Page 26

La Mariposa

“Cut!” Marsh shouts frantically. “I said, cut! Stop! Stop rolling!”

The overheads flash, brightening the bedroom immediately, and someone claps the black-and-white clacker.

“What happened?” Ren cries beside her, surprised. “I thought we had that take!”

“I’m sorry,” Marsh apologizes. She pulls her gown back into place as she scoots off the bed. Her eyes dart, looking for Talia, but it’s darker off the set than on it, and there are so many crew hands moving around that she can’t spot her.

“Ready to go again?” Victor asks as he arrives, as a makeup artist appears to touch up the bronzer on Ren’s chiseled abs.

But Marsh shakes her head and waves off another artist who wants to fluff her hair. “I need to talk to the director first.”

“Everyone, take five!” Victor calls. The crew relaxes, and the scramble of logistics eases a bit as Marsh weaves through clusters of people and props, seeking her host.

Being an actress had seemed incredible at first, even better than Iceland, but everything about that last scene was way too weird. Maybe she made a mistake by allowing Talia to convince her to come to Mexico. Maybe this place has too many memories wrapped up in it to be the real fresh start she deserves.

“Talia,” Marsh says as she reaches the director’s corner behind a bunch of video monitors, from where she can watch every angle of filming. Talia’s tall Sharp Purple–colored folding chair appears from behind the screens as she turns it around. “We need to talk. Did you see—”

“That was beautiful! Just beautiful!” Talia says as she settles down into her seat again—but Marsh recoils as if slapped.

Because it’s not Talia Cruz in the director’s chair.

It’s Alexis Quinn.

“What the—?!” Marsh gasps, stumbling backward and nearly tripping over a page boy.

She knew it! She was right!

Marsh did spot Alexis Quinn in the Bubble, after all!

Before, it had been too dark, or too quick, and she’d convinced herself that she’d just been seeing things. But now, she’s certain.

It’s unmistakably Alexis.

But how is it possible that Alexis is here, on All This and More ? She doesn’t work for RealTV, and isn’t involved in the show anymore. That’s why Talia is the host—because it’s a whole new crew this season. A whole new everything.

So why has Alexis been turning up randomly? What’s she doing here, now?

But most importantly...

“Where’s Talia?” Marsh cries.

She’s hoping that Alexis will say that Talia will be right back—she’s in the restroom, or on a quick call, or giving directions to some extras—anything to explain why she’s not here, and Alexis is.

But to her surprise, Alexis just cocks her head.

“Who’s Talia?” she asks.

Huh?

Marsh stares at her, bewildered.

Alexis Quinn was Talia’s producer. During their season, there was no one closer to her than she was. They were together every step of the way, in almost every scene together, just like Marsh and Talia are now.

So why is she acting like she doesn’t know who Talia is?

“Talia, who was just sitting here before we started that last take!” Marsh says, gesturing at her director’s chair.

Jo and Victor have followed Marsh from the set and are now standing on either side of her, watching the exchange.

“Malvavisca, what are you talking about?” Jo asks. “Who’s Talia?”

“Talia Cruz,” Marsh says weakly to her. “The guest director. She was just here. Remember?”

Victor frowns, confused. “Alexis has been directing the whole time.”

“No. No,” Marsh whispers. She closes her eyes and shakes her head.

Alexis checks her clipboard. “If she wants to be an extra, there’s a list for friends and family. I’m sure we can get her into an episode or two for you,” she offers.

Marsh takes a deep breath, trying to stay calm. At first, she thought maybe the show was trying to plant an Easter egg for eagle-eyed fans by having Alexis make a couple cameos. But it doesn’t seem like Alexis is here to play a part—on Un Juego Peligroso or All This and More . She’s acting more like she doesn’t know she’s inside the show.

Or that it’s happening at all.

The same way she didn’t really seem to know when she appeared in the first half of the season, either. She’s been acting more like she’s part of the cast, rather than the crew .

“That last scene was nearly perfect. What do you say to one more try?” Alexis asks.

“I...” Marsh fumbles, as her eyes drift back to the waiting set. “I don’t know if...”

