A Vengeful Encore

Delaney

The beeping is the only thing left. A steady, sterile rhythm counting down the seconds of a life I squandered. Each chirp of the heart monitor is an accusation. There goes the moment you trusted the wrong man. There goes the year you let them steal your best work. There goes the decade you signed away for a handful of hollow promises. The air smells of antiseptic and failure. My body, a ruin at thirty-five, is a cage of brittle bones and organs that have finally surrendered.

From the corner of my eye, a television flickers. Serena Croft is on the screen, accepting another award. Her smile is dazzling, a perfect constellation of professionally whitened teeth. She thanks her family, her agent, and her dear, dear friend Delaney Walsh, for always believing in her. A single, perfect tear traces a path through her makeup. The performance is flawless. It always was.

My own breath rattles in my chest, a shallow, useless thing. I remember her, twenty years old and beautiful, her hand on my arm, whispering, “Sign it, Ellie. It’s for both of us. We’ll be stars together.” I remember Jake, his lips on my neck, murmuring, “This is it, babe. Our ticket.”

They got their tickets. I just paid the fare for all three of us.

The beeping falters. It elongates into a single, piercing tone. A long, flat line stretching into nothing.

Darkness.

Then a jolt.

Not the brutal shock of defibrillator paddles, but a deep, cellular shudder. I gasp, and the air that floods my lungs doesn’t burn. It tastes of stale coffee and something cloyingly sweet, like expensive cologne trying too hard. My hands aren’t the skeletal claws I remember. They are smooth, young, wrapped around the cool plastic of a ballpoint pen.

“Delaney? Just need your signature right there on the dotted line.” The voice is velvet and smoke, a sound I haven’t heard in fifteen years but would recognize in hell. Arthur Sterling.

I blink, my eyes adjusting to the light. I’m in an office. A ridiculously opulent one, all mahogany and chrome, with a panoramic view of the sun-drenched Los Angeles sprawl. I’m sitting in a leather chair that squeaks when I shift. Across the desk, Arthur watches me, his smile a predatory curve. To my left, Jake’s hand rests on my knee, his thumb stroking my skin in a way that’s meant to be reassuring but feels like a brand.

“Babe, what are you waiting for?” he murmurs, his voice the easy, confident drawl that I once found so charming. “Don’t overthink it.”

“She’s just nervous. It’s a big day.” Another voice. Serena. She’s on my other side, perched on the arm of my chair like a beautiful, designer-clad parrot. She squeezes my shoulder. “Don’t get cold feet now, Ellie. We’re so close to everything we’ve ever wanted.”

My gaze drops to the desk. To the sheaf of papers spread before me. At the top, in stark, corporate font, are the words: STERLING ENDEAVORS ARTIST MANAGEMENT. TEN-YEAR EXCLUSIVE AGREEMENT.

The paper god. My prison sentence.

It’s all here. The same predatory clauses, the same impossible escape conditions. The exact day. I am twenty years old again.

The memories don’t fade. They sharpen. They crash into the present with the force of a tidal wave. The fifteen years of my future, my first life, play out behind my eyes in a brutal, high-speed montage. The string of terrible roles in movies that went straight to streaming. The public humiliation when Jake left me for a producer’s daughter. The quiet, soul-crushing moment I realized Serena had used my audition notes to steal the part that would make her a star. The lonely nights, the mounting debts, the diagnosis, the hospital.

The pen in my hand feels impossibly heavy. It’s not just a pen. It is the architect of my ruin. And the key to my salvation.

“Are you okay?” Serena leans in closer, her brow furrowed in that perfect performance of concern. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I have. Mine.

I slowly lift my head, and my eyes meet hers. For a second, she almost flinches. I wonder what she sees there. Not the hopeful, naive girl who walked in here an hour ago, but the bitter, thirty-five-year-old woman who just died.

“I’m fine,” I say. My voice sounds different. Deeper. The tremor is gone.

I pick up the contract, the paper cool and heavy against my fingertips. “I was just re-reading a few things.” I fix my gaze on Arthur. “This exclusivity clause in section four. It states that Sterling Endeavors owns my name, image, and likeness in perpetuity for all projects. Is that correct?”

