AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER ONE
Katarina
Screw. You. Screw. You. Screw. You. All.
Katarina’s high heels clicked out a message to every person who had the guts to look at her with that look in their eye, that you’re-not-fit-to-be-walking-the-streets-of-Kingdom-City-or-anywhere-else kind of look.
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” she whispered beneath her breath, avoiding the gaze of the grandmotherly type who had stopped to stare. Judging by the expression on the woman’s face, Kat was more repulsive than anything she had scraped off of her shoe in her entire fifty-whatever years of life.
Kat forced a smile, trying to appear unaffected by the sensation she was causing. But in truth the experience was making her furious…and ashamed. This was probably good reality television, but it was bad actual life.
Very, very bad.
“Keep walking,” Matthew, the producer murmured, clearly thrilled by the scandalized reactions of the people Kat had once called her friends and neighbors.
Kat swallowed hard, ignoring the sweat beading on her upper lip. Why had she thought this would be a good idea? The cool reception she’d received since gaining her freedom from the dungeon had been hard to stomach already, but the cameras made it so much worse.
She felt exposed, mortified, and about as comfortable being recorded as she would be running naked through a city square at lunchtime with her hair on fire.
“I need a break.” She turned, holding out a hand to the camera trailing her down the street.
This was nuts. She couldn’t star in a reality show.
It was too much, too hard, and it wouldn’t really make a difference. She had already royally screwed up her life, both personally and professionally. Kat Masterson was a woman defined by her mistakes and no amount of reality television exposure would be able to change that.
She must have had her head up her backside to have thought otherwise.
“We can’t do that, Ms. Masterson,” Matthew whispered from where he hovered near the cameraman.
“Turn the camera off.” Kat narrowed her green eyes in the glare that had earned her a don’t-mess-with-that-bitch reputation during her five years in the dungeon.
She’d scared hardened criminals and murderesses with that glare. There was no way this overly ambitious, twenty-something, reality TV slime ball would be able to keep from crumbling. Besides, did he really want to have a confrontation in the middle of a busy Kingdom City street?
The show was Real-Life Rules to Catch a King not Watch the Ex-Con Go Ballistic in Front of all the Moms with their Three-hundred-Dollar Baby Carriages. Scaring high-society moms—or their nannies—was bad television, wasn’t it?
“Keep rolling,” he whispered, unfazed. “Go in for a close up.”
“Please,” Kat said, pulse leaping as the camera made a whirring noise. “I’m serious, turn the fucking camera off.”
“You can’t say that on television,” Matthew chastised.
“Fuck.” She crossed her arms at her chest and continued to glare.
“Ms. Masterson, please, they won’t let us edit language anymore and I—”
“Fuck fuck fuck,” she said, causing more heads to turn in their direction. She was embarrassed to be attracting more negative attention, but pushed the feeling aside.
Embarrassment was a wasted emotion.
It only made you feel shitty about things you couldn’t change.
“Turn it off, Pete.” Matthew hugged his clipboard, his head drooping forward in disappointment.
“Thank you.” Kat tucked her red bob behind her ears and propped her hands on the hips, trying to recover her center.
She never thought she would be so grateful for a haircut, or the chance to wear stockings again. That was what she had to focus on, on how good it felt to have a job and to be strutting down the street on a mission. She couldn’t dwell on the fact that she might have bitten off more than she could chew.
She would chew it—she had to—but she would do it on her own terms. That was the mistake she’d made, assuming that she needed to follow the direction of this kid who couldn’t care less how the rest of her life shook out.
She knew what needed to be done, and it was about time she started doing it.