“That’s a wrap, everyone!” Victor announces suddenly, his lawyer voice booming across the set. “Cameras off, scripts down! It’s a party now!”

“What?” Marsh asks, bewildered but relieved. “Party?”

“We just got the news,” Ren says. He’s holding a glass of champagne now, for some reason.

Everyone is holding a glass of champagne now, she can see as she spins around.

What’s going on?

“Malvavisca,” Alexis continues, ecstatic. “You’ve been nominated for the Nobel Prize—in acting!”

A burst of streamers pops to a chorus of whistles and applause across the set as the comments also go haywire.

Pollito: ?INCREíBLE!

Notamackerel: A Nobel? Are you kidding? This show has totally jumped the shark!

JesterG: I hate to agree with Notamackerel, but who could ever buy this twist? RealTV has seriously gone off the deep end!

Marsh desperately snaps the stream of posts off as the party explodes around her, unfurling at impossible speed.

Everywhere she looks, her telenovela crew are singing, dancing, or climbing the sculpture props. Every inch of the cartel boss’s dining table is covered with what Ren proudly announces is his cooking—platters of gorgeous, juicy lamb, sizzling roasted vegetables, crisp salad, freshly baked bread, cheesy pasta—the restaurant documentary he mentioned starring in earlier really did come in handy. The Un Juego Peligroso extras are acting like waiters, going around holding either champagne trays or plates of Ren’s delicacies, and everyone is ravenous. How could he have made fifty dishes all by himself, in mere minutes? she wonders. But his food is Michelin-star delicious, and the music is so loud she can hardly hear herself think, much less worry about it. She’s glad Harper isn’t at this party—she’s pretty sure people are doing lines of cocaine off the set bedroom’s dresser, and there also might now be an actual white horse in the hallway, a live replica of the one in the mural.

Victor’s verdict parties have nothing on this, she can’t help but note.

Marsh does another lap, but she still can’t find Talia. Eventually, she ends up back at the center of the party, where everyone toasts her again.

At last, she gives up. She still doesn’t know where her host is, but she must be on her way. She figures she might as well enjoy herself until then.

She takes a sip of her champagne and dances a little to the music, which draws some cheers. She’s almost not sure which show she’s in right now— All This and More or Un Juego Peligroso . Everyone here is honoring Marsh’s Bubble-manufactured Nobel nomination, but they’re all still in their telenovela costumes, and they’re celebrating on the cartel’s opulent mansion set, the two productions blending together until they seem like one.

“ ?Felicidades! ” Jo cries as she finds Marsh in the crowd, and hugs her excitedly. “I’m so proud of you!”

“I can’t believe this!” Marsh says back, just as a huge cloud of confetti rains down on them from a net in the ceiling and everyone shouts with glee. A billion little colorful snowflakes, twirling and sailing on the air—

Marsh catches one in her palm to inspect it as she laughs.

The confetti isn’t just tiny squares of paper, she sees now. Every little piece is cut and folded into the same shape, a microscopic, intricate species of origami.

They’re all tiny butterflies.

There are butterflies everywhere, she realizes now. As the shape of the food platters, printed on the napkins, as sculpture props, even newly in place of the white horse as the art of the mural.

“Amazing,” Jo says, spinning around as the last flutterers fall.

“Hey,” Marsh nudges her friend, and holds out the confetti in her hand. “Butterflies?”

“?La Mariposa, Malvavisca!” Alexis answers, arriving beside them. “The name of our cartel in Un Juego Peligroso . It means ‘The Butterfly.’ ”

Notamackerel: Again??

LunaMágica: ?Dios mío! It’s followed her from Iceland, and found a way into Mexico!

Marsh nods slowly as this revelation sinks in.

Chrysalis is here.

But why?

What does it want?

“You okay?” Jo asks.

“I’ll be right back,” Marsh tells her. “Just going to run to the restroom.”

She fights her way through the party, signing autographs as she goes. The line at the door to the restroom is long, but her cast and crew wave her to the front— This party is for you! A star shouldn’t have to wait!

The door opens, and out falls Ren—laughing a little too loudly, moving a little too quickly. His eyes are wide, but there’s a slight glassy quality to his gaze when it lands on her.

