JULES

The 5:09 bus was as quiet as an ICU, nothing to be heard except for the vexing beeping of the machines.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

The beeping was in reference to my self-proclaimed mentor.

“...I loved it. Have you watched it before?” his eyes twinkled with something I hadn’t seen before. Unfortunately, I wasn’t listening.

“I-I uh, sorry, I zoned out. Uhm, can you-”

“Hmm,” the hazel eyed man adjusted his posture, “Never mind. I was boring you out.”

It didn’t make sense what was happening. Why had Evelyn's manager quit? Where had Kevin disappeared to? Where had Evelyn disappeared to? Why did she faint? Why hasn’t the hospital released an official statement until now? When was it going to? I castigated myself over and over again, disappointed in the courage I lacked and Adrian possessed in abundance. I wasn’t jealous— that would’ve been ridiculous. I was simply miffed that Adrian had managed to do in minutes what I’d been afraid to attempt for years.

I glanced out the window, my fingers fidgeting, practicing how to make a surgical knot once more. My mind was waging a cytokine storm on itself. Brutal and fraught. And now was the time to gather my thoughts together and tie them up. As one would begin, I pulled the two ends of the imaginary thread and practiced.

“You do that a lot,” Adrian mentioned.

“It’s a knot. Surgical knot”

“I know that.”

“How?”

“Been around hospitals long enough.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“It was meant to,” his eyes darted back and forth between my eyes and hands, hesitant, “You didn’t answer my question.”

My gaze shifted to his hazel one, taking a breath to steady myself.

“I, uhm, was a doctor, well, sort of… I was supposed to, uhm…” my voice died down word by word, hoping that would shut him down. 

“And, how old are you, exactly?”

“Uh- Twenty two,” The words left my mouth too swiftly, leaving me tugging on the ends of my coiled hair, just above my waist. 

“Damn, sweetheart. How?”

“I, uhm, went to high school when I was seven. Uh, graduated from medical school at eighteen. I…I started my residency right after,” my throat tightened as I swallowed, not wanting to get into the intricacies of my life so fast. I wasn’t sure why I was telling him so much; occupational hazard, maybe. He was good at his job. He might have been nice and helpful so far, but we only knew each other for three hours and we didn’t even work in the same company. I couldn’t trust him.

“It leaves me speechless how you say all that as if you just went grocery shopping.”

I shrugged, not knowing what to do with my stiff shoulders. “It wasn’t worth it, really. I couldn’t make the world record, I was behind by a year.”

Breathe Jules. And shut up while you’re at it.

“You’re bullshitting me right now,” Adrian looked at me as though I told him he’d won a trip to Vegas.

I shook my head. I wasn’t a liar.

“Wow, I….I must say I am impressed. But why? You seem very punctual.”

“Stupid people,” I despised my spontaneous response and my brain for suggesting it.

A snort came from his direction until it slowly smoothed out into a deep, hearty laugh.

“What’s so funny?” My eyes widened, confused.

“That’s the closest you ever came to swearing.”

“I don’t swear…”

“Exactly,” he chuckled, shaking his head.

I bit my lip, fidgeting with my fingers, practising how to make a surgical knot once more. It was the only way I could stop them from shaking and embarrassing myself.

“I…what about you?”

Adrian’s laughter died down into a deafening silence before he looked at his palms, his nails digging into his paronychium— his nail folds. Jules you– now look, you’ve got him all gloomy.

“Long story.”

“Go on,” I pushed slightly. Looks like he was starting to rub off on me.

His leg bounced nervously, “I did some stupid stuff, made some bad decisions. I decided maybe it was time to put my life together, and here I am now. I worked hard.”

“Why journalism?”

“It was the only job that paid me for being naturally nosy,” he joked, trying to hide the shame he felt. “But I’m not that person anymore.”

A small smile grew on my lips before I could notice and Adrian sat up quickly, grinning.

“The oh-so-revered Jules Decker. Smiling? I never thought I’d see the day.”

My smile grew, eyes brightening until my hands reached for my mouth, covering it. I was laughing. The first time in months. It felt good.

“Stop teasing me,” I chuckled, smothering my face with my palms. I heard his laughter fall in rhythm with mine, and we stayed that way until we reached our destination.

Stepping off the bus, the cold air pierced through my skin, despite it being mid-march. LA was unpredictable, in more ways than one. While I turned to converse with Adrian regarding our plan, I noticed he’d begun wandering off, heading towards the side of the building.

“W-wait. Where–”

Just as I caught up, he ran his hands through his wavy mullet until it turned tousled and unkept. His arms moved downwards onto his striped-blue shirt, rumpling it as though it had never been ironed in the first place.

“Alright, how messy do I look?”

“Yes. I-I mean–”

“Perfect,” the brunette’s long legs strode back towards the entrance, my short ones failing miserably to catch up, “Pull out your press pass from last night. You were here, right?”

I nodded, my hands rummaging though my bag until I pulled out the remnants of last night’s events.

