WARNING: This chapter may have certain triggers. Please take caution as you read. 

Felicity rushed home and did a final review before submitting her new contest entry. After sending it and then pulling a few songs to send to Daxton, she waited for her mother to come home.

The moment Mallory walked through the door, Felicity was there. "You'll never guess what happened today."

Mallory's keys jingled as she dropped them in the serving bowl on their decorative table in the middle of the foyer. Her mother's eyes darted around the house. "Where's Nora?"

Felicity waved the question off, "She's still with Devon working on his Showcase piece."

Mallory's heels clicked along the floor as she walked to the closet and hung up her coat. "Is this important? I have a few items I need to get done for work."

Felicity trailed after Mallory as she headed up the stairs. "Mom, this is career-altering."

"I'm sure it is." Mallory stepped into her study and started up her sleek desktop monitor.

Felicity's fist bunched at her side. "I had lunch with Daxton Cavenaugh today."

Now she had her mother's attention. "Did you?"

"And Kamree Philips," she said.

Mallory raised a brow. "And?"

"Daxton wants a sample of some tracks. It's not official yet, but it's promising."

Her mother took off her maroon blazer and placed it carefully on the back of her white leather desk chair. "He doesn't want you to submit it to a general mailbox, does he?"

Felicity passed over his business card. "No. Directly."

At that, Mallory smiled. "Excellent. You haven't submitted anything yet?"

"No," Felicity shook her head, "I pulled a few. I wanted to review with you before sending anything."

Mallory tapped at her chin with her pointer finger. "We need to play this carefully. If we can get you a deal with Daxton Cavenaugh, it'll open doors."

"Right?" Felicity grinned. "We're going to be famous!"

"Not yet. The songs you send to Daxton Cavenaugh will make or break your career. We need to get Nora on this right away. We need new music. New sound. We have to send him something he'll be unable to ignore."

"I've already submitted my entry to his contest."

"The one from last week?"

Felicity shook her head, her eyes bright. "No. A new one. A better one," she said. "Hold on."

Felicity rushed back to her room and grabbed the leather journal tucked into her nightstand. She'd found the journal in the studio the other day. Nora practically had the thing glued to her side and refused to let anyone see it. Felicity thought that was because she had a bunch of scribbles and unfinished pieces inside. She couldn't care less what Nora had with her, so long as she kept writing pieces for her.

But when she'd opened it...It was beyond anything she'd seen. Pieces – full, complete, fleshed-out pieces – filled the pages. Some were raw, heart-wrenching pieces. Others were polished, pop gold.

Felicity found a treasure chest full of real success.

And Nora had been hiding it from them all this time.

Back in her mother's study, Felicity dropped the leather journal on the desk. "I found this in the studio the other day."

Mallory frowned as she flipped through the pages. "This is Nora's?"

"She's been sitting on these for years," Felicity said. "Look at the date in the front."

"Paul must've given this to her before he died," her mother mumbled.

"They're great, aren't they?"

Mallory snapped it closed. "Take photos of each page. Then send them to my assistant." She paused, "Does Nora know you have this?"

Felicity shook her head.

"Good. Keep it that way," Mallory said, "we may need these for more than just material."

Felicity tucked the journal under her arm.

"Tell me more about this lunch."

Felicity sat in one of the teal chairs in front of her mother's desk and shared every last detail with her. As she spoke, Mallory's face grew tense. Grave. Once she was done, her mother said, "Nora has too much power over Eli Leonger. And he doesn't even know it."

"It drives me insane," Felicity said. "I should be the one he's obsessed with."

"Yes, well, sometimes the world doesn't work like that," Mallory said, then, "We need to corral Nora immediately."

Felicity frowned. "What about using her for our plan?"

"I've underestimated Nora's influence over Eli. We need to reconfigure." Mallory picked up the red, crystal apple paperweight on the corner of her desk and traced her thumb over the stem. "If we don't pull her out of the way now, she may decide she wants more to do with Eli Leonger."

