There is nothing quite like a threat to wake you up. The best alarm clock. A jolt to the system that's stronger than any cup of caffeine. A bolt of lightning that stutters you into an overdrive of panic. If you could bottle it, you would have a one hundred percent success rate of getting everywhere on time.

But it's not like you want to wake up every day to threats just to be mentally present in the early hours of the morning. That would be overkill and heart attack inducing.

I went through the motions, putting on the outfit Allie handed me, looking over my lines as the next scene was set up around me, and falling into the character as the camera began recording, all while trying not to stare at everyone around me as a potential enemy. 

The letter left under Luke's door filled my mind, making the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. 

I know the lies you spin... You better come clean... 

I kept shoving my panicked thoughts behind a closed door in the back of my mind, refusing to let anyone know how utterly terrified I was.

Who knows? Who sent the message?

I was so distracted that I completely missed Lavender sitting down next to me at the makeup tent in between scenes until she poked me in the arm. "Um... hello?" 

Blinking, my mind slammed back into my body. "Sorry!" I said, pulling my focus back to the present. 

She shook her head, laughing. "You're sorry! I completely locked you out of the room!" She ran her fingers through her long, glossy brown hair, looking embarrassed. "I'm sorry about that. Not used to sharing a space and was on auto pilot last night when the cameras showed up at the hotel." 

Lavender shot me a pointed look. "You were all over the gossip pages this morning after that trip into the pool." A mischievous smile spread across her ruby red lips. "You know, the one where you accidentally pulled Luke in with you." She looked utterly delighted that Luke had also been caught in the chaos, like any fake ex-girlfriend would be. "Sorry for you, happy for... well me."

Nothing like a little embarrassment for an ex to make a girl happy.

"Congratulations, you've had your right of passage for your first shoot. Something embarrassing that ended up in the gossip pages." She gave me a soft smile. "It won't last long. They'll find something new to obsess about soon. "One article even suggested that Luke found your dead body in the ocean..." she laughed. "And then buried you in the sand somewhere. They will print anything to sell a story."

"Did they write anything else?" I asked, peeking at her from under my lashes, preparing for her to start screaming at me for spending the night in Luke's room. 

She shook her head. "I stopped reading after the 'you died in the ocean by Luke's hands' theory. Where'd you end up spending the night?"

I opened my mouth to respond but paused, suddenly flustered. How would she react to me staying in Luke's room?

There's only one way to find out.

"Luke Walker's room," I said to the makeup counter, keeping my voice quiet.

But my volume ended up not mattering. Tate— who I hadn't seen lurking nearby— plopped up on the makeup table, scattering makeup in every direction as he settled, earning several squeaks and glares of protest, mouth full of breakfast burrito. "YOU SLEPT IN LUKE'S ROOM!" he said in his loud Tate voice, words booming across the makeup tent. 

The room fell silent, everyone turning to stare at me, wide eyed. And then... 

Chaos ensued. 

One minute the makeup tent was a peaceful place to transform from person to person, and the next it was full of gasps, women— and Tate, swarming around me like clucking hens. 

Thank you Tate for saying that sooooo loud.

As questions were hurled in my direction, I leveled Tate with a glare and he had the common decency to look embarrassed for raining the chaos down on me. But then like an utter pot stirrer, he hopped off the counter, backed away, took another slow bite of his burrito, and left me to deal with what he had shared.

It took several tries to turn and look at Lavender as the voices swirled. And when I did, all she did was look back, eyebrow raised. I had expected judgment, maybe hate. But instead, she looked... sad, sorry for me. Like watching someone on the verge of doing something stupid and not being able to talk them out of it. 

I shrugged back, unsure of what to say. "He slept on the couch," I added. 

She nodded, and then turned to the mirror, keeping her thoughts to herself as she adjusted her makeup. 

"Em!" Laliana said, taking up Tate's abandoned spot on the makeup table. "You literally lived out a one bedroom trope!" She tucked her blond hair behind her ears, a thoughtful smile on her face, her writer brain already churning up a story with my experience as inspiration. 

GREAT.

I spotted Delle in the reflection of the mirror before me. She stood at the back of the tent, leaning against one of the tent poles, arms crossed, watching the situation, her expression assessing. 

Allie tugged several strands of hair out of my face, pulling them back for the next scene, talking past several bobby pins in her mouth. "Well that secret lasted about two seconds. Word of advice? Swear Tate to secrecy before hand, or don't say it around him. He has one volume." 

Their words washed off me, my mind nowhere close to the memory of sharing several moments with Luke. I couldn't shake the note. The feeling that I was one breath away from watching my life fall apart. It was sobering, making anything I had shared with Luke feel tainted. 

It's too easy to lose everything.

I felt someone pull me out of my chair by my arm, and before I knew it, I was stumbling out of the tent, leaving the curious voices behind. I was spun around and found myself face to face with Delle. 

She looked me over, the only face not wearing a look of excited curiosity. She had a protective aura about her, always seeing things better than she wanted. Seeing every detail, crack and hurt. It made her good at her job as a detective, but terrible at believing people when they lied to keep themselves safe. 

"What happened?" she asked, her tone leaving no room for argument. 

