Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Vera
Ican’t believe that James found me first. I’d been keeping such a close eye out for him that it’s a little insulting that he found me before I could spot him. However, I can hardly blame myself.
I was overstimulated and hot. My plans to seduce the prince immediately hit a brick wall as I remembered that I didn’t know how to flirt to save my life.
Before I knew it, Naia and Frederick were pulling ahead, bonding and talking about plot relevant things that I already know about because I wrote these conversations.
“A ball?” Naia gasps. “What is that? Is it round?”
To which the prince chuckles and says, “I suppose the room is.”
I roll my eyes, muttering, “I need to learn how to write better dialogue,” under my breath. Too much exposition, but then I never made Naia and Fredrick to be more than the perfect pair. Perfect for each other and perfectly highlighting Moira’s flaws.
They weren’t supposed to highlight my flaws though.
I stew as I fall further and further behind, completely ignored.
I should be used to being overlooked by now, but somehow it still always hurts.
I sigh heavily, reaching up to swipe at a curl that is plastered to my forehead that is now glistening in the hot afternoon sun.
I need to get control of myself. I have a lot bigger problems than being unintentionally snubbed by lovebirds.
“You mean to say that you have never attended a ball then?” Frederick asks.
Naia shakes her head as she blinks adoringly up at Frederick.
“Then I must insist that you come to the ball.” He turns, finally remembering the third wheel over here. “You both must, as my special guests.”
“Oh, boy, I’d love to,” I mutter as Naia squeals and begins jumping up and down on Frederick’s arm. He laughs, watching her girlish joy. I think I throw up in my mouth a little bit.
Maybe James was right about those edits… this script sucks.
As if summoned by my thoughts, a hand wraps around my wrist. I turn in time to see James hold the hook to his lips as if he is going to shush me. However, he pauses and glowers with disgust at the hook.
His eyes flick to Naia and Frederick, still wrapped up in their own little world then he tugs on my arm. “Over here.”
I let James pull me forward into a secluded alleyway, wondering what my life is coming to. I would have never followed James into an empty conference room, let alone a completely abandoned alleyway and now I’m doing it unquestionably.
He whirls as soon as we are alone and runs an agitated hand through his hair. I think he had been trying to fix it, but he only wound up making it look more tousled. “You left me!”
“You had seemed fine,” I say, folding my arms. “I was just trying to make sure neither of us got stabbed for our efforts.”
James presses his lips together as if conceding my point.
I notice that he has a slight sunburn on his nose.
I don’t want to even know what I look like.
I’ve always been fair and burnt to a crisp in the sun.
Finally, he turns his gaze to me. His eyes are crystal clear and bright blue, the only memorable part about him. It’s how I recognized him so quickly.
“What is going on, Vera?” He gestures back and forth. “Why are you and I here? Where is here?”
I reach up, fiddling with a strand of my hair as I consider my words.
Even though I have my suspicions, and even though they are grounded in recent events, it still feels wrong to speak them out loud.
I feel like a mad woman as I open my mouth and finally admit, “I think we wound up in the world of my script. Or at least a world that greatly resembles it.”
Right down to names and events.
“How did we wind up in our movie?” James demands. He sounds more frustrated than shocked. I wonder if he didn’t already have his suspicions. After all, as the producer he is probably the only person who knows this script nearly as well as I do.
“That I don’t know.”
“How are we going to get out?” he demands.
“I also don’t know that.”
James lets out a frustrated breath and paces away. “What exactly do you know?”
“Probably not much more than you,” I snap back. “Why do I have to be the one with all the answers? I only know the story, I don’t know why I’m in the story and I certainly don’t know why you are here. And don’t ask me how we are supposed to get back home, because I don’t know that either.”
James goes over to a wall. He slides down it hard and goes to bring his hands together as if trying to clasp them but then he pauses and stares at the hook.
“Where’s my hand, Vera?” he asks at last, quietly.
“Why don’t I feel any pain? I keep forgetting that I don’t actually have a hand.
Do you have any idea how many times I almost drew blood scratching an itch today? ”
I move over to him, pausing a second as I consider sitting cross legged in this dirty alleyway, but then I decide that I don’t care if these borrowed and oversized pants are ruined.
I fold my legs, sitting down next to him.
“That’s actually how you got that,” I say, reaching out and gently tracing the scar across James’s brow.
It’s the only thing different about his face.
If I stuck him in a suit, I could almost pretend we were just on the set of the movie as it was being made.
James reaches up and touches his eyebrow. His eyes widen. “I have a scar too?”
I smile and shrug. “If it makes you feel any better, it suits you.”
“How can you say a scar suits me? That’s so weird.
” He hunches his shoulders, pouting a bit like a petulant child while he keeps his hand clamped over his eye as if trying to staunch the blood from a wound that healed long ago.
Finally, he raises his hook and points. “And how did you get that scar on your face?”
I reach up, tracing my cheek where Moira’s scar sits.
I had thought it would be cute and romantic if Hook and Moira both had scars representing their dark pasts.
A physical manifestation of all the trauma they went through.
“I believe I got it when my—I mean, Moira’s mother—died in a shark attack.
In the story, that’s how it happened anyway.
How I got it is a different story entirely. I just woke up with it.”
James purses his lips, finally lowering his hand. He braces his arms on his knees as he stairs straight ahead. “So, you really don’t have any answers?”
“Well, we seem to be the only people like us.”
“Like us?” he asks, his whole face scrunching with confusion.
I gesture between us. “From our world. I’m not seeing any other members of the production team here and everyone else seems to be wrapped up in the roles they are playing.”
He nods. “Okay, a fair point. What makes us special?”
“That I don’t know. All I know is that we are in the story, somehow straight down to the scars on our characters.
The plot seems to be progressing like normal even without us playing our roles.
” I hold up a thumb, gesturing over my shoulder.
“I should be actively plotting to kill Naia right now. This meet up is supposed to be you trying to kill me and us flirting in the streets.”
“Well, there is no way that is going to happen,” James says wryly.
I rock back, bristling at his words. He had better have meant there is no way he would try to kill me and not there is no way he would ever flirt with me.
Because even if I’m not into James, I think I’m pretty enough that he could force out at least one or two pickup lines if our lives depended on it.
He looks up at me, frowning. “But doesn’t this story have a sad ending?”
“For our two characters,” I murmur, distracted from being offended by James’s apparent distaste at the idea of flirting with me. I reach up, nibbling on my thumbnail. “But I don’t know how that’s going to happen since I doubt that you plan on killing me.”
“Not yet,” he says with a shrug. “Catch me tomorrow when I haven’t managed to have a cup of coffee and it might be a different story.”
A surprised laugh bursts from my lips and James glances at me out of the corner of his eye, looking a bit too pleased with himself.
I jump to my feet and begin pacing. “But the story does end. So, if we can make it to the end with our lives intact… well, then maybe that’s our key to getting home.
” I turn to James, ready to ask him what he thinks of my half-baked plan.
But the words die on my throat as I see a sword being thrust straight toward my face.