Chapter 24:
Miles’ POV
The rhythmic bass line thundered through my bones as I stood outside the nightclub, inhaling the crisp night air.
This detested feeling of being dragged to celebrate still needled at me, despite my cousin Elliot’s insistence.
“Come on, Miles! It’s my birthday – you have to let loose for once,” he had pleaded earlier that evening with an impish grin. “This new club is supposed to be off the hook. Who knows, you might even meet someone who can finally melt that rock around your heart.”
I had rolled my eyes at his attempts to play matchmaker, but allowed myself to be swept along, if only to spend time with one of the few relatives I still tolerated.
As the evening pressed on, however, the incessant Beat of music and throngs of intoxicated revelers only renewed my usual disdain for such pedestrian indulgences.
Stepping outside had provided a welcome respite – a chance to collect myself and avoid the sidelong glances of curious onlookers who couldn’t resist gawking at the eccentric but renowned artist in their midst.
I leaned back against the wall, taking a long drag from my cigarette as the smoke tendrils curled skyward.
My publicists had pitched a major fit about me even attending tonight, fearing some drunken fan might cause a scene by recognizing me.
But at this late hour, most of the inebriated clientele likely wouldn’t recognize Miles Prescott if I arose a few feet away and began firing a pistol indiscriminately.
The muffled drone of my ringing phone provided a fresh distraction.
Glancing at the caller ID, I lifted the device to my ear with a resigned sigh.
“What is it, Boris? I told you I would be unavailable fo-”
“Miles! Miles, have you seen the latest projections for advance ticket sales?” my excitable producer crowed, his gravelly Russian accent made even more indistinct by what sounded like raucous party sounds in the background.
I pinched the bridge of my nose, struggling to maintain my focus through the haze of booze and hormones surrounding me. “No, I haven’t. Do enlighten me with whatever prestige-metrics have your knickers in a twist this time.”
“They’re exceeding our wildest expectations! With the buzz from your little… experiment with the unknown actress, interest has gone through the stratosphere! We’re looking at potential sell-outs across every city on the tour before opening night!”
I felt a rush of smug satisfaction at the incredulous awe coloring Boris’s words.
Of course, curiosity would reach a fever pitch once word spread about my latest iconoclastic creative process.
Hailey’s involvement alone would have prurient rubber-nickers flocking to witness whatever deranged, uncompromising vision I wished to unleash.
“Well, that’s what happens when you leave the bourgeois herd to wallow in the same stale storytelling tropes, my over-caffeinated friend,” I replied with a thin smile. “They awaken ravenous at the first whiff of something brutally alive and uncompromising.”
“Just… just do not overplay your hand, yes?” Boris cautioned, his tone equal measures concern and greed. “We will need Miss Reinhart present and relatively coherent to deliver on whatever nightmares you’ve concocted. No sense burning her essence down to vapors before the first act has a chance to-”
Whatever else he intended to say was drowned out by my sudden, explosive snort of derision. “Oh, I have every intention of reducing her to vapors and less,” I growled, relishing the prospect. “Mark my words, Boris – by the time this tour is over, there will be no essence left for that impudent chit to stain another stage w-”
A commotion nearby cut me off as a petite, slender figure came stumbling out of the shadows, bathed in the amber-tinted glow of a streetlight.
I watched, nonplussed, as the shapely young woman – likely an overzealous club patron judging by her revealing outfit and mussed hairdo – aimed an unsteady path toward my position against the wall.
What is she up to?
At first, I assumed she simply intended to pass by on her way to locate transportation or some such.
That notion evaporated when she angled directly toward me, heels clacking with halting determination in my direction until she halted mere inches away.
Despite the intoxicated glaze fogging her arresting amber eyes, I could make out enough of her delicate features to realize with a jolt who she was.
Hailey? Or is it my eyes?
Before I could properly react, she lunged forward and seized my head in her small hands, mouth crashing insistently against my own in a sudden, heated kiss!
A startled grunt escaped my throat as every muscle went rigid at the unexpected contact.
My first instinct was to shove her back and berate Hailey for such inexcusable impropriety.
Yet even as that knee-jerk impulse flared, I found myself disturbingly unable to pull away from the addictive warmth and softness of her lips molding so fervently against mine.
An insistent heat blossomed low in my core at the salty tang of her tongue gliding past my slackened lips – equal parts mortification and a darker, more primal sort of exhilaration.
Then, as suddenly as she’d seized me, Hailey broke away with a sloppy grin, her glazed eyes gleaming with a mixture of triumphant satisfaction and inebriated mischief that kicked my pulse into a thunderous cadence.
