Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 43557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
This particular alien is giving me a stern, glowering stare.
“What? Do I have something on my face?”
“You’ve got an attitude,” he says. His voice is like the distant roar of furious beasts just barely contained in a humanoid form. It is a voice of authority and gravitas. It makes me physically quiver, even though I very much want to be immune to it. It’s the sort of voice that warns by merit of tone alone that this is someone not to be fucked with. Unfortunately, he fucked with me first and left me no choice.
“Yeah. Well. I’ve earned it.”
I sound spoiled, but I’m not. Nobody on this Earth, or off it, has ever spoiled me. I’ve worked my ass off for everything I’ve ever gotten, right up until the lucky break that plucked me from obscurity and landed here. I do not intend to miss one second of it thanks to so-called safety concerns.
Zayne
She’s a brat.
She’s pretty, though, which always helps. But not in a traditional way. Most of these starlets are waif-like, delicate things with large eyes and sweet features. Simon told me this was going to be a darker season. I didn’t like his tone when he said those words. Usually the starlets are ballad singers, but this one comes from the punk rock pop genre. I know these things even though they are not of interest to me, simply because these are the waters I have been swimming in for a very long time.
Starlet Lyric has stronger features than most. Her eyes are a piercing and irritated blue. She has dark hair cut shorter on one side than the other, an asymmetrical cut that demonstrates the line of her jaw and the sharp set of her features. Her energy tells me that she’s going to be a handful.
I have studied her, though I am a stranger to her. Simon had her picked out for some time. He says she’s perfect, though I am not sure for what. She is older than most of the starlets that come through Simon Scowl. He usually likes them just barely old enough to enter into a legal contract. This woman is twenty-nine years old. She has had a harder life, and her gains have been harder won. But she thinks she knows everything already, because she thinks everything that can happen to her already has happened. She’s wrong.
“I need to go out,” she says.
“No. You don’t.”
Her face screws up in irritation. “I do. I really, really do. My fans are out there, and they want to see me, and you know what, I want to see them. It’s not your job to stand in my way, is it? You can come with me if you like.”
“You’re staying in the room. It’s not safe down there. Get used to being careful. You’re a product now.”
“I’m a product?”
“Sure. Like a precious, easily hurt, delicate little glass flower. Think of yourself as something very breakable.”
I see her blush when I call her delicate and breakable. She likes that, but she definitely does not want to like it. As soon as the moment of brief vulnerability establishes itself, it is gone.
“Stay out of my way,” she says. “I didn’t work this hard to be told I can’t interact with my audience. They’re the only reason I got here, and they’re the only people who will stay with me after this is over.”
I have no interest in arguing with her. I am here to do a job, and I intend to do that job whether she likes it or not. I’ve dealt with some starlets who would chew my ear off all day long, and I’ve adapted to ignore female wheedling.
Lyric makes for the door again. I see that coming a mile away. I had only stepped slightly away from it to allow Simon Scowl to leave, and now it takes close to no effort on my part to hold it shut. I could keep her in this suite with one finger, if I so chose. I test the theory by holding the door shut with the index finger of one hand and using the same finger on the other hand to gently but firmly hook in the collar of her shirt and pull her away. The theory holds.
“I thought I told you not to touch me!” she huffs, before storming off to the bathroom. So she’s one of those. A sulker. That does not bother me even slightly. Sulkers are the easiest to deal with of all the brat types. This might turn out to be an easier assignment than I imagined after all.
I take a seat in a chair near the front door. There’s still some chance she’ll attempt to sneak out when I’m not looking. The first day is always the hardest, and it’s most important that I win the first battle. If she gets one over on me today, a little bit of a bratty handful could turn into a complete nightmare. I might not seem like I’m paying a lot of attention, but I miss absolutely nothing.