Page 50

A Dark Cloud

The after-party inside the private casino club is even more packed than the tournament, somehow. It’s dark, humid, and punctuated with pulses of light, like an electric obstacle course. The cheers are so loud, Marsh can feel them reverberating in her gut. A live shot of her face is being projected on an even bigger jumbotron than the one at the tournament, her own nose as tall as her real body. She manages a wave, which elicits another round of teeth-rattling applause.

The bar is neon, and so are the drinks. Marsh eyes one suspiciously as a passing waiter leans close with a tray.

“I’ll just have a glass of wine instead,” she says to him.

Suddenly, he has one for her in his hand.

“Perfect.” She smiles and takes a sip.

“Well, well, well,” Ren says, and she turns to see him sauntering toward her in the crowd. His lips are stained faintly nuclear blue from his cocktail. “Even I have to hand it to you. That was a pretty impressive win.”

Marsh waits to see if he says anything about how impossible the victory was, but he doesn’t seem to know.

“Well, thanks,” she finally says. She glances around. “Is Julie here? I should thank her for such a good match, too.”

“I haven’t seen her,” Ren says. “But...”

Marsh looks down to see him slyly offering a hotel key card to her. He does his best roguish wink. “I have the penthouse suite. In case, you know, after the after-party...”

Marsh arches a brow.

“It has a private waterfall Jacuzzi,” he adds.

He scoots a little closer.

“Also... I know we agreed to keep things on the down-low because the tournament circuit is so catty, but it’s been years now.” He peeks at her nervously. Suddenly the act drops, and he looks just as earnest and mushy as he always does. “Maybe we can go public?”

LunaMágica: A www, still the same, lovable Ren after all. I was starting to wonder if they weren’t together anymore!

BenzinhoGatinho: N?o fale isso ! Don’t even say it!

On the jumbotron, highlights of Marsh’s incredible— impossible —win are playing, spliced between shots of the euphoric crowd. Marsh definitely didn’t feel as cool and confident in the moment as she looks in the footage, but it seems the Bubble has tweaked the replay a bit so she’s steely in every single shot. She watches herself push all of her chips into the center of the table without a moment of hesitation just before her victory, fascinated by her own courage.

“You really had the crowd there,” Ren says, and tips his glass toward the giant screen. “But then again, you’re a natural-born performer.”

Marsh snorts at that, unable to help it.

“What?” She laughs.

Is he somehow thinking of Mexico? Did some fragment of memory from that path carry over into this new life?

Because nothing could be further from the truth—the real truth.

“No, I mean high school!” he replies.

What?

“I never told you this story, actually,” he says, and swirls his drink. “But what the hell.”

Marsh stares at Ren, spellbound, as he begins to talk about Beaumont, Texas, and math class, and her parents’ old two-story house with the ugly pink carpet.

How does Ren remember high school, in this life—their real high school? Did the two of them still meet way back then in this path, and have been dating ever since?

But what does that mean about Dylan?

About Harper?

“You remember, I came over to pick you up for prom? Anyway, while you were finishing your makeup, I was waiting with your corsage at the bottom of the stairs, where your mom had all those photos on that table. There was that one of you from your middle school talent show—you know! You’re in the kitchen, trying out your costume.”

It comes to her at once, an unbidden flash she can’t drive out of her mind’s eye before she sees it. The tacky gold picture frame, and the captured moment within it.

Marsh is ten years old. She’s standing in front of the refrigerator, a huge grin on her face. Her costume is so big, she can’t put her arms all the way down at her sides. She’s a huge, billowing white ball made of cotton balls and basted with silver glitter, to make it all shimmer. It’s the night before she goes onstage, and she’s so excited, so free, so ready.

So stupid .

Ren laughs. “That’s when I knew!”

Marsh’s throat is tight as she stares at him.

“You knew what?” she finally asks.

“Your nickname!” he exclaims, so proud of himself. “That’s how I came up with it. I saw that picture of you in your white costume, and thought, it’s perfect! It’s you .”

As Ren continues to chatter excitedly, Marsh closes her eyes and shakes her head. She wants to laugh, or punch something, she’s not sure which.

This whole time, all these years, the nickname she’s never liked...

Ren based it on one of the worst moments of her life.

And it’s not even right .

Not the nickname, not that version of herself, nothing. Not even the costume.

She wasn’t a marshmallow at all.

“Are you okay?” Ren asks. He’s staring at her nervously, clearly concerned by her reaction. “You look a little faint.”

Marsh turns to him.

