CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
MILES POV
“Rise and shine, my little starlet,” I purred from the shadows as the warehouse door creaked open. “It’s time to put those much-vaunted talents of yours to the ultimate proving ground.”
Hailey started like a spooked fawn, eyes wide and bloodshot from what was doubtless a sleepless night.
Good – let the anxiety fester and gnaw at her wits ahead of the torments to come. A tree is always more satisfying to fell when it’s already off-balance.
“Wh-what is all this?” she managed in a tiny voice, watching Igor set up an array of lighting, cameras, and sound equipment with ominous efficiency.
Sauntering over, I traced the line of her jaw with one knuckle, feeling her instinctive flinch at my proximity. “Why, just a few… audition scenarios I’ve arranged to truly put your skills through their paces. You did insist on being considered a professional, after all. What better way than to subject you to a professional’s gauntlet?”
Her eyes flicked toward the exit, mind clearly weighing the merits of simply fleeing all this madness.
With a soft tsk, I grasped her chin and angled her face back to meet my cold stare.
“I wouldn’t advise it, my dear. Igor has… enthusiastic orders on deterring any escape attempts you might foolishly entertain.” As if to accentuate my words, the burly man cracked his knuckles with an audible pop.
“Best to remain a good girl and content yourself with surviving my little exercises, wouldn’t you say?”
I saw the flicker in her eyes as some defiant retort took shape. But after a tense beat, Hailey seemed to think better of it.
A curt nod accepted her fate for now as I released her, lips tugging in a pleased smile.
“Excellent. Then let’s get started, shall we?”
Truth be told, I’d spent much of the night dredging up various scenes and monologues for her “examination” – everything from masterworks of the Shakespearean canon to modern experimental dreck.
Not that she’d be judged purely on delivery, of course. I’d carefully curated each selection to spotlight a spectrum of emotional states, from raging tempests of passion to nuanced exercises in repression.
My aim was simple – to bombard this arrogant ingenue from every angle, never allowing her confidence or composure to take root.
And when her spirit began fraying from the relentless, careening demands… that’s when the true torment would begin.
“Igor, if you will provide our… leading lady with her first test?”
The hulking brute handed Hailey a script, opened to some indecipherable Shakespearean tragedy.
She glanced over the pages, swallowing hard – no doubt realizing from the thickets of iambic pentameter the herculean effort awaiting.
I leaned back and steepled my fingers, savoring the panic flickering across her features. “You may begin whenever you’re ready, Miss Hailey. But sing your lines with truth and conviction… else this could get very unpleasant for you.”
To her credit, the chit swallowed her trepidation and gave a resolute nod.
Then, with only a shaky intake of breath to gather herself, she launched into the soaring, impassioned phrasing of the monologue:
“O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night.
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiopia’s ear.
Beauty too rich for use, for Earth too dear…”
My eyebrows arched in mocking surprise at the timbre and enunciation of her delivery.
For such a neophyte reciting the Bard’s accursed line-twisting, she really wasn’t half-bad.
Keeping her tone measured yet charged with the perfect degrees of anguished passion, trembling resonance, and unspoken depths of yearning… truly, Hailey played it like a virtuoso violinist coaxing sweetness from catgut.
“So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand,
And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand…”
As she closed her eyes, swaying slightly to modulate the sensual final lines, something strange and wholly unexpected stirred from the depths of my jaded soul.
An infinitesimal twinge of… appreciation for this unknown ingenue’s artistry?
The instinctive awe of a master craftsman encountering a raw, untapped brilliance in his own field?
I quashed the foreign pang immediately, brow furrowing low over my eyes. Absurd – this celestially accented trollop was to be my new plaything, my fresh canvas on which to vent the darkest and most sublime extremes of artistic cruelty.
Allowing even the slightest glimmer of respect to take root was sheer amateurism. Mental weakness to guard against.
“Well, well…” I drawled with enough acid to dissolve bone once her final syllables tapered off. “It seems our girl can parrot pretty words when spoon-fed them. How utterly astounding.”
Hailey opened her eyes, face radiant with a hard-won pride – only to have that glimmer crumble under my withering disdain.
“But possessing a modicum of elocution does not an actress make, Miss Hailey.” Rising from my chair, I began circling her like a shark sighting chum. “Let’s see you summon true depth when the words lie far beneath the cloaks of metaphor and antiquity.”
From behind, I pressed the next script into her hands with deliberate force. “This next selection trades elegance for more… contemporary fare. Do try to avoid embarrassing yourself overmuch.”
Confusion and trepidation warred on the poor girl’s features as she scanned the bold, shocking phrases.
