny wrists, and I could see they were all cut up. I found that strange, that the wounds were open, and not healing. Vampires, even in the middle of the day in human form, were quick healers. There shouldn’t be wide open wounds on her arms.

“Nina?” I called again, but she didn’t move. “Hey, Nina!” I reached out to poke her arm and her body shifted, slumping over in reaction to me touching her.
“Oh, no, not again.”

Her arm fell forward and a glass bottle rolled out. I picked it up, examining it, but there was nothing to indicate what it was. Nina’s eyes were open, staring forward but she was seeing nothing. None of this made sense.

“Nina?” I touched her again, but got no response.

Ala
rmed, I put my backpack down, turned and hurried up the stairs. I had a bad feeling in my stomach, but in my heart I knew it was alright. If Nina wanted to starve herself, I would tell someone, but I wasn’t going to run all over the school. She had caused us nothing but issues since she had gotten here and I was getting a little annoyed at it.

“Sarah, where’s Liam?” I asked
, as I went into the Red Theater.

She pointed
towards the stage, and I hopped up, finding him, as usual, in a gaggle of female students, talking and laughing. I didn’t think he was playing kissing booth with any of them, but I really didn’t see how he could be so jealous of one photograph when he was doing so much worse in front of me.

“Liam
.” I held out the bottle, and the girls scattered. “Something is wrong with Nina again. You better come, she’s probably starved herself.”

My stomach growled. I was starving m
yself, not on purpose, but I was hungry nonetheless. I hadn’t gotten a chance to eat, but you didn’t see me being ridiculously irresponsible about it.

Instead of reacting with the same amount of concern I had, his eyes widened, and he snatched the bottle from me.

“Where did you get this?”

“Nina,” I replied. “It was in her hand.”

“Was she conscious?” His voice rose about an octave and his eyes looked like they were about to bug out of his head.

“No,” I started and was about to tell him the rest when he
panicked.

“Steve!” he called
to one of the bigger vampires, and then twisted to find Sarah.

He didn’t even ask her to come with him
. He simply grabbed her wrist and pulled her along, running out the theater like it was burning down. The little parade of us attracted quite a lot of attention as we followed him, and I wondered what all the fuss about it. When Nina had fainted in rehearsal, they didn’t go running like her life was in danger.

I followed at a slower pace, but tried
to keep them in sight. Liam led the way, practically shoving Sarah down the steps, Connor and Steve in tow. I nearly slipped down the stairs myself, my footing lost as Steve startled me by jumping the rest of the way over them to the ground. The rest skidded to the ground, and went around the post.

“Here!” Liam said, nearly pulling Sarah’s arms out of her sockets and placing them on Nina.

“What’s happening?” Sarah asked.

I finally joined them, crouching down beside them.

“Steve, Connor, get those chains off of her,” Liam said, as he reached out.

Nina’s eyes still stared dead ahead, and he tipped her head back so her mouth fell open.

“No, no, no, damn it!” he cried.

Nina was released from
the chains and fell limp into Sarah’s arms.