"But—"

"She is a tool, Felicity," Mallory said. "We need to use her as such if we want to get to the end game." Mallory shook her head, then almost to herself, said, "Paul was right."

"About what?"

Mallory shook her head. "Nothing. When Nora gets home, I'll talk to her."

❄︎❄︎❄︎

Nora spent three hours with Grumpy working on his piece. What was supposed to be an hour session for quick last-minute adjustments turned into a three-hour session of agony. Grumpy still wasn't satisfied with the result when they were done.

She'd about had it with him. The piece was fine – or rather, would have been fine if he'd just sang as she told him too. All the back and forth and rerecording turned the whole thing into a jumbled mess. By the end, she was about ready to claw Grumpy's eyes out. Why couldn't he just listen to her? If he wanted to make his own music and stylize everything, he should do it by himself and not drag her further into it.

It was 6:30 pm by the time she caught a bus and headed back home. Her stomach growled the entire way home. Now she felt nauseous. She needed to eat something, and then she needed to find her leather journal.

It hadn't been down in the studio earlier, and after scouring her whole room, she was unable to find it. Dread was a solid boulder in her chest. She only hoped it was around the house somewhere and not at school. It was unlike her to not know where it was. But with how tired she'd been lately, she'd been so absentminded, and it wasn't a surprise the journal went missing.

In the kitchen, Nora walked directly to the fridge for something to eat. There were plenty of leftovers from this week. As always, the entire kitchen was spotless. The housekeeper Mallory hired always kept everything clean. Although a part of Nora hated it – it always looked like no one was ever here. Like they didn't utilize the kitchen. When her mother was alive, she and her father cooked all the time. And they'd left things around – mail, newspapers, little knick-knacks – things that made it look used. Lived in. Homey.

Nora popped open some leftover spaghetti and heated it in the microwave. While she waited, she reached for the fruit bowl –

And stopped. There, next to the fruit bowl, was her leather journal with a red apple placed on top. It was tucked a little behind it, so it made sense she wouldn't have seen it when she first walked in.

Their housekeeper, Virginia, must've found it. Nora smiled, relief spreading like ivy through her bloodstream. Trust Virginia to put an apple on top. "You don't eat enough fruit," she often told Nora.

Nora swiped the apple and took a bite while she waited for the microwave to finish heating her food.

The house intercom clicked on. "Nora? Can you come up here?"

Nora dropped her head back and looked at the ceiling. What could Mallory possibly need now? It was only the other day that she'd done another pass-through of a song for her. Usually, there was a more extended break between song reviews. At least a couple of weeks.

Her socked feet padded along the tile floor as she crossed the kitchen. She clicked the intercom button, "Can it wait ten minutes? I'm reheating dinner."

There was silence. Then, "No. It cannot wait."

Her lips thinned. "I'll be up in a moment."

She heard the microwave chime as she headed up the stairs. Despite her long sleeves, cozy pants, and socked feet, a chill danced over her skin as she headed to the study. She slowed when she reached the hallway and stood outside the door.

It'd been two years. And yet, just the sight of the doors made nausea curl in her stomach. She'd have thought by now that time would have dampened the pain and dimmed the memories. However, some days it felt like only a day had passed.

She avoided the study when she could. It was on the second floor, on the opposite side of the house, which meant she was fortunate enough to be able to pretend it didn't exist most of the time.

Her hand shook as she reached for the curled brass doorknob. Why was today so bad? She pushed down the door handle and stepped in.

"Yes?" She stood right inside the door, ready to bolt if given the opportunity. Her eyes wanted to pull to the tresses above the room. It was a physical weight, pulling her to look. Look.

"Are you that afraid of me?" Mallory asked behind the desk. "Come sit down."

She didn't want to. She'd rather be anywhere but in this room right now. Everything was different and yet familiar. Mallory had been decent enough to change the design and add a new rug and fixtures. But that did nothing to battle Nora's memories.

