Page 21 of Pride

Over. Fucking. Hyped.

By who?

The people who paid money to see me there? Bought an overpriced ticket to the gallery exhibition just to witness what I’d created with my own bare hands, from my own twisted, and dare I say, fucking unique mind.

Something can only be overhyped if other people make it so. It’s not my fault if people want to hear what I have to say, buy my art, and place me on a pedestal I never wanted to be on.

And then there was the accusation that I was preaching to a demographic that wasn’t in attendance. The only fool here was this reporter, who didn’t know a damn thing about my background and what I’d been through in my life. I wasn’t preaching shit; I was spitting the truth. An ugly truth. Truth that’s uncomfortable for over-privileged assholes to understand or even grasp. It had well and truly flown over her mother fucking head.

Fake blood, corny rhymes, uninspiring.

Who else was putting on the kind of performances that I was in this city, hell, in this whole damn country? This fucker waslucky... honoured in fact to get a front-row seat to a once-in-a-lifetime, never to be performed again piece of art.

I glanced at the article again, staring back at me from my computer screen, and more importantly, the name of the reporter who published this bullshit.

Emma Belmont, Junior Reporter.

Congratulations, Emma Belmont. You just made it to the top of my shit list, and trust me, it wasn’t a list you’d want to be on.

Fake blood?

You’d think so, wouldn’t you?

Only it wasn’t.

You could ask the last guy who’d pissed me off to verify that, but you wouldn’t be able to... because he’s dead.

It was satisfying to use him for that performance, though. Spread the messages I wanted to by spilling his blood.

You think I’m sitting on a pile of cash, laughing at you?

I’ll be sitting on a pile of bones, cursing your name to hell when I catch up with you.

I’m an artist.

I take pride in my work.

And I’ll destroy anyone whobegsto differ.

CHAPTER SEVEN

EMMA

The next morning, I reached my desk as Mr Gold walked through the office with a smug smile and a spring in his step.

“Good morning,” he called out to the rest of the office, and as I tried to get close to him, saying, “Mr Gold, can I talk to you in your office about that article yesterday,” he frowned, asking, “What article?”

“The one about the Berkeley Exhibition,” I stated, but he just sneered and brushed me off with a flick of his hand, telling me, “No time, Emma. I have conference calls and meetings back-to-back today. That matter is closed.”

It was closed to him.

Not me.

I went back to my desk, feeling defeated yet fired up, ready to burst through his door and scream my case, which in an ideal world, I would do, but this was no Netflix drama. I wanted to keep my job. So, I did what most of us do in a situation like this; I fired up my computer, banged the stationary about on my desk and hissed under my breath to Dan, the guy who sat opposite me, that our boss was a narcissistic asshole.

He just nodded back, not saying a word. We all thought it. No one said it. But if you could read our minds...

The first thing I did once I logged in was click on my emails. When I saw one at the top of my inbox with the subject ‘Scam? Really?’ my stomach twisted into excruciating knots, and instantly, I felt sick. With an unsteady hand, I clicked on the email to see what it said. I knew it wouldn’t be good.