Bookish and the Beast

Even when it seems like it physically pains Annie to keep quiet.

“We better get going, Bob’s heading for us,” Quinn observes, glancing out the back windshield at the man in the golf cart weaving through lines of cars to get to us. His sole job is to write up anyone who tries to sneak out of school in the middle of the day, or students who come in tardy. His silence is easily bought with a breakfast sandwich, but I don’t have a peace offering today.

I grab my bookbag from the passenger seat as we hurry out of my car and make our way into the school through the breezeway. Homeroom’s already started and the hallways are almost entirely empty.

“Speaking of Garrett Taylor,” Quinn says, cocking their head up at one of the TVs in the lobby playing the morning announcement. Garrett Taylor is on-screen, and behind him is the theme for this year’s Homecoming dance.

GARDEN OF MEMORIES.

“And I’m announcing, along with these other fine students, I’ll be running for Homecoming King! And if I win, I’m taking Rosie Thorne to Homecoming with me! So c’mon, friends, help me make true love happen!”

I nearly drop my books out of my locker. “I never said yes to that!”

“Or better yet,” he adds, and leans in toward the camera, “write her in as my queen.”

I stare at the TV, my mouth agape, as I run through my conversation with him last night. Under no circumstances did I tell him that I’d go to Homecoming with him. There has to be some mistake. He can’t honestly think—why would he—why would he think I—

Quinn slides up beside me and says, “You said no, huh.”

I did, but I have the sinking feeling it no longer matters.

ONE MOMENT I’M ENJOYING a blissful nonexistence in a dreamless sleep, and the next a fifty-pound German shepherd somersaults onto my bed. She sticks her cold nose against the back of my neck—and starts nibbling on my hair.

“Oi, oi, not the hair,” I mumble, batting her away.

Sansa replies by flopping over on top of me.

“Gerroff.”

“Wuff!”

I give up and sigh into my pillow. “I hate you, you know that?”

She whines, knowing that I mean the exact opposite. I roll over and rub her around the ears, because she really is a good doggo—despite almost nailing me in the testicles a moment ago—and I know I don’t tell her that enough.

“Okay, you got me. I’m alive,” I tell her softly, and Sansa dutifully slides off me. I sit up, but everything hurts since I haven’t moved in who knows how long, and my migraine isn’t any better. I brush my hair out of my face—and my fingers tangle into it. It’s longer than I’ve ever had it: around my shoulders, and I can’t remember the last time I washed it. It hangs in greasy strands, but I just pull up the hood of my hoodie and hide it.

Sansa slides to the edge of my bed and puddles off it like she’s made of slime. I rub my eyes. “Did Elias not let you out?” I ask, and when I realize I’m expecting her to answer me, I grab my gray sweatpants from the floor and slip them on.

“All right,” I tell her, rubbing her behind the ears. There are few things I can’t say no to, and Sansa is one of them. “Let’s go.”

She perks up and goes bounding out of the room and down the hall to the stairs, where she takes a flying leap down the steps.

I shuffle after her. By the lighting out in the hall, it’s perhaps late afternoon. I open the back door and she tears out into the yard. A murder of crows breaks into flight above us, settling somewhere in the trees.

“Elias, I’m up,” I call. No response; he must’ve gone to the store. I grab a LaCroix from the fridge and glance into the living room. The sofa, and the still-damp spot in the center, reminds me of the events last night.

And of the girl.

Elias said I had to work with her to fix up the library, so I make my way to the library to see just how much work I won’t do.

The library door is heavy and made of some sort of dark wood—mahogany or oak—and is carved with flourishes of vines. I hit it with my toe, and to my surprise the hinges give easily, and it creaks open. The library is quiet. A thin layer of dust coats the shelves, and most of the books are faded, their spines broken. Starfield, Star Wars, Star Trek, on top of old Anne McCaffreys and Douglas Adamses and a myriad of other ancient sci-fi authors. They’re in no particular order, and there are more books in cardboard boxes stacked against the bookcases. There are at least thirty of them. They’re probably also full of yellowed paperbacks.

