Page 45 of The Sun & Her Burn (Impossible Universe Trilogy #2)

LINNEA

I organized the papers in my lap with sweaty palms as the aide called my name to enter the audition room.

Even though I had memorized the sides, the short scenes from the script the casting director sent to actors who were auditioning for a role, and pored over the character notes, adding my own idiosyncrasies in the margins, I was still incredibly nervous.

I had been on dozens of auditions in the last nineteen months since moving to Los Angeles, but this was the first major production I had scored an invitation to, and it was being directed by Georges Gallegos, whom I happened to adore.

He had created some of the best action films of the last two decades, and as a woman who grew up in a household of all men, I had seen my fair share of action flicks, so I had a discerning eye.

The character I was auditioning for was not particularly complex.

Carmen Winstead was the enemies-to-lovers paramour for the leading man, a woman who appeared on screen mostly to kick ass and, occasionally, to fight and kiss the hero.

It wasn’t exactly a meaty role, but I was excited about the prospect of learning how to “play” fight with choreography, and it certainly beat the guest appearances and commercials I’d booked thus far.

The problem was, after Thursday night’s emotional roller coaster with Sebastian and Adam, I was still psychologically exhausted.

Adam had texted to say he needed space before our date tomorrow to go to the Critics Choice Awards, and Sebastian had been helping Giselle and Sinclair move into their new house in the Pacific Palisades and spending most of his time with family while he wasn’t doing the media circuit to campaign for his Oscar.

He had texted, agreeing that we needed to talk and that he regretted nothing, but I had the distinct feeling he was avoiding me too.

Men.

Jeeze.

I sucked in a bracing breath and headed into the audition room, shoving the two men at the center of my life into the back of my brain so I could focus on me .

I was considerably less frustrating.

Fifteen minutes later, I emerged from the room feeling slightly shaky with hope.

“Why did you play it like that?” Georges had asked, cocking his head as he considered me.

At first, the panel had seemed mostly disinterested, but when I started Carmen’s monologue about her tortured past, the four men had come alive.

“Well, I don’t think Carmen is a victim,” I explained.

“Yes, she was orphaned and abused by her mentor even as he trained her to be a killer, but I don’t think she feels badly for herself even for a moment.

The only reason she would bring it up is to manipulate Zachary into softening toward her.

It’s all part of a game. Carmen likes games, and she’s good at them. ”

“Does she?” Georges asked in a thick Spanish accent, almost to himself.

Beside him, a skinny Black man wearing glasses grinned at me. “She would. Life is a game with very high stakes for Carmen.”

I beamed at him, happy to be validated, given that he was the screenwriter, Zeke Ryan.

They’d had me read the scene again and then do another one they handed me cold from a new series of sides.

“Well done,” Georges had said when they dismissed me. “We’ll be in touch.”

Zeke had winked at me.

I’d never gotten a wink before.

I was still trembling with excitement when I got in the car.

I wanted to call Sebastian and Adam to tell them the news, knowing they’d be proud of me, even if I didn’t actually get the role.

However, my car didn’t have Bluetooth, so I drove home a little faster than usual, tapping on the wheel with restlessness.

The traffic was crazy trying to get onto my residential street, and I tried to remember if a block party or something was happening.

When I turned onto my street, I realized it was much worse than that.

News trucks and paparazzi vans had pulled up in a tight grouping around the front of our little yellow house, and people crowded over the front yard.

Around Miranda, who was in her pink sweatsuit, curlers in her hair, shouting and pointing at the cameras.

“Oh my God,” I breathed, horror eclipsing every other thought in my head. “Oh God.”

I pulled over as close as I could get to the house and pulled my phone out of my purse with a shaking hand.

Adam was the first person I called.

It rang for so long, I was about to hang up when the line clicked and his cool voice said, “Hello.”

It was strange that the simple sound of his voice could center me a bit.

“Adam, the paparazzi are at the house. Miranda is having an episode in the front yard. I-I just arrived, and I have to get to her, but I don’t know what to do about the cameras, and oh God, Miranda will be so horrified when she’s in the papers and media like this…”

I choked on a sob as it came up.

