Bookish and the Beast (Once Upon a Con #3)(63)

So, my curiosity is piqued when I look through the peephole in the door. I realize the moment I do, I’ve forgotten one important rule over the course of the weeks: I am Vance Reigns.

Black SUVs and news vans have pulled up in front of the house, people piling out of them with cameras with long lenses and camcorders on their shoulders and microphones in their hands. News anchors and paparazzi and journalists and people streaming video on their phones. There aren’t very many—at least not as many as I would usually attract if I was in my natural habitat of LA, but enough for me to remember who I am.

I jerk away from the peephole and press my back against the door to bar it from the vampires outside. Elias stands just behind me, the color slowly draining from his face. His phone begins to ring. “It’s your stepfather,” he says numbly, before it goes to voice mail.

Mine follows a moment after, and I read the caller ID. GREGORY.

My stepfather.

So, here we are.

Elias gets another call—my mother this time—and sends it to voice mail, too. He stares at his screen for a long moment. The doorbell rings again.

I tighten my grip on the doorknob. “How do they know about Rosie?” I ask, my voice shaking.

“Well…because of this,” he replies, and shows me an article on TMZ. An article with a video attached. It plays automatically, a shaky phone video of a dark house, but as soon as it turns the corner into a dark room, I recognize the bare bones of the library. Rosie’s hand slowly reaching for The Starless Throne, not yet water damaged. The rest I don’t have to see. I know what happens.

She goes onto the back patio. I ask, “What are you doing here?”

And she screams and falls backward into the pool.

I close my eyes, gritting my teeth so hard my jaw begins to ache— “Vance, you can’t honestly think that she’d do this,” Elias says patiently.

“Didn’t she?” I force out, because the truth is right there on the internet. And then, quieter, “I guess I deserve this.”

For a moment I didn’t hate being Vance, being me, because for once I was a person to someone, and not Vance Reigns. He isn’t a person. He’s a character. He’s a vehicle other people can live vicariously through. For other people to pretend to be close to. To pretend to know. Pretend to love.

I should have known better.

The paparazzi on the front lawn remind me. That even in this house, far away from the life that I knew, I’m still Vance Reigns, and I’m still fodder for everyone else’s lives. A moment, and then discarded. It’s either use or be used, and I was used so bloody badly.

I was a fool.

“Vance, what are you doing?” Elias asks.

What I should’ve done at the beginning. I wrap my fingers around the doorknob and wrench it open, and the bright flashes of camera lights are blinding. They remind me of the flash of paparazzi the night outside the wrap party for Starfield: Resonance. Of the night that my mask slipped for a moment, and I actually decided to care about any of this. If only I’d never agreed to take Elle home, then none of this would’ve happened.

I always knew how to disappoint people.

Why would disappointing myself be any different?

When people assumed that my actions broke Darien and Elle up, I didn’t bat an eye. If the world needed a villain, I’d play it. I was already good at it. I would get even more attention, more press.

I wonder how much TMZ paid her. I wonder how much other tabloids are clamoring for our text messages, our call histories, our stories. I told her so much—too much. I should’ve kept my mouth shut.

I should’ve played my part.

The moment I open the front door, the vultures rush toward me like hungry vampires, waiting for me to welcome them inside.

“Vance! Is it true that—”

“Did you really coerce—”

“Is it true that you made a girl—”

“Is this Rosie Thorne working for you?”

And then another voice cuts through the cacophony of questions. “Vance!”

I raise my gaze toward the crowd, the flashing cameras and bulbous lenses, to the girl pushing her way through the crowd. She gets elbowed by a paparazzo and shoves them back with equal vigor.

“Vance!”

She catches my gaze, and her face breaks open with relief. But only for a moment—a breath—before it fills with dread. Because she must see it now, the mask. The one I’ve worn for so long it’s become the face everyone sees.

I’m no one I recognize, and for a few weeks, that was nice.

Her lips move in a question. “Vance?” I can’t hear her anymore over the other questions, the people vying for my attention, and when I blink she’s just another face in the crowd.

That’s all she should’ve been to begin with.

I take one look at them, the briefest glance, before I say, “Piss off,” and slam the door in their faces.





PART FOUR


    HERO


Her name is Amara Avanrose, and she is the princess of the Noxian Empire. She has lived through the Starless Wars, the coups to overthrow her father from his throne, the brief tète-à-tètes with Prince Carmindor. She has survived ship scrimmages, assassination plots, imploding stars.

But she isn’t sure she is going to survive this.