A kaleidoscopic modern piece of some kind, grotesque and bristling with tortured symbolism. Her mouth worked silently, already fumbling over the gnarled lines.
I clucked my tongue and splayed my hands. “Begin whenever you find your… inspiration, dear girl. But do try to make it worth my increasingly limited patience.”
… .
Her eyes narrowed to study the twisted, almost impenetrable imagery of the new script. For a tense beat, I could practically see the poor girl’s mind stalling like an engine flooded with too much fuel.
I suppressed a laugh – really, it would be cruelty to force such avant-garde drivel on the girl so soon in our little game.
Better to let her fail spectacularly, shattering her confidence right-
Hailey’s breath hitched, and suddenly she seemed to… shift.
Inhabit the twisted role as effortlessly as slipping on a glove.
When she began speaking, her voice emerged a guttural rasp, syllables clawing through clenched teeth:
“Awaken Hungry Yearning cacophonous BIRTH-shrieks symphonic spirals Coiling Radiant Atrophy hungry consuming everything Dark Embrace suffocating embrace Release joyous Tranquil Agony UNTIL DAWN BREAKING OPENING rapture RENEWAL-”
My mouth hung slightly ajar as she contorted and twisted through the esoteric, almost nonsensical lines.
Not merely reciting them, but inhabiting each abrasive cadence and ugly, visceral metaphor as a part of herself.
Hailey’s face twisted into a rictus of conflicting emotions – primal hunger and ecstatic revulsion, bombastic yearning and nihilistic catharsis all churning within her sunken features.
I’d seen some of the experimental theater world’s most self-regarding “artistes” butcher pieces like this into glorified self-parody.
But Hailey… she embodied the sickness, the beating malignance at its core. Even as she capped the finale with a gasping, full-throated scream of abandon that set my teeth on edge.
For several heartbeats after that, only ragged breathing filled the cavernous space between us.
Igor stood regarding the girl with something akin to terrified awe, as if truly witnessing the summoning of some profane spirit.
As for me? I could only gape, utterly insensible of what had just transpired. This… this WAS meant to rupture her, leave her flailing in embarrassment and alienation from such obtuse riddles.
And yet somehow, this uncultured waif had not only sailed through its snarls… she’d rendered them with masterful, almost transcendent veracity.
At last, I recovered enough to bark a terse, “You… take five, Miss Hailey.” My tone lacked any of the mocking condescension from before, coming across almost… shaken. “Gather yourself for the next degradation.”
Hailey simply nodded, all traces of her former performance instantly dissolving as she allowed the character’s mania to bleed away. If she sensed my disquiet, she gave no outward sign.
As Igor handed her a bottled water, I turned on a heel and stormed several paces away.
Trembling hands fumbled out a silver cigarette case and balked lighter, desperately craving the smoke’s steadying influence.
What in the HELL was this bewitching talent I’d stumbled onto?
How could some upstart slash of a girl channel such… profundity, such unhinged authenticity from the scrapings of modern blasphemy?
Worse – had she detected a glimmer of grudging respect from me in that moment?
A sacrilege, heresy against the entire purpose of this exercise! To bend and unravel her defiance until she remained a hollowed, trembling wretch grateful for the barest crumb of mercy or kindness.
And yet here I stood, SHE stood, upending all my lofty machinations and expectations without even exerting visible effort!
The hot flare of resentment burned through my chest like acid reflux. Of course – the BITCH had merely gotten lucky and chanced upon some insipid wellspring of inspiration on that last piece.
I would not, COULD not allow any nagging doubts to metastasize further. Not when my entire premise for Hailey’s debasement and torment hinged on demonstrating my complete mastery over her.
Very well. If contemporary shrieks and distortions failed to awaken my starlet’s true mediocrity, then I would simply adjust my methods.
I took a long, steadying drag and rolled her next “audition” selection between my fingers. An obscure, atonal piece practically designed to alienate and repulse all but the most rarified theater snobs. Written specifically to mock conventional character arcs and narrative throughlines as retrograde, insulting relics.
“Do try to make this one just as… evocative, Miss Hailey,” I called with a mocking sneer. No aimless waif would sail through these roiling depths unscathed – not when I wielded their currents like a grand conductor.
My smirk deepened as I saw her brow furrow in perplexity at the chaotic, seemingly nonsensical scrawls. “We haven’t got all night, ingenue. Invoke your muse with… gusto, this time.”
Hailey swallowed hard, shifting her stance as she braced herself… and then launched into the most sublime, unrestrained evocation of unmitigated ARTISTRY I’d ever witnessed.