The book that took a dip with the girl rests on a towel on the desk at the far end of the library. The Starless Throne by Sophie Jenkins. I pick it up to read the back summary, surprised to find out that the book is about the character I played in the films—General Ambrose Sond. The villain in Starfield: Resonance.

  To atone for the crimes of the Twelfth Order, Ambrose Sond escapes his lifelong imprisonment in the Mines of Mourning and is sent careening into a plot that may destroy not only the Federation but everything he once loathed—until he finds a reason to protect it.

“Sounds terrible,” I mutter, tossing the book back onto the towel. It’s still mostly damp, and the cover has begun to curl around the edges. To say it’s ruined would be an understatement. It’s pulp. I can hardly imagine that once it was worth as much as my favorite trainers.

I can hardly imagine any book would be worth that much.

If Elias thinks I will help out in any capacity in this library, he’s sorely mistaken. I am not here to play housekeeper—that sounds boring, anyway.

As I begin to leave, a magazine on the edge of the desk catches my eye.

PULL THE REIGNS ON VANCE! it says, which is really quite ingenious, I have to admit.

I slowly sneak up to the magazine, as if it’ll jump away and disappear, but it’s really there. I’m quite surprised, actually, that this magazine is the first bit of the outside world I’ve seen in weeks, and it’s…sort of terrifying. But I’m too curious to simply look away.

And the reality of my, well, reality, begins to settle in.

  “I always thought he was bad news,” tweets one of the authors penning the current young-adult book series Starfield: Ignite. “About time his problematic behavior caught up with him.”

Vance Reigns has always been somewhat of a hot-button topic. Whether it be the ragers he hosts at his house in Beverly Hills, or the questionable videos on his Instagram in clubs he’s not yet old enough to get into, or the revolving door of men and women through his love life, Vance Reigns gave us a little of it all and we drank it in. After all, he’s a young guy in Hollywood with too much time on his hands! We’ve all lived a little vicariously through his exploits.

But his appeal turned sour a few weeks ago when he took a nose dive into a private pond in a Tesla with Elle Wittimer herself, costar Darien Freeman’s longtime girlfriend. They claim they were pursued by paparazzi, but the question stands: what were they trying to hide?

Darien Freeman and Elle Wittimer have since broken up—and Vance Reigns’s popularity has plummeted. He has become one of the most-hated celebrities on the internet, rivaled only by the polarizing hatred for Kylo Ren from the Star Wars franchise—a fictional character.

And where is Vance Reigns to own up to what he has done? No one knows. While we have our suspicions as to where he might be, Starfield is scrambling to control the narrative of this disaster. There is no doubt Vance Reigns has quite a career ahead of him as a villain of epic proportions.

But the real question is: will the fans let him? Or will his career, like Darien Freeman and Elle’s relationship, be canceled?

I feel sick to my stomach and quickly close the magazine. The entire room begins to spin. Somewhere in the distance Sansa barks, but I barely hear her as I sit down in one of the wingback chairs.

Darien and Elle are broken up?

I was supposed to take her back to Darien’s place on the west side of LA. It was during the wrap party for Starfield: Resonance. We had filmed our last scene that day, and so we were celebrating at Natalia Ford’s—our director’s—house in the Hills. Which would have been grand, but I had a previous engagement at a club with a few of my other blokes, so I decided to leave the party early.

I was heading back to my car when I intercepted Darien, dark hair messy and shirt crumpled, and Elle in an oversized sweatshirt and jeans. She wanted to leave, he didn’t. Classic case, really.

“I’ll just call a car,” she was telling him.

But he was shaking his head. “No, just hold on—I’ll drive you home.”

“You want to stay, Dare, and I have an exam tomorrow morning. It’ll be fine. Stay and enjoy the evening, okay?” she told him soothingly, and pressed a kiss onto his cheek.

“Get a room,” I called as I passed them, spinning the key ring around on my finger, earning a middle finger from Darien. I should’ve just kept quiet.

“Thanks for the—wait, are you leaving?” Elle called after me, much against Darien’s insistence not to.