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“Danger!” The shriek was torn from her.
A third dart lodged in her butt. A fourth followed. She fell to her knees and tried to stagger to her feet again, but her legs felt numb and nothing looked right anymore. She felt like a visitor in her own body as the drug released directly into her bloodstream. Within seconds, her vision altered in terrifying ways. She whispered the word she’d never allowed herself to say, the word that she’d buried in her toy sculpture years before when her mother left.
“Help.”
And then Taylor Rene Krystal Hawkins, Miss Texas, passed out.
Panting heavily, his jaw bruised and his leg bleeding, the agent crawled toward the beauty queen and smeared her mouth with the Mind’s Flower fruit, torn from a neighboring plant. He put a few broken petals in her hands to suggest that she’d eaten her fill. Then he limped off toward the volcano lair. Before he’d settled into the corporate life of privatized security, the agent had initiated coups in third world countries. He’d overseen arms deals and planned assassinations. He’d taken out a rhino once on illegal safari with the board of directors for a fair trade company in Tanzania. The rhino went down after two shots. It took four for this beauty queen. None of his assignments had been as much of a headache as this one.
Women were a lot of trouble.
He hoped the Mind’s Flower would keep her nonsensical long enough to formulate a Plan B. MoMo was due on the island soon, and things were going from bad to worse. He didn’t relish telling the Board.
He certainly didn’t relish telling the Boss.
COMMERCIAL BREAK
VOICEOVER
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CHAPTER NINETEEN
The girls had brought Taylor into her hut and placed her on the palm fronds like a sleeping princess. Taylor had been vaguely aware of the movement, but her mind was too confused to speak. She woke from her fever dream sometime in early morning. She’d gathered a few supplies and stolen away to a remote part of the jungle where she could be safe. It was so hard to feel safe in the world when you were a girl. But this place was good. It was a small cave hidden in the leafy growth of a mountain not far from a freshwater lagoon. And there were unicorns with rainbow-sparkle tails. Sometimes the unicorns spoke to her, and that was a little disconcerting. But then she would tell them to go off and work on their step-ball-change for the opening number and they did.
Now she was alone. She was alone like when her mother left and the world became a frightening place. When she’d had to build the sculpture to feel safe. But Taylor had proof that her fears were real. She’d seen what they were doing. She put her head down on her knees and began to cry.
“Tay-Tay, why is my pretty girl so sad?”
