Chapter Twenty-Nine
I followed Finn back to the set and settled in with my laptop and a Diet Pepsi ready for the long haul night he had scheduled. He was being all cute and protective and I guess the feminist side of me wasn’t all that offended as it kind of felt good to let someone else do the worrying for a bit.
Marin found me a quiet corner to sit, out of site and private and I got to work. A few hours went by and it was looking like I was going to meet my deadline after all.
I decided to go and find Finn or Marin and take a bit of a break from work. We were at the soundstage and I had stowed myself fairly far back so as not to be disturbed by any action and also to not get in the way, so I was kind of lost and not sure which way to head to get back to the set they were filming on.
I took a turn towards the noises and ran head on into Serena Albright. Great, just what I needed.
“Sorry,” I mumbled and scooted around her.
She glared at me and then said, “I need to find someone to find me a few things. Can you run and find my assistant?”
What a royal bitch. “Sorry, I don’t work here. I’m just visiting the set tonight.”
She looked me up and down like I could possibly be plague ridden or worse, a fan. Then I could see the spark of recognition glimmer and then it was quickly replaced with some sort of evil gleam.
“Oh, yes, your Finn’s current thing.” This last word she spit out as though the word itself offended her deeply. As much as my presence also seemed to offend her.
I raised an eyebrow, “Thing?”
“Yes, thing. He has a thing for picking up strays and taking them in. It must make him feel all do-goody or something. But let me save you some time and some heartache, sweetie. He always bores of his things. He’s an A list actor. A listers, like myself can only really be with other A listers. Others just can’t understand us and the demands on our lives, and how busy our schedules are. Finn always comes back to me, little one. Might as well let him get his jollies and prepare to move on.”
She looked me up and down one last time to somehow make hit her words home a little bit harder. “Or better yet, maybe you could save yourself some heartache and move on now. You know, girl to girl and all. I don’t want you to have to go through the callous way that Finn can be when he bores of his conquests.”
She followed this up with a wink. A wink, I mean who does that, and trotted off in the other direction. I just stood there staring off into the space she had just vacated. I was unable to process what I had just heard and was not sure exactly what to do about it.
I heard a rustling and quickly snapped out of my haze. I looked up and there was Marin staring me down. I couldn’t decide if she had just showed up or if she had heard that conversation, but I had other things to think about like Serena Albright and what I was going to do about her.
On the one hand, I could talk to Finn about it, but that would put a strain between him and his co-star. On the other hand, I could take what she said, with a liberal grain of salt and walk away.
I was seriously considering this option. Even though it was delivered with malice, her words rang very true. I struggled with what would happen as we progressed in our relationship and fabulous actresses came along.
Marin snuck up beside me. “George, don’t listen to her.”
I smiled at her and in my heart, I knew what I was going to do. “I’m not Marin. I just need some air. Can you point me in the right direction?”
“Please, don’t leave him.”
I startle and start to tell her, “I-“
“No,” she cuts me off. “Please, he hasn’t been this happy in years. I’ve been with him for five years. Five years of skanks and hoes. He doesn’t need that bull shit. He needs you. He needs a partner, not someone who wants the brand, Finn Lowry. He’s smiling George. Have you not seen the pics of him prior to him meeting you? He was restless, brooding, angry. He’s happy, George. Don’t walk away again. He can’t take it.” And with that, she threw up a hand, pointed left, said, “the exit’s that way. Put the piece of wood in the door though, ‘cause it locks you out after it closes.”
She spun on her heels and started to walk away. “Marin,” I said.
She turned to look at me.
“He makes me happy too. This face,” I wave my hands in a circle around my face, “it hasn’t smiled in five years either. I’m not going anywhere and no A-list bitch is going to make me. I truly just need some air to process that revelation, okay? Promise.”
She smiled, nodded her head and turned back towards the action and I headed out the exit to take a breather. While I walked, I put in my headphones. I scrolled through my playlists and came upon my mellow, romantic music.
I got to the door marked exit, noticed the piece of wood beside it and bent over to pick it up. While bent over, something hit my head and the last thing I remember was seeing a face staring down at me I didn’t recognize.
When I came to, I was tied up with duct tape in a janitor’s closet. She had even duct taped my mouth shut.
