Chapter 6

Kayla pushed open the door to the standard double room.

The room was spacious. Sunlight poured through the large sliding glass doors, warming the plush white carpet.

Thalia dragged her suitcase in behind her. She looked at Kayla and held out her hand.

"I like how you handle yourself," Thalia said.

Kayla took her hand. Her grip was firm. "Kayla. Nice to meet you."

They unpacked in silence. Kayla hung her few clothes in the closet.

She pulled her sleek silver laptop from her bag. She sat at the small desk in the corner and opened the lid.

She snapped a privacy screen protector over the monitor. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, connecting to a secure VPN.

She opened a browser and typed in Guillermo's social media handles.

The page loaded. It was a shrine to his relationship with Jasmine.

Kayla clicked on the search bar within his profile. She typed in her old name. She typed in dates from three years ago, five years ago, eight years ago.

Zero results.

She spent hours relentlessly digging through the internet archive database, utilizing advanced search operators to pull up the cached versions of his old posts.

Gone.

Every photo of them at the beach. Every late-night diner post. Every mention of her existence.

His PR team hadn't just deleted her. They had fabricated a new timeline. They had planted fake employment records showing she was hired as a temporary assistant just six months ago.

Kayla's chest seized.

It felt like a physical blow to her ribs. Her lungs forgot how to pull in air.

Her hands began to shake violently. The tremor traveled up her arms, into her shoulders.

Her eyes burned, but no tears fell. It was pure, suffocating rage.

Desperation clawing at her chest, she accessed an encrypted dark web forum she used to frequent for script research. She posted a hefty bounty, using the last of her new identity's digital credits, asking any information broker for recovered data on Guillermo Sims. The post vanished into the digital void, leaving no immediate reply.

She slammed the laptop shut.

The loud crack echoed in the quiet room.

Thalia jumped, dropping the script she was reading. She looked over.

Kayla's face was chalk-white. She was gripping the edge of the desk so hard the wood creaked.

Thalia walked over slowly. "Hey. Are you okay?"

Kayla closed her eyes. She forced herself to take a deep, shuddering breath.

She turned her head. "I just... I realized a man I gave ten years of my life to managed to erase me completely."

She kept it vague. It was the truth, wrapped in a metaphor Thalia could understand.

Thalia's eyes softened. She didn't press for details. She just placed a warm hand on Kayla's shaking shoulder.

"Men like that always slip up," Thalia said quietly.

Kayla nodded. The warmth of Thalia's hand helped anchor her back to reality.

Hours passed. The production crew turned off the bedroom cameras for the night.

Kayla and Thalia lay in their respective beds in the dark.

They talked in low voices. Thalia talked about the brutal reality of aging in Hollywood.

"I despise men who use women as stepping stones," Kayla whispered into the dark.

"Amen to that," Thalia replied.

Around 2:00 AM, a high-pitched buzzing sounded near Kayla's ear.

She slapped her neck. A mosquito.

A few minutes later, a red welt swelled on her collarbone. It itched intensely.

Kayla sighed. She threw off the covers and grabbed a thin silk robe.

She opened the bedroom door and stepped into the hallway.

The house was pitch black. The crew had turned off the main lights.

Kayla walked barefoot down the hallway, heading for the spiral staircase. She knew the first-aid kit was in the kitchen cabinet.

She walked down the stairs, her hand trailing along the cold metal railing.

She reached the bottom landing and turned the corner toward the living room.

She didn't see the shadow standing there.

Kayla slammed face-first into a wall of solid muscle.

The impact knocked the breath out of her. She stumbled backward.

A strong scent of crisp pine and cold night air hit her senses.

She looked up. In the absolute darkness, a pair of eyes stared down at her.