“Linnea,” he said so firmly it was like a wakening slap to my face.

“Take a deep breath for me. Good. Another, please. Okay, listen to me. I’m twenty minutes away, so I’m going to call some people, and they’ll be there to help you before I arrive, but Nea, I am coming.

We’ll get this sorted. Do you trust me?”

I didn’t even have to think about it, which was absurd because I’d only known him for a month, and during most of that, he had been emotionally closed off.

But I knew the shape of his heart, even if I couldn’t yet map the details of its topography.

Adam Meyers would never let anything happen to the people in his life if he could help it, and he was capable enough to make that so.

“Yes,” I breathed on a shaky exhale.

“Good girl,” he said tenderly, and the words pulsed inside me. “Now, I would rather you wait for someone to join you before you enter the fray, but is there any hope of you waiting in the car?”

“No,” I said, already shaking my head, eyes fixed on Miranda as she wailed. “I have to help her.”

I spotted Mrs. Ramirez at the front door, hiding partially behind it with something obscuring her face. It looked like an ice pack or a rag, and I wondered if Miranda had hit her to get outside, and Mrs. Ramirez didn’t want to set off the sharks with cameras when they saw her bleeding.

“Get her inside as quickly as you can, then lock the door and close all the blinds. I’ll be there soon, Sunbeam. I promise.”

“I know,” I said before I hung up the phone.

I hesitated for just a moment as I considered calling Sebastian too, but someone shouting pulled my attention back to the scene on my front lawn, and I knew I couldn’t delay any longer.

I shoved the cell into my overstuffed tote and started running in my wedge-heeled flip-flops.

Only Miranda’s tutelage walking in heels for hours until I was proficient, while I lived with her in London, ensured I didn’t fall on my face as I sprinted to the crowd, then elbowed my way through.

It took the photographers and media hounds a second to realize who I was, but as soon as they did, they parted to let me through.

They probably thought this would be gold.

I cursed under my breath at them before shoving them to the back of my mind.

Miranda needed me.

When she was having one of her paranoid episodes, she could become frantic and violent. FTD caused incoordination, too, so even when she wasn’t trying to hurt me, she occasionally did.

The flash of lights, noise, and general chaos were not a good recipe for calming her, and I wondered if I was up to the task and if someone had been thoughtful enough to call the paramedics.

“Miranda,” I said softly as I approached, my steps much slower now. My voice was a little unsteady from the run and stress, but Miranda’s wide eyes swiveled to me instantly.

“They don’t understand,” she insisted in a low, almost growling shout that ended in a scream. “They are trying to take everything from me.”

“We won’t let them,” I assured her. A local FTD support group had taught me that it was a better tactic to agree with the paranoia and get on their “side” of the conflict than it was to tear down their illusions. “We’ll make sure everything is safe.”

“No, no.” She shook her head, the ponytail I’d given her this morning loosened so much that the scrunchie dangled from a tiny lock of hair. “No, you don’t understand. They keep coming for me.”

A reporter behind me called out, “Linnea, is your mother having a psychotic break?”

The grind of my teeth and the flare of pain in my jaw helped ground me.

I didn’t understand how they had found us now .

It had been weeks since the press realized who I was, but our phone number was unlisted, I had been careful not to let any paparazzi follow me home, and the deed to Miranda’s house was listed under a shell corporation Wyndam had set up for her.

If they’d found us, it was because someone had tipped them off.

I ignored the anger burning in my belly and focused on Miranda, moving a little closer even though she scuttled away from me. It was, at the very least, taking her nearer to the house and its relative privacy and safety.

“Why don’t we go inside the house and talk about it?” I suggested mildly.

It was the wrong move. She shuttled sideways to the edge of the lawn, darting a look at the house and shuddering. Her hands were white-knuckle as she hugged herself around the middle.

“They’re in the house,” she cried out, softer this time. Tears bubbled in the trough of her lower lids, and my heart ached for her. “They’re everywhere.”

“I’ll protect you,” I promised, as I always did. “I’m right here and I won’t leave you, I promise.”