I Have Lost My Way(39)

She goes straight to the computer. She clicks on the mouse and the monitor lights up. There’s no lock to it because one time Hayden forgot the code and it took a whole twenty minutes to locate an assistant, and wasting twenty minutes of Hayden’s time is a sin.

His schedule is up on the screen. The block of weeks earlier in the month have her name on every day and most other appointments blocked out—her mother had been right about the devotion he gives to his artists, so long as they’re behaving—but the past two weeks have been updated, the holes she left in the schedule easily replaced. In two weeks, after his week on the private island, it’s Lulia’s name that blocks out the schedule. Freya is certain Lulia will take her entire six weeks. She will leave no holes.

First, Freya deletes herself from the calendar. She deletes the recording session. She deletes today’s doctor’s appointment. She deletes it all.

“What are you doing?” Harun asks.

“Nothing. Just let me know if the assistant is coming, and be quiet!” she whispers.

Freya closes the calendar. Hayden’s desktop picture is Lulia, of course. It’s almost like he knew Freya was coming and set-designed the office to mess with her head. On the desktop are several folders, each labeled with the name of the artists he works with: Lulia, Mélange, Rufus Q, and Freya.

She clicks open her folder. Inside is everything. Everything she gave Hayden. And everything he took.



* * *



— — —

“You look familiar. Are you a model?” the assistant asks Nathaniel. “An actor?”

“Umm, no?”

“You could be.”

“Uhh, thanks?” And because he’s meant to be flirting, he smiles what he thinks is maybe the coquettish grin of an actor or model.

“I could take some headshots for you if you like. It’s what I do, photography. This”—she gestures to her desk—“is temporary.”

“Most things are,” Nathaniel says.

She laughs at that. Nathaniel laughs too, though it wasn’t a joke.

“I love your eyes,” she says. “How’d they get like that?”

Nathaniel has never told anyone the story before, but for a moment he imagines what it would be like to explain what really happened—not just how he lost his eye, but why. What it’s been like to exist in that house on the edge of the forest with his father. The fellowship of two. He glances toward the office, where Harun and Freya are. He imagines telling them.

He looks back at the assistant. “Heterochromia,” he lies. “Genetic condition.”



* * *



— — —

“What are you doing?” Harun asks, peering over Freya’s shoulder at the monitor.

“I’m erasing myself before he can erase me.”

“You’re what?”

“I’m deleting all my files. Except for one.”

“Which one?”

He looks at the screen as Freya scrolls through hundreds of files: PDFs, JPEGs, videos.

“A master.”

“What’s a master?”

“The original recordings, before a song is mixed.”

“Why do you want them?”

“Not them. Just one.”

“Why?”

“Because it belongs to me.”

She keeps scrolling until she finds it. Little White Dress.ptx. Bingo.

“Do you know the best way to transfer a file and completely erase it?” she asks Harun.

“Yes, but isn’t that stealing?”

“Technically, it’s more like hacking.”

“If it’s yours, why can’t you just ask for it back?”

“It doesn’t work like that. Hayden owns the masters. He owns the copyrights. He owns everything.” This was the deal they’d signed. She remembers sitting in that big conference room: Freya, her mother, Hayden, the team of lawyers. They were the label’s lawyers. Hayden’s lawyers. “Shouldn’t we have a lawyer?” Freya had asked her mother. “We are your lawyers,” Hayden’s attorneys had told them. “We creative types have to stick together,” Hayden had said.

Freya glances at the print on the wall. Art is personal. Business is not. It wasn’t like he didn’t warn them.

The rest of the songs, he can have, use for whatever he wants, sell them for scrap, repurpose them for the next shiny girl. But not this song. This song is hers.

She opens her mail program and attempts to attach the file. Harun watches her, not saying a thing.



* * *



— — —

Harun is a coward. How many times does he have to say this? He’s the kind of coward who shatters hearts. The kind of coward who allows his family to participate in an enormous hoax. The kind of coward who does not casually break and enter the offices of powerful men like Hayden Booth.

He wants to help Freya in any way he can, but even that is for cowardly reasons. To get James back. That’s why he said yes to all this.

But stealing? Harun is a good boy. When Saif was rebelling, not going to mosque, Harun still went. When Saif was making Ammi cry by marrying a white girl, Harun was doing his best not to make Ammi cry. Because he’s a good son.