“Luckyyy you, mister!” she slurred in a teasing rasp I could feel scorching my very marrow. “Consider that a free gift from this girl!”
With that drunken confession, my wayward ingenue gave an impish wink, spun on her heel with remarkable poise for someone so clearly inebriated… and sashayed off into the night without a second glance in my direction.
I stood there, utterly petrified and mind reeling – senses overwhelmed by the lingering traces of Hailey’s perfume and the ghostly echoes of her plush lips still searing my tingling mouth.
A rough cough from my still-connected phone reminded me of Boris’s presence on the other end of the line.
I belatedly realized I hadn’t spoken for several suspended heartbeats, an expectant silence now stretching between us.
“Miles?” Boris prodded uncertainly, a note of concern creeping into his normally gruff tone. “Are you still there, my friend? You’ve gone quiet – what’s wrong?”
Fighting to gather my rattled faculties, I swallowed hard and willed my voice into firmness.
“N-nothing’s wrong Boris,” I managed in a tone I hoped sounded convincingly unruffled.
“In fact, I believe this chance encounter may have just provided me with… inspiration for truly reducing our heroine into a vaporous husk this season.”
A depraved grin twisted my lips as thoughts of Hailey’s impetuous violation brazened up to consume my focus.
Oh yes… the lengths to which I intended to drag her newfound impudence through an crucible of depravity would go far beyond anything she yet envisioned.
I would violate her perspective on a scale so cataclysmic, the boundaries of art and sacrilege themselves would blur into obscurity.
Only in that unstable sphere of unrelenting simulation could Hailey unlock the transcendent, uncompromising truths toward which she now seemed to claw – or else be utterly devoured in their pursuit.
“Boris, I want additional promotional interviews arranged posthaste,” I continued, my tone heating with conviction even as a tremor of disquieted exhilaration shivered through me.
“This season will provide the public with something wholly unprecedented – even for my celebrated oeuvre of depravities. I aim to enshrine a new paradigm of unchained, visceral expression before which all past benchmarks pale into mediocrity.”
A heavy silence met my pronouncement, bordering on stupefaction.
I could sense Borsi’s dueling mixture of exhilaration at the hype I intended to cultivate… and more than a little trepidation at whatever fever-dreams had clearly catalyzed.
Eventually, his gruff tone rumbled over the line once more.
“Very well, Miles. I will make the arrangements you request.” A weary sigh whispered through the phone’s speaker.
“Just… please do take care not to obliterate Miss Reinhart utterly before her allotted curtain calls, yes? That much depraved grandeur might leave us destitute.”
My grin twisted into something approaching a sneer. “Oh Boris, my dear friend,” I breathed in a tone dripping with sadistic glee, “you forget the axiom to which I’ve always adhered when it comes to the creative process.”
I glanced in the direction Hailey had disappeared, and a tremulous shudder of dark anticipation coursed through me. “To capture a vision truly worth beholding… one MUST break themselves utterly in its pursuit.”
My chuckle quickly dissolved into maniacal laughter, echoing out over the sidewalk with a resonance bordering on the unhinged.
Boris merely let out a resigned groan before abruptly ending the call with a click.
He knew better by now than to dissuade me from whatever fevers of inspired insanity possessed my depths.
As did anyone bearing witness to the primal majesty of my unbridled creative impulses unfurling into material reality.
After tonight’s sordid intimacy, Hailey had inadvertently revelated herself as the prime sacrificial offering upon which I would birth this new, definitive nightmare into being.
The naive little ingenue thought those burning depths of long-sequestered passion lay beyond my reach, did she?
That her spirit alone seethed with enough profundity to overwhelm and extinguish the baleful, callous flames warding my own?
She would learn the errors of her arrogance soon enough.
My smile hardened into a predatory sneer as I pushed off from the wall, falling into a purposeful stride toward some indistinct point awaiting me in the city’s pulsating heart.
This time, I would hold nothing in reserve when it came to methodically igniting the sacred infernos of transcendent ruin Hailey thought to wield with such casual mastery.
Once I dismantled and consumed that blazing essence into my own depraved worldview… my true masterwork could finally gestate in all its blasphemous, soul-scorching glory.
“Let’s see how quick your light gutter’s out when exposed to the onslaughts I have in store, girl,” I mused darkly to the sleeping city around me.
“Soon enough, you’ll be rendered down to mere ashes and smoke – just another husk gracing the path I’ve strewn with those who burned too brilliantly to permit their incandescence lasting.”