I tried to sit up and was blinded by an excruciatingly painful headache that made me want to lie back down immediately.
“Don’t try to get up. You’ll only wish you hadn’t tried.”
Oh shit. My captor was in the room with me. Great. Just great. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness I tried to find something that I could make some noise with. Not much in a janitor’s closet. Damn. Onto plan B.
Plan B was trying to fish my cell out of my back pocket. The duct tape was bound pretty tight and it wasn’t giving me much wiggle room.
“Aren’t you at all curious who I am?”
I guess she missed the part where she bloody well duct taped my mouth shut.
My non-reply seemed to anger her and I was once again cursing my stupid luck. She marched over to me and hauled off and kicked me in the stomach. Shit, shit, shit. That really hurt. No one had ever kicked me anywhere, let alone in the stomach. Tears sprang to my eyes and I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t pass out again soon.
“You should know who I am. I’ve told you repeatedly, over and over again to stay away from him. He is mine!” She emphasized the mine with another blow to my mid-section. This time, tears really did fall. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could stay awake with my head in this much agony and the beat down I was getting. But at least now I knew what kind of crazy I was dealing with. I had finally been introduced to Finn’s stalker. My only chance at being found here was wiggling my phone out of my pocket and hoping like hell I could work it without being able to look at it. Total long shot, but it was all I could think of.
“I’ve been leaving you letters warning you this would happen if you didn’t listen, bitch. I saw you give them to the cop. That wasn’t very nice of you. Your comprehension skills really aren’t that good for a writer. I told you to back off. I shot you. You must be real stupid if that didn’t clue you in.”
While she was ranting, my hands had made contact with my phone and were desperately and slowly, which is very hard to do, inching the phone out of my pocket. I really didn’t need her to kick me again. The impact would throw the phone and then I would be shit out of luck. Not to mention that my internal organs might explode if they received anymore kicks.
She was pacing in front of me, mumbling to herself. “Should have listened, now I need to get rid of her. How am I going to do that. Think, Alicia, think.”
I didn’t think talking to herself boded well for my safety so I hurried up the phone plan and finally got it all the way out. Now, the hard part. Hitting the dial button and hoping the last number I called was someone who could help me. I was pretty sure it was Finn, but he might not have his phone on him right now. If not, I was screwed. It was at this time, I was thankful I was the idiot who didn’t have her phone password protected.
I turned the phone right side up and swiped up to wake it up. Then crossed my fingers and hit where I thought the phone symbol was. I knew my phone automatically brought up the call log and so I started tapping where I thought it began and waited.
It started to ring. Shit, even though it wasn’t on speaker, you could still hear the ringing on the other end. If she stopped her rant, I was toast.
Come on, someone please pick up. I had no idea who I had dialed, but anyone at this point would work.
“Hey babe, what’s up?” It worked. I had never been so happy to hear that man’s voice in my life. Ok, so now what? Now, I needed to turn up the volume on crazy.
I began to shift and shuffle and basically draw her attention to me and actually make her angry so she would be shouting. I hoped that Finn had played a cop or something like that on TV so he could follow the damn clues and get me the hell out of here before she decided I needed something worse than a kick to the stomach.
“What are you looking at,” she yelled at me. “You have totally messed up everything for Finn and I. I need to get rid of you once and for all but I need quiet to decide how to do it so SHUT THE FUCK UP.” Yes, bitch, that’s it. Get on the crazy town train. Bring it on, the louder the better. She emphasized her outrage with another giant kick and I could hear Finn begin to scream into the phone. Crap. He needed to calm down or else I was going to get found out.
“George, babe, what the fuck is going on. Where are you? Baby? Are you there? Who’s yelling at you?”
Finn, come on. Be silent. Listen. Please listen. I always wanted to be telepathic. Here was my chance. I sent some brainwaves out into the universe hoping Finn would hear them.
No such luck. He began to panic as my whimpering got louder.
“George, tell me where you are? Please, can you talk to me? GEORGE! “
I heard him shuffling around talking to people. “Marin, when did you last see George?” And that was all I heard as a scream that would wake the dead came from Alicia’s mouth and she kicked me over and over again until I finally and mercifully passed out.