“Malvavisca,” he croons, reaching for her. “My Malvavisca. Is this incredible, or what?”

Marsh falls into his hug. It’s tighter than she expects it to be, and the force of it squeezes the breath out of her lungs for a moment, surprising her. Behind him, the extras who were also in the restroom with him are huddled together, doing something at the sink.

“If only this party never had to end,” Ren says. “Maybe it doesn’t.”

Marsh frowns as he sways. “Are you on something?” she asks him.

“I am playing a bad boy in this series.” He winks, with a shrug. “I figured, hey, why not get into the role a little?”

A flash of irritation strikes her at that, and she can’t help but grimace. This is bad boy Ren? She’d been thinking more like smoldering, flirty looks and trendy leather jackets, not a forty-five-year-old party animal who still takes it a bit too far at parties. She has a teenager in the house! She doesn’t want Harper finding his cigarettes, or whatever else he’s got.

“Hey,” he’s saying now. Behind the drowsy stare, there’s a twinge of concern. “Are you mad?”

Marsh sighs. It’s not his fault that the Bubble nudged him a little too far down this edgy path for her exact taste.

“No,” she finally tells him. “Really.”

There’s no point in being mad, because it’ll never happen again. Or ever have happened, for that matter. She can fix this right up.

“Malvavisca—”

But his friends have come out of the restroom now, and are carrying him away toward the crowd. He blows her kisses over their shoulders, until she finally laughs and blows one back at him.

Once she’s locked the bathroom door behind herself, she puts the toilet lid down to make a solid seat, and sinks onto it with an exhausted sigh.

So much is going on, it’s hard for her to sort out how she feels. For every unsettling anomaly in one part of her life, there’s a stunning improvement in another area, causing her to lurch back and forth between uncertainty and euphoria in a quantum whiplash.

Is Dylan watching, wherever he is?

She wonders what he thinks of this new version of her life in Mexico, full of screaming fans and Nobel Prize nominations. And what he must make of Chrysalis. Of how it’s grown, and what it’s done, since he walked off All This and More .

Marsh can almost hear him now, saying that he told her so, that he knew something was off, and that she should have listened to him, his tone more like he’s teaching a lecture in one of his college classes rather than having a conversation.

But she has to admit, she’d take the I told you so, if only he were here.

Before she realizes it, her phone is ringing against her ear.

What is she doing? She’s flourishing as an actress in Mexico, changing her whole life. She should be out there enjoying her party, and her ridiculous Nobel nomination! Hell, maybe she should even be trying some of those drugs! After all, she can do anything she wants here. Nothing matters until the finale.

But her call goes to voicemail anyway.

She sighs.

Typical Dylan.

He was the worst at answering his phone when they were married. What made her think he might actually pick up now?

As if in response, one of the sad, wet little paper butterfly decorations in the sink slides all the way down the porcelain, toward a foam hill of soap.

Maybe the champagne has gone to her head, or maybe it’s because she can just edit these calls into oblivion later—Marsh lifts her phone to try again.

Except when she goes to her call log, his name isn’t there at the top of the list.

Weird, she thinks.

She tries again, tapping in his number from memory. Even though she’s barely had to call him for the last two years, she’s had twenty where she constantly did before that.

The line rings as before, and he still doesn’t pick up, as before.

“Really?” she grumbles. What if this had been about Harper? Wasn’t it, in a way?

But as she lowers her phone, she sees that this second call to him is also not in her call log.

Marsh frowns.

She manually scrolls to D in her contacts, searching for him. But the list goes from Donovan’s Italian to a friend named Eddie Vuong, with no one in between.

Dylan’s entry is gone.

Now, that is very weird.

Marsh knows that she would never do that.

She’s standing now, having risen from the toilet lid without noticing. It must be the Bubble, she tells herself. Trying to keep things clean. Removing variables, streamlining storylines. She dials him again from memory, and the signal hangs for a moment, as if searching.

“Come on, Dylan,” she mutters, willing the call to go through. “Come on.”

Just then, there’s a hurried pounding on the door. Marsh is so startled, she drops the phone as she shrieks.

“Malvavisca?” someone shouts. “Malvavisca? Are you in there?”

