Manic

"Yeah, OK." I drag my ass upstairs and when I get to the third floor it's just Ford, Spencer, Antoine, and me.

"Are we ready, then?" Ford asks me.

"Sure," I reply, even though I have no idea what we should be ready for.

"OK, command central for the show is down here." He waves his hand and we all walk forward, then Antoine opens the door and waits until we all enter before pulling it closed behind him.

It's a huge room, not as big as the studio upstairs, and the ceilings are only ten feet tall instead of two stories, but it's still pretty big. There's nice light coming through the windows even though it's starting to get dark outside, and there's a table and a shit-load of art supplies packed onto of one of those red tool boxes professional mechanics have.

"This is where I'll do all the painting, Rook," Spencer says. "So you can have some privacy, then when I'm happy with the art, we'll go upstairs to shoot."

I nod out an OK.

"Over here, Rook"—Ford takes over—"is the production center for the show. All painting sessions will be recorded."

For the first time I notice there's a whole team of people over on the other side of the room. There's also a massive bank of monitors, wires going everywhere, camera equipment, and microphones. I look back to the guys and Ford continues.

"Each of you will have a team assigned. Antoine gets team one, Spencer gets team two, and Rook gets team three. I won't even tell you their names, they don't exist. If you need anything, you ask me. That guy over there sitting at the console"—I look and a big guy wearing a black Metallica T-shirt waves to us—"is our director, Larry. Larry runs pretty much everything but you three. You shouldn't ever need to talk to him, but he'll be talking to me to make sure we're making something people will want to watch when we're done."

I stop listening after that. I just smile and nod. Uh, huh, I tell them. Sure, yes, I totally have it. No problemo. I'm in. Yes, sounds about right. I give Ford every meaningless affirmation I can think of because I do not give one stupid shit about this show.

Basically what he said was, I have three dumbasses who get to follow me everywhere. Two cameramen and a sound guy. Plus Ford, because what kind of fun would this be if Ford wasn't tagging around all day long? Of course, Ford assures me he won't be around all the time—sometimes Antoine will need him or Spencer might have a question, but I'm probably the one who will need his guidance the most, you know, because of how young I am.

He is such a dick.

The only bright spot of this whole meeting is the revelation that my crew is not allowed in my apartment, but that's only because they have it all wired up anyway, so there's no point in cramming us all in that small space.

When I'm all out of nods and Ford is finally tired of hearing himself talk, I am excused.

By this time it's nine o'clock and Ronin never called me. And since Ford was so thoughtful this afternoon when he informed me I'm not Ronin's type, Clare is, I think the worst. I end the day sitting all by myself on my bed, literally huddled in the corner as I try to stay out of the camera. Tomorrow, I tell myself, tomorrow will be so much better than today.

Today is just a day that had a lot of new stuff in it, a day filled with confusing things, so it felt weird and scary.

But tomorrow those things will be less new, so I'll be less confused and it will be so much better than today.

At least I tell myself that.

But it's a lie and even my damaged psyche understands this, because tomorrow I will be naked in front of all of them and I'm sure, even compared to the whole groping experience I had with Billy that first time I did anything here at Antoine Chaput's erotic art photography studio, this will be scary as hell.

Because this time I know exactly what's happening.

And I signed on for every single second of it.

Chapter Seven - RONIN

"She didn't respond to the buprenorphine treatment."

That's it. That's all this ass**le doctor says. Like I know what the f**k this drug is and what it means that Clare's not responding to it. I want to punch his f**king face in.

I take a deep breath instead. "Can you explain that to me? I'm not quite sure what it means."

"Oh," he says with a smile. "Sorry, I just figured you'd be familiar with treatment. Sorry."

I stop listening for a second because I'm pretty sure this f**kwad just insulted me. Just assumed because of who I am, I'd be a drug addict, too. Elise grabs my arm and shakes me.

"… but she's a heavy user, so we think a long-term methadone taper would work better."

"Right. So what's the problem? Put her on it."

"She's refusing. She might need to leave. She's playing with us, Mr. Flynn. She thinks she can force us to give her euphoric levels of opiates to relieve her withdrawal symptoms, so she's refusing everything. She's thrown herself into rapid detox four times in the last two weeks, then accepts the methadone to come out of it, and it starts all over again. This is not what we do here. In fact, her manipulation is unacceptable."

I rub my face with my hands. Now I just want to strangle Clare. "Where is she?"

He points down the hallway. "Room 23."

"Wait here, Elise." I disentangle Elise's clutching hand from my arm and head down the hallway. I knock once, then walk in.

The TV is blaring People's Court and Clare is slumped over in bed, obviously high off her ass from a large dose of opiates. "Well," I say in a soft whisper. "It's gonna pretty hard to have a conversation with you if you're constantly f**ked up."