Novels by VY LU

My words dropped into the greasy air of the diner like a block of ice."We're throwing out the entire script."Leo stared at me, the dawning awe on his face instantly replaced by a fresh wave of betrayal and horror. The fragile trust I had just spent ten minutes building threatened to shatter into a million pieces."Throw it out?" he choked out, his voice a strangled whisper. "My script? That's… that's the whole thing! That's my story! What are we even investing in if not the script?"His reaction was exactly what I expected. The panic of a creator whose creation is about to be murdered. In my past life, I would have sympathized. I might have even backpedaled, softened the blow.But that Ava was dead.I didn't move. I didn't raise my voice. I held his frantic gaze with a look of absolute, unshakeable calm. It was a look that said, You are panicking because you are still thinking like a writer. I am thinking like a god."Your script was brilliant, Leo," I said, my voice quiet but firm.

Two days. Forty-eight hours. To Leo Keller, I knew it must have felt like an eternity suspended between madness and a miracle. To me, it was a breath, a blink, the necessary pause before the first real move of the game. I spent those two days not in a panic to secure the five thousand dollars, but in quiet, methodical preparation, my mind a silent engine of war.When I pushed open the door to The Grind for the second time, the scent of stale coffee and desperation was unchanged, a constant in this city of variables. My eyes scanned the room, a flicker of something clinical and cold passing through me. And there he was.In the same back corner booth, a sentry at his post.He looked worse than before. The skin under his eyes was bruised with sleeplessness. A two-day stubble shadowed his jaw. He had a fresh coffee, untouched, its steam rising like a ghostly prayer. He wasn’t reading his rejection letters anymore. He was just staring into space, a man waiting for a verdict from a god he w

The notebook was closed, its secrets safely locked away, but the name echoed in my mind: Leo Keller. My first target. My first building block.Finding him, in my first life, would have been impossible. I would have had to go through agents, managers, a dozen layers of industry gatekeepers who existed solely to say "no." But this was 2005. The world was more analog, more beautifully, chaotically accessible. And I remembered a detail from a long-forgotten industry blog post about the early, hungry days of the Paranormal Footage creator: he practically lived at a place called "The Grind," a 24-hour diner in Burbank that was an unofficial office for aspiring writers who couldn't afford a real one.I didn't bother with the pathetic costumes in my closet. I pulled on the simplest things I owned: a pair of worn-out jeans and a plain black t-shirt. I was not here to audition. I was not here to impress. I was here to deliver a prophecy. Oracles do not need to be fashionable.The walk to the di

The echo of my own words—Game on—hung in the stale air of the apartment, a vow whispered into the past. For a moment, I just stood there, my reflection a pale ghost in the dark screen of the flip phone. The girl in the glass was twenty-five, her face unmarred by the betrayals that were still years away, her eyes wide with a terrifying, newfound clarity.My mind, a chaotic storm of memory and disbelief, began to settle. It sharpened, honed by the agony of a death I had already lived. If this was real, if I truly was back in 2005, then every second was a currency I couldn't afford to waste.What was today?The date on the phone screen had seared itself into my brain: October 12th. A Wednesday.A cold dread, familiar and sickening, coiled in the pit of my stomach. My gaze darted to the worn-out corkboard above the tiny desk. Tacked to it, amidst unpaid bills and takeout menus, was a single sheet of paper with a time and an address circled in red ink.2:00 PM. Starline Studios. Audition:

The wind was a blade against her skin.It sliced through the thin silk of her borrowed dress, a cruel reminder of how utterly exposed she was. Below, Los Angeles sprawled like a galaxy of fallen stars, a city of dreams that had chewed her up and was now preparing to spit her out onto the unforgiving pavement fifty stories below."Please, Scarlett," Ava Monroe whispered, her voice a fragile thread against the howling symphony of the rooftop. Her fingers, numb with cold and terror, scrabbled for purchase on the smooth, unforgiving marble of the ledge.Her stepsister, Scarlett Vance, stood a few feet away, a vision in crimson against the glittering skyline. The wind whipped at her perfectly styled blonde hair, but her smile remained placid, almost beatific. It was the same smile she had worn on the cover of Vogue, the same smile she’d used to accept the Oscar that should have been Ava’s."Please?" Scarlett repeated, the single word dripping with a saccharine poison that had coated their