“What?” she snaps back angrily. “I mean, yes! Just a minute!”

The door pounds again. “We don’t have a minute!”

She can tell the voice is Jo’s now. She sounds hyper, excited, the way she always does right before she launches into a winning rebuttal in court.

“Come on!” Jo yells, and jiggles the doorknob furiously. “The Nobel committee is announcing the winners right now!”

“What?” Marsh cries. She scrambles to the door and fumbles with the lock.

By the time she gets it open, it seems like the entire party has gathered in front of the door.

“Congratulations, Malvavisca,” Alexis says, standing at the very front.

Beside her, Ren and Jo are hugging each other, crying tears of happiness.

“You won!”

TopFan01: HOLY MACKEREL!!!

LoboAzul: ?El mejor programa de la historia!

Notamackerel: This is totally unbelievable!

Monsterrific: For $$%#’s sake, man, just shut up, no one cares that it’s not realistic!

ChilangoCool: ?Malvavisca, te amamos!

“What?” Marsh falters, still awestruck. She can’t believe it. “I won? Me? A Nobel Prize ?”

A burst of light from deeper within the mansion sets off a bluish glow across its gleaming surfaces, and Marsh turns toward the light. Someone has turned on the giant flatscreen in the fake house’s living room, where Un Juego Peligroso ’s latest episode is now playing on every channel, in response to Marsh’s win.

“Turn it up!” Jo orders, and everyone cheers.

“You’re very clever, but unfortunately, not clever enough,” cartel-Ren is saying to Marsh’s character on-screen as the volume increases.

It’s still the bedroom scene, but farther in the script than they must have gotten, because she doesn’t remember this part of the story. When did she film this? How did it get finished?

“I know who you are.” Ren leans in, his voice barely a whisper. The tone is still sensual, but the words feel threatening, somehow. “Who you really are.”

“I don’t know what you mean, se?or,” Marsh replies. “My friend invited me to this party. This is the first time I’ve met you.”

“Come, now,” he says. “You’re acting, but you’re not an actress.”

His eyes narrow.

“You’re a lawyer. Aren’t you?”

Marsh suppresses a small shudder at that echo. The entire telenovela is turning into some kind of strange callback. It’s like the Bubble is pulling its plot from a warehouse full of her discarded paths, but glitchy, each resonance more corrupted than the last.

“Perhaps this little game of yours was fun at first, but did you really think you could dip your toes into these waters without danger?” Ren sighs. “And now look at you. You’re in over your head, too far from shore to swim back. You’ll never get out.”

The title of Un Juego Peligroso is apt. This is turning out to be quite a dangerous game, indeed.

Marsh turns away from the screen, but Alexis is there now, standing beside her with a dreamy grin on her face.

“Is it everything you’ve ever wanted?” she asks Marsh, the same way she used to ask Talia the exact same thing, in her own season. “Is it perfect?”

Marsh studies her for a long moment, waiting for a flicker of something behind her eyes. A subtle wink, a small nod, a tell that she knows she’s here in Marsh’s season. But there’s nothing. No indication at all that Alexis is working for All This and More, not Un Juego Peligroso .

“No,” Marsh finally says.

Alexis’s brow furrows. “Do you want to redo the take?” she asks. “What do you want to tweak? Do you want to change the mansion? Or the dress? Maybe the lighting?”

Alexis is asking about the last episode of the telenovela that they just filmed, but she might as well be talking about the other show—the one they’re really in.

Maybe Marsh should change things. This path was thrilling at first, but now everything has gone a little too far. Ren is too much of a bad boy, the life of a famous actress is so intense, and the telenovela is too close to home in a way that’s not poetic, but slightly scary. Maybe acting isn’t for her. She’s learned what Talia wanted to teach her, to be confident and brave, to shine as the center of attention, and she’s proven to herself that she can do it. She can command that stage. But maybe she doesn’t want it to be a stage. She doesn’t want it to be pretend.

She wants it to be real.

As Marsh’s eyes drift across the raucous party, she spots a familiar face in the crowd. That shining golden hair, that warmly bronzed skin, that flawless makeup.