The door cracked slightly. A discarded shoe. Rope. A kitchen chair, overturned on its side.

Her breathing escalated. "Can we talk somewhere else?"

"No," Mallory said. "This will only take a moment. Sit down."

"Mallory—"

"Sit."

Nora dropped into the chair furthest from the fireplace. She sat, half-turned, giving the fireplace her back. Whatever it was, Nora would speed through it, and get out of here as soon as possible.

"What is it?"

Mallory had a file folder open on her desk with an arrangement of pages and photos carefully categorized and paperclipped together. "I was going through Felicity's Musetunes statistics today."

"They're not bad," Nora said. If this was what she'd brought Nora in here for, to talk statistics, then she would listen, nod along, and be on her way.

"Even Dreame's beginner artists debut with better marketing and song statistics than what Felicity is currently at," Mallory said. "At this rate, she'll never get to where she needs to be to succeed in this business."

Maybe they had better stats and marketing because they had a team behind them. Not just some quiet songwriter. "We can hire someone to do marketing if that's the issue," Nora pointed out.

"With what money?" Mallory asked. "Are you going to fund it?"

Nora bit her lip. "I can't." She could barely afford to go to the ice cream shop with Eli. And now, with her phone busted, she had to save for a screen replacement. A giant webbed crack climbed half of the screen. She could only see the bottom half – and with the way her texts were set up, she couldn't even read them. She could only accept calls. Every time her phone vibrated with a new notification, she had to hop onto her laptop to check Musetunes.

"I didn't think so," Mallory frowned, flipping through the packets in front of her. "I've been tracking Felicity's stats, and over the past few weeks there's been a significant drop in her numbers. There's also been a drop in the number of marketing posts and teasers for her upcoming music."

Nora's muscles tensed.

"Would you like to tell me why that is?"

"I have six other artists that need attention," Nora quickly supplied, "If I spend all of my time with Felicity—"

"I don't care about other artists. They are not my children, nor are they my responsibility to provide for."

"Then why am I writing for them?" Nora sputtered.

Mallory narrowed her eyes. "Because their parents have sway in this business, and I have made a promise to them that they will be ready to sign with an agency by the time graduation comes around."

"There are multiple producers and writers in Dreame's employ," Nora said. "Have them step in and help out."

"They have more important people to worry about." Mallory shuffled her files together and closed the folder, setting it carefully in front of her. "You've become distracted, Nora. And I think a part of that stems from my leniency on you. For that, I apologize."

Apologize? What—?

"I also realize it has a lot to do with a certain young man at that school," Mallory continued.

Nora froze.

"Which leads me to various points, however, I'm not in the mood for a lecture right now," she said. "I have too much work to be done."

Taking that as her dismissal, a tiny thread of relief unwrapping from her chest, Nora stood.

"I am not finished," Mallory pointed back down at the chair. Only when Nora's butt hit the seat did she continue. "You will focus on Felicity and building her portfolio. The other artists will come second; however, do not allow them to be ignored."

"I won't," she mumbled. Her hands clenched in her lap.

"You will also stay away from Eli Leonger," Mallory said.

Nora's head snapped up.

"If I find out you are seen with him again, I will halt all payments to the school on your behalf."

"You can't—"

Mallory quirked a brow, "Can't I? It appears to me you cannot hang out with a boy and perform your duties to these artists at the same time. You need to focus on the work being put out by these artists, and especially Felicity. I am simply removing the distractions and giving you more cause to focus."

Nora's throat ached. If she spent another minute in this stifling, heavy cage of a room, she was afraid of what might happen. "I understand," she muttered softly, "may I be dismissed?"

"You may," Mallory said.

Halfway to the door, her stepmother called her name.

Nora turned, bracing for the worst. "Yes?"

Mallory held out a different file folder, this one a striking red. "Have these songs reviewed and on my desk before my brunch tomorrow morning."