In-out-in-out-in-out-in-out.
How does this random girl know that I am both Intelegant and Jackie Smalls?
In-out-in-out-in-out-in-out.
I’m hyperventilating.
She’s still standing there, staring at me.
What do I do?
What do I do!
“H-how did you…?” I can’t even talk properly, I’m too scared.
“Why don’t you come with me so we can have a more private conversation,” she suggests.
I don’t respond. I can’t. It’s like every muscle in my body is frozen.
She takes my hand and leads me through the crowd.
She pulls me into a parking garage; it’s the same one I parked my car in. How’d she know?
She keeps walking and I follow her into an elevator. She clicks the button for the top floor. She waits for the doors to close before she talks.
“Here’s the deal,” she says: “You are going to do whatever I say and if you don’t, the world is going to find out who you really are.”
In-out-in-out-in-out.
I’m getting light-headed.
I have to do what she says, but what does she want me to do? The world can’t find out what I really am, but I can’t do something for her that will hurt someone else. What should I do?
I have to calm down if I want to deal with this properly. Just ignore her for a second. I’ve got to close my eyes, and breathe.
In;
And out;
In;
And out until I have a plan.
Her chuckles pull me out of my attempt to become calm.
“Are you sure you’re the Jackie Smalls? The CEO so intimidating that a look is all it takes to make the target of her stare sell everything they own? You’re not acting like Intelegant either. Maybe it’s like this.” She spins a finger around her ear. “All those personalities are locked in the same brain, rattling around, taking turns seeing who gets to be in charge?”
I try to make my voice cut through her confidence, but the single word makes me sound even more pathetic than I must look: “Y-e-s.” How did my voice break twice while saying a one syllable word?
“Ha!” She gets closer and grabs my face. I can’t help but look away from her and when I do she says, “The one and only Jackie Smalls shaking like a leaf because of me.” She lets go of my face. “It’s freaking hilarious.”
She knows.
She knows that I’m a failure and that I’m just pretending to be everything the world thinks I am.
She knows.
She knows everything I did wrong and all I can say in response is, “I’m sorry,” in that same, broken, scared voice.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
…
“What?” she sounds confused.
She’s confused! That means she doesn’t know everything. If she knew everything she wouldn’t be confused, but she’s confused. That means I have a chance to get out of this! I probably just blew things out of proportion. She probably doesn’t know anything!
I can still save this, I just have to be smart.
Deep breath.
In…
Out…
Put on the mask called Jackie Smalls, with it I’m going to make her back off.
I straighten myself up and give her my best death glare. “I’m sorry you had to see that.” I put my hair up in the classic girl-boss bun. “I almost died earlier today and you happened to catch me in the middle of a panic attack. I had to take a second to recover and process what you were saying before I could act appropriately.” It looks like she’s buying it. “Earlier you mentioned that you think I am Intelegant. Do you have any proof?”
She stares at me like I’ve grown a second head.
To keep from letting the panic surface again, I look at the watch that isn’t on my wrist and say, “If you don’t mind, could we hurry this up? I’m a busy woman. I’ve got places to be.”
“How did you do that?”
Without missing a beat I say, “Do what?”
“Like a second ago you were too busy cowering to talk and now you’re acting like this is some business transaction.”
“Like I said, I needed a second to compose myself. You did surprise me in the streets after all. Now, do you have proof?” Please fall for my act.
If I play this awful hand right, I just might turn things around and keep this from turning into something that will destroy everything.
“... Yeah.” She doesn’t believe me but she’s not asking about my sudden personality change anymore. “I have a video of you from the alley changing out of your Intelegant costume.”
“Show me.” Demanding things puts me in control of the situation.
She takes a second to mess with her phone before she flips it around so I can see it. On the screen, there’s a paused video with the mask in my hands and a clear view of my face.
Okay. She’s got proof. I can still do this.
I grab my purse and pull out my wallet, “How much money do you want?”
She narrows her eyes. The eyes, they’re brown, like melted chocolate.
“Look, bud. I get that you’re usually in control, but that’s not how this is going to work.”
“Then how will this work?” I ask in a calm and controlled manner.
I step away from the wall of the elevator that she pushed me into and get in her face, at least as close to her face as I can; she’s more than a couple of inches taller than me.
“I tell you what to do and you do it unless you want everywhere that can, publishing the identity of Intelegant.”
My heartbeat speeds up again, but I ignore it. I have my cool and I’m not going to lose it again. “What do you want then?”
She smiles, smugly. “To start, you’re going to have an interview with the Breaking Times.” That’s not too bad. “After that you’re going to wait for my call.”
“Why do you want me to do an interview?” I can’t agree quickly, it makes it look like I’ll agree to anything.
“They hired me to get info on you so they could blackmail you into an interview.”
“Why didn’t you just give them the info?” No time to stress about how tedious my situation has become.
“This is too good to hand over. Plus, it’s more fun this way,” she smiles down at me in a way that shouts I’m better than you. It’s the same look you see on TV when the plucky underdog is finally about to stand up to their bully, a bully called… I have no idea what her name is.
“What’s your name?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“If we’re going to be doing business I should at least know your name.”
“You can call me Ash.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Ash. I would introduce myself but you already know me, you know, since you’ve been digging around my life and all.” She probably knows a lot more than just my name.
“Hehe, yeah.” She looks like a cat holding a dead goldfish in front of its brother.
The elevator makes a dinging sound as it stops moving. The door opens revealing a small family. They’re ready to join us in the elevator.
Ash moves to leave and says over her shoulder, “I’ve got your number, so I’ll text you with the details later.”
I say nothing as I glare at her back.
She reminds me of someone… I laugh and the family looks at me like I’m insane. Legs for days, a perfectly curvy body, she’s even got a doll-like face! She’s a real-life Barbie!
I let out a sigh as she finally got out of view. That went better than I expected, but now I’m going to go home and freak out for the next twenty-four hours.