“Hey, uh, Adrian T.,” he extended his arm towards a security guard in front of the door right as I arrived, “The A-cam backup shuttle drive’s still plugged into the media bridge in the tech booth. It’s got raw footage of the incident last night. If the clean-up crew throws it out, the network’s gonna sue everyone. We need to get in there. Could you let us in?” he handed our press passes to the guard

The guard’s eyes darted from me to Adrian, trying to look like he was scrutinizing us when he knew he couldn’t say yes.

“No red band. No entry. Sorry bud,” the guard turned away, looking back inside the building through the glass.

“Janice from Production Management said it was fine. I have her on the line, you wanna talk?” the guard looked back.

“Janice who?”

“Janice from Production Management,” Adrian said with all seriousness.

“Look, bud, if you’re gonna try to get in, I’m gonna need a name, a proper one. I know a lot of people called Janice. Gimme a full name.”

He sighed dramatically, fully in-character, “I’m sorry, I don’t know her name, I just know that she’s Janice from Production Management.”

“Then you can’t go in. Bud you don’t have a red band, don’t have a proper contact, what do you want me to do? ”

“You can check inside. I swear. There’s the drive inside. Can you check with someone?” If Adrian hadn’t wanted to be a journalist, he would’ve ended up an actor. Maybe one of the many attendees or even winners of last night.

The guard sighed, reaching for the radio fastened to his belt, “I’m going to verify this.”

Adrian nodded and the guard spoke into the radio.

“Security to production desk. I have two media personnel at the south-west entrance claiming they need access to the main tech booth to retrieve an A-cam backup shuttle drive. Can you verify?”

There was static on the radio, succeeding the silence, and soon a voice was heard while the radio crackled again.

“Production confirms there are still media drives being collected from the main booth.”

The guard looked at Adrian, reluctant to let us in so easily.

“What’s the drive labelled?”

“Backup shuttle three.”

“Production, can you confirm a backup shuttle three?”

A pause.

“Confirmed,” spoke the radio.

The guard put his radio away, sighing, and began murmuring something to himself.

“I’ll come with you.”

                                                                                                📸

“Alright, you’ve got five minutes.”

We spent those five minutes in silence, inspecting every speck and grain of the auditorium. Adrian headed on stage— or ‘deck’ — as they called it, to retrieve the drive that wasn’t ours. My chest hadn’t unclenched since we walked through the door. It was pure luck that we hadn’t been caught. 

The arena was immaculate, unfortunately. Every chair sequenced at a mathematically precise distance from one another, clean and pristine-looking. Considering that this high-quality velvet seating was expensive. That meant isopropanol was used to sanitise— stop. Focus.

My olive green oculi scanned the room, trying to find anything misplaced, anything strange, anything out-of-the-ordinary. And somehow my eyes were left empty-handed.

I headed to the end of the room, slightly far from the door, giving me a diagonally off-centre view. It was the exact position I’d stood at a few hours ago, camera in hand. I shut my eyes and let it all come rushing back.

📸

JULES; YESTERDAY

They said her name.

Evelyn James. 

They said her name.

I turned to my left, capturing her in glory. Her glory. The way she presented herself was something I’d never seen before. Maybe it was the way the dress wrapped around her, like it was made for her. The way she stood up, so out of place, yet somehow the surroundings adjusted to fit her mould. Aurum. Her jewellery dazzling against the golden ceremony, standing out yet blending in so perfectly.

She was the epitome of pulchritude.

I lifted my camera, my hands shaking from how mesmerised I was, my fingers slowly shifting to one of the many buttons, ready to encapsulate this picturesque moment.

Until she stumbled.

Her words slurred.

And her eyes?

They were bloodshot red.

📸

“Alright, time’s up.”

I slipped out of my trance to see Adrian protesting with the guard, and him not having it. My teeth found my bottom lip again, biting endlessly until there were marks of my abuse.

My mentor turned towards me, shoulders slumped and expression distraught, shifting towards me.

“C’mon, we’ve got nothing here. Let’s go.”

I followed Adrian’s footsteps.

One. 

Two.

Three.

And before I knew it, we were outside the building again, just as cold as we were when we arrived. Numerous vehicles traversed the street, their occupants hoping to catch a glimpse of the theatre where last night’s brutal incident had taken place. The sun finally in sight, its light reflecting off the many metal hoods riding by, shining onto the man next to me. My gaze flickered to Adrian momentarily, the dawn light turning his brown curls into something finer and golden like the auditorium last night.

His eyes caught mine. Shi- I mean- Oh no.

My head jolted and ducked down, not daring to look in his direction. My hands caught the ends of my hair again, tugging it gently. God, he’s going to think you’re obsessed, at this rate.

A few moments went by until my eyes peeked through their corners, realising it wasn’t me he was looking at. I turned to look to my right, finding nothing peculiar, only the cleaning staff shifting the large garbage cans out to their designated area. What had—

I halted. Whatever Adrian had in mind, I knew I wasn’t going to like it.