Page 37 of Total Exposure

Her little poem or whatever it was gave me that idea. She was mumbling something about birdsongs. And shivering so hard when she woke up I had an urge to leave and turn up the heat. Not that I had any better idea of which areas all the specific thermostats control, because I didn’t. This room was warm from the hum of technology. I could’ve used some AC down here, to be honest.

But now that the spell is over and she’s either asleep or very good at faking it, I am realizing just how fucking strange all this is.

This woman and I are alone in this house for… well, until she fucking calls it quits, I suppose. And I’ve already broken just about every rule I was given.

I left the basement.

I made contact with her.

Shit, more than contact. I gave her directions. Orders, maybe.

And she followed them.

Is she so lost that a stranger’s commands are better than making up her own mind?

“Huh,” I say out loud. “I guess it’s not that unusual.”

Which makes me wonder what she’ll do tomorrow. She could leave. Walk out that door and call her therapist. Tell her everything I did. I might’ve even have fucked her up worse than she is. Because let’s face it, this chick has issues.

Then there was that fucking rhyme she was chanting. What was that? I’m so damn curious I do a search on the internet.

Birds and wind poem. Birds and wind nursery rhyme. Birds and wind songs.

Nothing.

And then there’s the violin. It seemed to… make her wilt. I didn’t expect that. She’s an accomplished violinist, so one would naturally assume she loves the instrument and would find it comforting. Except it seemed to have the opposite effect.

“Fuck it,” I mumble to myself. “She’s a nutjob.”

I got her to stay a night. Big deal. I don’t even know how much I’m getting paid. I don’t even care. I don’t even know why I’m here.

I do a search for her now, convinced I missed something the last time I searched.

Evangeline Rolaine comes right up on Wikipedia. It’s long enough. Childhood. Parents. First performance at age four. Then a complete list of them in chronological order.

But it’s the section on child prodigies—the internal link that phrase points to, in fact—that consumes me well past midnight.

I get lost in it. The weirdness of them. The claim by alternative types that these kids are just reliving past lives. The fact that almost all of them dealt with some sort of mental breakdown in their teens and twenties.

Evangeline is twenty-eight now. So yeah. Fits.

Then I get consumed by an image search. Pictures of her as a small girl. Then growing up. All of which showcase her prominently with her violin.

There is no trace of a smile after age eight.

I contrast her upbringing with my own. She wasn’t born to a rich family, but she was so young when their fortune changed, she might as well’ve been.

And all that money came from her.

Like those child actors that score a big role and the whole family suddenly goes from dirt-poor Alabama to swanky rich and famous Beverly Hills… it’s a little unnatural.

Not the money. But the illusion that you are important.

Shit like that is a mind fuck because no one’s important to anyone unless there’s some sort of relationship involved. And the relationship her parents were forging with elite insiders was one of mutual gain.

Take the gain away and the relationship goes with it.

This plays out in every economic status—people just see it less when they’re not in the top one percent.