I squinted at her, bringing my hand up to block the bright sunshine, the sound of waves no longer comforting from where we stood on the beach. The roar felt like a warning. A monster threatening to swallow me whole. 

Delle took my hand and pulled me up and away from the beach, far from prying eyes, cutting Dustin's attempt to ask where we were going. "Quick pep talk. Keep your shirt on."

She sat me down by the pool, the hotel having finally wrangled all of the paparazzi and kicking them out. She handed me a water bottle, stood before me and waited. 

I stared down at the pool where I had fallen in with Luke the night before, and almost laughed. None of it was funny, but the sharp contrast between almost kissing Luke and someone threatening to destroy my life was a comical contrast. It was getting out of hand and I wasn't ready to go over threats, so instead I started with what Delle already knew. 

"I stayed in Luke's room—"

She waved that off. "No, not that. I'm completely allergic to romantic problems." She offered me a helpless smile. "You saw how much of a train wreck I made out of mine when I was undercover. You had a front row seat. So did most of the country."

"Things turned out well though." 

She laughed. "Because where I am a beautiful disaster hurricane, Andrew is a steady foundation of healthy emotional processing. I get no credit for that."

Delle sat down at the edge of the pool, kicking out her feet across the water, wetting her toes. "I'm better with potential murder, mystery and killers. Kisses and crushes are not my strong suit."

"I never said—"

Delle gave me a look that stopped me cold. Apparently my near kisses and struggle to learn what feelings were mine versus acted out was obvious. 

Go Em. Way to be the Queen of Obvious Town.

I cleared my throat. "But you have a regular kissing partner all the time."

It was Delle's turn to look flustered. She ran her fingers through her hair before schooling her features, trying to get her blush under control. "But we don't... talk about kissing. He's good at feelings talks so you can ask him if you want to but I'm not the right person to talk about..." she wrinkled her nose. "gooey things..."

"Noted," I said with a snort, amused at how Delle could go from a fearsome foe to a woman so utterly flustered by the idea of feelings. 

"Now can we talk about what made you look so terrified earlier?" she asked, staring me down. "Or are you going to keep talking about feelings stuffs?"

Reaching into the back of my jean shorts pocket, I handed Delle the note, giving in.

She looked down at it, her eyes narrowing. "Huh..." she said, thinking. 

I waited, almost seeing her mind spin, pulling pieces together before tossing them and starting again. Then to my utter surprise, she grinned. "Well... this is interesting."

I crossed my arms, growing angry. "I don't think it's 'smile like everything is okay' type of interesting. More like, 'I'm doomed' interesting." 

She shook her head, bright red curly hair swooshing back and forth across her shoulders, green eyes bright with excitement. "No. This is good." 

I laid back on the lawn chair, hand over my face to block out the sun. "No offense Delle, but this is not a good thing. This is a bad thing. A very bad thing. Like could destroy everything level bad." My brain began to spit out television show examples of how bad it was. "Ross being dumb and cheating on Rachel while they were on a break level bad. The producers of the show, 'How I Met Your Mother' forcing the writers to have Ted and Robin ending up together level bad. The ENTIRE last season of 'Game of Thrones' level bad!" 

Delle crouched down before me. "Look at me Em." 

When I refused, Delle pulled me up to a sitting position by my arms, reminding me of just how strong she was. "This is good. This gives us information and information is the key to all of this."

I blinked away a set of tears, embarrassed by how scared I felt. How out of my depths I felt. 

"Hey," she said, her voice pulling me away from my panic. "Don't do that. Don't spiral. You aren't alone and we will figure this out. But you need to keep it together. Panic just gives this person what they want, okay?" She gave my arms an encouraging squeeze, grounding me.

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. 

"Now, let's look at what we know," she said, slipping into detective mode. "They made a mistake. The timing of the note gives us information. It narrows down the list of suspects. Only cast and crew knew we were staying here. And all of the paparazzi were blocked from going up to the guests rooms... Wait." 

She paused looking down at the note again. Then her eyes sparked, narrowing. She reread the note out loud. "I know the lies you spin, the tales you weave. You better admit it, you better come clean. Or I'll do it for you and it will be messy, to that, I guarantee."

Delle looked up at me, waiting for me to understand. But Delle was several steps ahead, playing mental chess when the rest of us were stuck playing checkers. 

I shook my head, not understanding. 

"The note wasn't addressed to you, Em." 

She reread the note out loud. "It was left under Luke's door, not yours."

Delle looked away, staring out over the pool, guarded. "It could be for Luke. He has secrets too." Standing up, she wiped her hands on her shorts, deep in thought.

My heart began to pound, a wild thing that was impossible to ignore. The look on Delle's face making me itch for answers the way a good mystery always did. "What do you mean?" I asked, voice suddenly quiet. 

Delle shook her head, walking back towards the beach, expecting me to follow. "None of mine to share."

---

Thank you for reading chapter twenty five! I hope you are enjoying the story! Or are at least curious to see where it goes!

UPDATE DAYS - A NEW CHAPTER EVERY FRIDAY!

Luke has secrets! What are they? And why is someone trying to get him to expose them?

OR was the note actually for Em? Who is the target?

How is Lavender doing with the news that Em stayed with Luke?

What will happen next?

CHAPTER QUESTION - Have you ever gotten a note from an anonymous person? What was that experience like?