Chapter Four

The words felt like stones in my mouth. I didn’t mean them, not really, but I wanted them to hurt. I wanted to leave a mark deep enough that he’d finally understand he couldn't talk to me like that. I wanted to train him, to show him that his insecurity didn't give him a license to be cruel. I wanted him to spend the flight to France haunted by the silence I’d left behind, hoping that by the time he landed, he’d be ready to apologize.

"Thank God you're on time," Sarah said, her voice echoing through the drafty heights of the Bradbury Building. She literally raised her hands in a silent prayer toward the rafters. "I thought I was going to get roasted if you didn't show in the next hour. The director has been pacing like a caged tiger." She paused, her head tilting as she caught my expression under the harsh work lights. "And why is your face so down?"

"I just... erm... nothing..." I muttered, focusing on my shoes.

Right as the words left my lips, my phone buzzed in my palm. It was a call from my father. I stared at the caller ID—Dad. He was probably calling to check in on the premiere, to remind me that I was a St. Claire and that the world was mine for the taking. I couldn't do it. I couldn't put on the mask of the doting, successful daughter while my chest felt like it had been hollowed out with a serrated knife.

I reached for the power button and held it until the screen went dark. Total silence.

"Come on, I need to be on stage, right?" I asked, looking at Sarah. I needed the work. I needed the lines to replace my own thoughts.

"You have to get into the costumier’s room immediately," she said, checking her own buzzing watch. "I need to step out and organize for tomorrow night’s press list. It’s a mess, Val. Everyone wants a piece of you for the opening." She reached out, squeezing my shoulder. "Tell me all about why you're looking like a ghost when I get back. And please... cheer up when you go on stage. The director is looking for a reason to snap, and you’re the lead."

I watched her jog away, her heels clicking rapidly against the marble floor. I sighed, a long, shaky sound that seemed to disappear into the vastness of the atrium.

I made my way to the costumier’s room, a small, cramped space tucked behind the heavy velvet curtains of the stage. The air in here was different—it smelled of lavender sachets, old cedar, and the metallic tang of steam irons.

Elena, the head costumier, was waiting for me. She was a woman of few words and sharp needles, a veteran of a hundred Broadway shows who saw actors as nothing more than clothes hangers with egos.

"You’re late for the fitting," she said, not looking up from a seam she was pinning. "Strip. We need to see how the silk sits with the new lighting gels."

I did as I was told, stepping out of my street clothes and into the world of the play. The costume for the second act was a masterpiece of liquid silk, a shade of blue so deep it looked like the ocean at midnight. As Elena cinched the corset, the fabric pulled tight against my ribs, making it hard to draw a full breath.

"You're tense," Elena noted, her cold fingers brushing against my spine. "Hold your breath. I need to take the waist in another half-inch. You’ve lost weight since the last fitting."

"Stress," I whispered, staring at my reflection in the vanity mirror. I looked like a haunted ghost. I kept seeing Jaxson’s face when I told him I hoped he came back dead. It was a jagged, ugly memory that refused to be pushed aside.

Maybe I overdid it. I wanted to call him. Wish a safe journey to France, I unlocked my phone to call him but he already taken off and his phone was off. I sighed angrily, turning my phone off again. 

"Well, leave the stress in the dressing room," Elena snapped, smoothing the silk over my hips. "The dress won't hang right if you're hunched over like a mourner. Shoulders back, Valerie. You're a queen tonight."

I nodded, trying to force my posture into something resembling confidence. For the next hour, I was poked, pinned, and draped. Elena moved around me like a silent shadow, adjusting the hem, checking the way the light caught the hand-sewn crystals on the bodice. 

Finally, the stage manager’s voice crackled over the intercom. "Technical rehearsal in five. All cast to the wings."

I stepped out of the costume room and into the darkness behind the stage. The theater was alive with a different kind of energy tonight. It wasn't the glamour of a premiere; it was the raw, mechanical heart of the show. Lighting technicians were perched in the rafters, shouting to the board operator about "hot spots" and "shadows." Stagehands were hauling heavy set pieces into place, the faux-marble pillars of my character’s mansion, the wrought-iron gates that represented her prison.

I took my place in the wings, my heart hammering. I tried to go over my lines, but Jaxson’s accusations kept interjecting. You’d rather have a thousand strangers clap for you than stay in one bed with me.

"Places!" the director shouted from the center of the dark house.

I stepped onto the stage, into the blinding white circle of the spotlight. For the next two hours, I worked. I hit my marks. I delivered my monologues about a woman losing her sanity in a gilded cage. It was easy to play, too easy. Every time I reached for an emotion, the anger and guilt from the morning were right there, ready to be channeled.

"Stop! Stop there!" the director’s voice boomed from the darkness. "The lighting is too warm. It’s supposed to be a cold morning, not a sunset! Reset to the top of Act Three!"

I stood center stage, the silk of my dress shimmering under the work lights, waiting for the reset. I looked out into the audience, seeing only the silhouettes of the crew.

That was when the first phone went off.

It wasn't a ringtone. It was the low, persistent vibration of a dozen phones at once. In the front row, I saw the assistant director pull his phone from his pocket. The blue light hit his face, and I watched his expression shift from irritation to absolute, bloodless shock.

Then, the murmuring started. It began in the back of the house and traveled forward like a physical wave. The stagehands in the wings were no longer looking at their cues. They were huddled together, staring at a single tablet.

"What's going on?" I asked, my voice amplified by the stage mic, echoing strangely through the theater. "Are we resetting or not?"

No one answered me. The silence that followed was heavy, oily, and terrifying.

Sarah appeared in the wings. She didn't stay hidden. She walked right out onto the stage, her face a mask of such profound horror that I felt my stomach drop into my shoes. She was holding her phone, her knuckles white.

"Valerie," she whispered. "Oh, God, Val."

"Sarah? What is it? Is it the director? Did he cancel the show?" I asked ready to throw a fit at him, blame him for being the reason why I had a fight with Jax. 

She reached me and grabbed my hands. Her fingers were ice cold. "Your phone... you turned it off. I’ve been trying to call you for twenty minutes."

"What happened?" I shrieked, my voice cracking. "Is it Jax? Did his flight land?"

Sarah couldn't speak. She just pointed to the large projection screen behind me. Usually, it displayed a backdrop of a rainy London street. Now, it was a jagged, flickering feed of a news broadcast.

I turned around.

The image was of a burning wreckage in the Tejon Pass. The smoke was thick, black, and choked with the debris of a private jet. The red banner at the bottom of the screen read: GULFSTREAM CRASH: NO SURVIVORS. LOS ANGELES STARS TEAM CONFIRMED ON BOARD.

Oh no! That's Jaxson's private jet. 

"No," I breathed. My knees began to shake so violently I could hear the silk of my dress rustling.