Talia’s finally back.

Their gazes meet, and Talia’s face lights up. But she also catches sight of Alexis with Marsh, and her expression pitches into shock—then something like terror.

Marsh stares, confused, as Talia waves desperately at her, but the room is too loud for her to hear what Talia’s shouting. But she’s jerking her head back and forth, and then draws a perfectly manicured set of nails across her throat in a sharp, unequivocal sign.

Stop, she means. Now.

Marsh watches her for another moment, trying to decide what to do.

Then she turns to Talia’s old producer.

“Alexis,” she says quickly. “I need you to send me somewhere else. Fast.”

Alexis is baffled by the question. “What? Like another party?”

“No,” Marsh replies. “Another path. Another choice . ”

Alexis is staring at her like she’s lost her mind.

Talia is pushing her way through the crowd now, picking up speed as she heads toward them. She doesn’t stop to say hello to fans, or apologize for bumping shoulders. She’s not smiling anymore.

Marsh whirls back to Alexis, frantic. She doesn’t quite understand what’s going on—why it’s bad that Alexis is here, and why they shouldn’t be speaking—but she knows something is off.

“I need you to get me out,” she repeats.

“Are you saying that you don’t want to work on Un Juego Peligroso anymore?” Alexis asks, still not understanding.

“No!” Marsh grabs her shoulders. Talia is almost on them now. “I mean, get me out of this life !”

“What—”

“Anywhere, I don’t care. Just get us out of Mexico,” Marsh begs. “Get us away from Chrysalis .”

As that word slips from Marsh’s lips, something changes in Alexis. A light goes on in the back of her eyes. A waking, or a realization. Lucid at last, she turns and looks at Marsh with dazed, grim amazement.

“This...” Her eyes drift again, taking in the party. “This is... season three?”

“Yes,” Marsh says quickly. “It’s my life. I’m the star.”

Alexis seems lost for another moment, still trying to process what’s happening. Then she spins quickly to Marsh.

“Where is Talia?” she asks.

“There’s only one way you can survive this,” cartel-boss-Ren tells Marsh’s character above them, on the telenovela mansion’s giant flatscreen. “If you give La Mariposa what we really want.”

“But, se?or,” Marsh protests dramatically. “I really don’t know what you mean! I’m just a guest at your party—”

“Por favor,” he replies, cutting her off. “Enough pretending.”

He rolls up his sleeves in a slow, casual manner that doesn’t seem charming so much as menacing. There wasn’t before, but in this scene, now there’s definitely a pistol holster hanging off his half-unbuckled belt, glinting dully in the dim light.

“You know you can’t stop me.”

His forearms are covered in tattoos of butterflies, Marsh sees.

“So why don’t you just give me what I want?”

SharpTruth38: Don’t you all see now?? I’m telling the truth!

[Automatic security filters have deleted this account]

SharpTruth39: There’s a problem with the Bubble, and—

[Automatic security filters have deleted this account]

The butterflies ripple on cartel-Ren’s forearms as he cracks his knuckles.

Marsh turns to Alexis, who’s still staring at the flatscreen in awe, completely mesmerized by something that Marsh can’t determine.

“What is Chrysalis, Alexis?” she asks her desperately.

“ Marsh! ” Talia cries, pushing through the last cluster of people between them. She’s dragging the Show Bible under one arm, and snatches at Marsh with the other.

Alexis grabs Marsh’s shoulder and pulls her, just as Talia’s hand misses her other elbow by mere inches.

“You have to find it,” Alexis whispers, in the last second they have. “It’s the only way.”

“Whatever she’s saying, don’t listen!” Talia orders as she closes the distance again.

But Alexis doesn’t pull Marsh away again. Instead, as Talia reaches a second time, Alexis lunges for her, and grabs one end of the Show Bible.

“Hurry,” she says, as Talia gasps.

“Malvavisca,” Ren cries, unsure of what he’s just come upon. The book opens, caught between the two women. “What—”

But Marsh is slammed roughly out of Mexico and into the darkness between episodes by Alexis’s and Talia’s struggle.

To escape into Alexis’s choice: Turn the page

To follow Talia’s choice: Go to Episode 8