Arthur’s smile tightens almost imperceptibly. “It’s standard language, Delaney. It’s to protect our investment in you.”

“Your investment,” I repeat softly. “And this part here, the termination penalty. It’s defined as one hundred percent of my projected earnings for the remainder of the contract term. So, to be clear, if I wanted to leave after five years, and you project I might make twenty million in the next five, I would owe you twenty million dollars?”

Jake’s hand tightens on my knee. It’s a warning. “Babe, we went over this. The lawyer said it was fine.”

“Your lawyer?” I ask, turning to him. “Or the one Arthur’s firm so generously provided for us?”

Jake’s jaw works, his charm sputtering out. “It’s the best offer you’re going to get, Delaney. This is the big leagues.”

“She’s right,” Serena chimes in, her voice dripping with condescending sweetness. She places her hand over mine. Her skin is warm. I feel nothing. “Don’t mess this up over some scary legal words, sweetie. You’re not a lawyer. We should trust the professionals. This is our dream.”

“Is it?” I look from her perfectly manicured hand on mine to her perfectly composed face. “Is it our dream, Serena? Or is it your dream, and I’m just the convenient stepping stone you need right now?”

The air in the room changes. The manufactured warmth evaporates, leaving a sudden, sharp chill. Serena slowly withdraws her hand. Arthur leans forward, his velvet voice turning to steel. “Miss Walsh, this is a very serious offer. I don’t appreciate games.”

“Neither do I, Mr. Sterling,” I say calmly. “I’ve been playing one for a very long time without even knowing the rules.”

I look down at the contract. The paper god. It demands a sacrifice. But the sacrifice won’t be my life. Not again.

I hold Arthur’s gaze as I begin to tear the first page, right down the middle. The sound is shockingly loud in the silent office. A clean, satisfying rip.

Arthur stands up so fast his chair scrapes against the floor. “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?”

“She’s lost her mind,” Jake hisses, his face flushing with anger.

I don’t stop. I tear the first page again, then the second. The thick, expensive paper resists for a moment before giving way. Rip. Rip. Rip. Each sound severs a chain I didn’t know I was wearing.

Serena is speechless, her mouth a perfect ‘O’ of disbelief. Her mask of friendship is gone, revealing the cold, calculating ambition beneath.

I continue, methodical and unhurried, until the entire ten-year contract is nothing but a pile of paper scraps. I let them flutter from my fingers, a snowstorm of broken promises falling onto the gleaming mahogany.

“I’m declining your generous offer,” I announce to the stunned room.

Jake is on his feet now, his face a mask of fury. “Are you insane? You just threw away our future!”

“No, Jake,” I say, standing to face him. I feel calm. Crystalline. The fear is gone, burned away by fifteen years of simmering regret. “I just threw away *your* future. The one where you use my money to launch your career while sleeping with my best friend.”

I let my gaze slide to Serena. I watch the color drain from her face. Oh, that’s a beautiful sight. A memory worth dying for.

“You can have him, Serena,” I continue, my voice even and cold. “In fact, you already do. That little black cocktail dress you claimed you ‘lost’ at my birthday party last month? It’s stuffed in the back of Jake’s closet, under his hideous collection of basketball jerseys. You should probably retrieve it before his next girlfriend finds it.”

Jake goes from red to ghost-white. He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. Serena just stares, completely exposed.

I bend down and pick up my worn, faded purse from the floor. It holds everything I own in the world. A wallet with three hundred dollars, a tube of cherry chapstick, and a future that is finally, terrifyingly mine.

“And as for you,” I say, my voice dropping low as I look directly at Serena. “You are a magnificent actress. Truly. But I’ve seen the ending of this particular movie, and it’s not for me. Consider our friendship, and any professional association we might have had, permanently terminated.”

I turn and walk toward the door, my cheap boots making no sound on the plush carpet. I can feel their eyes on my back. Three pairs of eyes, all simmering with a toxic cocktail of shock, humiliation, and rage.

I don’t look back. I don’t need to. I know exactly what their faces look like.

I pull open the heavy office door and step out into the hallway, into the bright, uncertain light of my second first day. I am twenty years old. I am broke. I am alone.

And for the first time in a life I thought was over, I am absolutely, completely free.