“This is definitely something we’re going to edit out,” she says.

Ren gapes.

Talia will kill her for this, but she can’t help it this time.

“What?” Ren stammers.

“I know you have no idea what I mean, but this isn’t right,” she continues.

“What part?”

“All of it.”

He blinks, shocked. “Surely not... all of it?” He looks unmoored. “I mean, this was your choice, wasn’t it?”

Marsh had been ready with a sharp comeback, but his words catch her off guard.

“What?” she demands. “What do you mean, my choice?”

But as soon as her suspicion flares, it’s gone again.

“Not to tell anyone we’re together, because we’re rivals on the circuit,” Ren says. He’s not talking about the show itself. Just their current life within it. The only one he knows. “I understand your concerns, but I just—”

Marsh interrupts him by putting a hand on his.

She wants to tell him, even though the last time she confessed, the whole thing went down in flames. Dylan tried to quit, then disappeared, and now everything’s gone off the rails. But poor Ren looks so desperate, so confused. He’s become a hundred different people for her, and each one of them has loved her. He deserves to know. How can things be perfect if he doesn’t?

But before she can speak, a flicker of movement over his shoulder stops her.

“I hear you,” Marsh finally says. “I promise things will get better. Okay?”

He nods as she leaves him in the middle of the crowd, that hurt look still on his face. But she can’t think about that right now. She only has so much time, and there’s something far more important she has to do.

“Julie Pabst,” Marsh says.

“Come to gloat, have we?” Julie asks.

Marsh shakes her head. “To ask you a question.”

Julie hums, curious, and gestures for Marsh to continue.

Here we go, Marsh thinks.

It worked for Alexis—hopefully it does for Julie, too.

“Chrysalis,” she says.

Julie doesn’t move at first. But then the word seems to do something to her, like magic, the way she was hoping it would. Julie blinks, and when she opens her eyes again, she seems different.

“You can keep running,” she finally says, lucid at last. “But you won’t find Chrysalis that way.”

Marsh takes Julie by the shoulders. “What?” she asks. “What did you just say?”

Julie looks around the raging party with a mixture of awe and horror. “What is this place?” she whispers.

“What is Chrysalis?” Marsh asks, ignoring her question. “What does it want with a card game?”

“Nothing,” Julie says. “Chrysalis isn’t really a card game. Not really.”

Marsh knows what she means, even though she doesn’t fully understand it. Chrysalis is just a card game in this path—but it’s something much bigger than that.

“What should I do?” she asks.

But Sharp Entertainment’s executive is fading. Her gaze is growing vaguer by the moment, her focus loosening, the distance growing.

“Julie,” Marsh says, trying to draw her back. “Help me. Please.”

“Listen,” Julie says. “We always say, the most important thing about reality TV, the reason people watch it, is that parts of it are real.”

She gestures at the club dismissively.

“All of this, it’s just a formula. A distraction. Every episode has to be bigger, louder, more over-the-top. But this isn’t why you came on All This and More .”

Just then, a familiar jingle threads itself into the thumping beat of the DJ’s club remix. That little tune that signifies the close of an episode, the encroaching end of Marsh’s season.

She whirls to Julie, her eyes wide.

“You don’t have much time,” Julie says.

“You can hear it?” Marsh asks her, surprised.

“Yes,” she says. She looks happy, yet saddened by that joy, at the same time. “I can now.”

“What do I do?”

“You have to go back,” Julie says.

“Where?”

“To wherever your life was most real. Wherever the show got closest to what you really want. That’s where you’ll find Chrysalis.”

Marsh is about to panic, to beg Julie to tell her where that is—but she realizes that she already knows which path it has to be.

It’s the one that Talia first offered her after the midseason special, which Marsh turned down. The one in which she was supposed to be a lawyer, Ren a journalist, and Harper not some other kind of musician, but a violinist. It was the nearest version to true—and also the one in which she could have gotten close to Chrysalis, if she’d been brave enough to try.

“You know, I’m the one who came up with the catchphrase, in one of our preproduction meetings,” Julie murmurs, as the jingle draws to an end.

Marsh turns to her, her posture already tensed in preparation for the jump.

“Good luck,” Julie says. Her voice shifts, faintly lilting. “You could have All This ...”

Marsh looks up, at the edges of her world, as they slowly blur and darken, the Bubble whisking her away, across an ocean of water and to another reality.

She doesn’t know what could be waiting for her in Hong Kong, but there’s only one way to find out.

To go to Hong Kong: Go to Episode 9