Don't Look Behind You (Don't Look Series Book 1) by Emily Kazmierski (summer reads .txt) 📗

use. Fiona and one of the stage crew guys are on a ladder tinkering with the filters over the stage lights. White becomes blue becomes orange.

“I hate the orange,” Esau says, glancing up the ladder. “Go back to blue.”

“Got it.” Fiona switches out the filters with a deft hand, passing the unwanted ones down to me.

The actors take the scene from the top.

Esau produces an old digital camera from under his chair and starts filming, pivoting around the stage in a slow arc. His dark eyes are laser focused on the scene before him as he easily steps over a pile of cables.

My eyes widen and I duck behind the ladder to avoid being filmed. Whatever he’s doing, I can’t be on camera.

“Feeling shy?” Fiona asks, hopping down from her perch with a dull thunk. She nods toward Esau with her chin.

The director’s back is to us now, his camera zeroed in on Marisa’s face. It’s her turn to speak, but her expression has gone blank. Her eyes casting around for the words that should be on the tip of her tongue.

The others are staring at her now, waiting for her to pick up their practiced rhythm.

Silence.

Esau’s shoulders tense. The camera catches all of it.

Marisa’s eyes meet mine, frustration in her golden eyes.

I mutter the line just loud enough for her to hear.

She picks it up, and the characters are off again.

Esau eyes me over his camera. Which is trained right on me.

With an eep I sidestep behind Fiona, feeling a lot like a little kid hiding behind its mother. I wait until the brooding director moves on.

“I need some help with the sound system up here. Fiona?” Dariel calls from the booth at the back of the room, where I can barely see his high, box faded hair over the rail.

“You coming?” Fiona says over her shoulder, gesturing for me to follow.

“Will there be kissing this time?”

“No promises,” Fiona laughs as we climb the stairs. We work with Dariel upstairs for a few minutes, trying various lighting cues and sound effects, noting where they’ll work best in the show.

“What’s with the camera?” I ask Fiona as I adjust the soundboard per Esau’s direction.

“Esau’s got a channel on a streaming site, and he’s trying to get some traction as an influencer. Last I checked, he only had a couple hundred followers.” With a shrug, she turns to Dariel. “Let’s try that last cue again, yeah?”

Dariel winks at her.

I like Fiona. She’s a capable stage manager. She knows how to do pretty much everything backstage and puts people where they’re the best fit. She busts her butt when it counts, but she also knows how to have fun with it. Unlike someone else I know.

From up in the booth, it’s easy to track Esau’s movements with his camera. He spends the next several minutes filming the actors before getting some footage of the stage crew painting a backdrop.

Marisa forgets another line and I call it down to her.

“What’s Esau’s handle?” Nudging Fiona with my elbow, I wait with my fingers poised over my phone. I’m curious about Mr. Grumpy’s social. She helps me find it, and immediately I can see some areas where Esau could improve. I’m not internet famous, but I have a few favorite creators I follow, and it’s easy to see the differences in their most popular content and what Esau’s doing.

“You gonna tell me your deal about being filmed?” Fiona asks.

Dariel climbs out from under the sound board with a cable snaked around his arm. “BRB, boss lady.” He bounds down the stairs, placing the cable with careful hands.

I lean over the edge to make sure Esau isn’t anywhere nearby before I answer. “Would you believe me if I told you I just don’t like having my picture taken?”

Fiona’s braids wave back and forth as her head shakes. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

I raise an eyebrow, daring her to mention my scar.

She doesn’t.

My attention returns to the soundboard. “Aunt Karen has a thing about the internet. She says it destroys privacy. You should hear her ranting about how it’s her job to protect me from creeps, especially on the computer. I shudder to think what she’d do if she found out I was on Esau’s feed.”

“So she’s one of those.”

I nod in the affirmative. Hope that’s enough of an explanation. There’s no way I’m telling Fiona about the tiny crack in my guardian’s expression I glimpsed when I told Aunt Karen about the note. She tried to hide it, but it was there.

“Anything else we need to do up here?” Dariel asks, eyeing Fiona with a flirty grin as he climbs the stairs.

“Shut up.” Fiona grins.

“Pritchard! Get down here.”

“Ohhhh, somebody’s in trouble.”

“Shut up, Dariel,” Fiona says through a chuckle.

Great… What does the great grumpus want now? I take my time on the stairs, knowing that each second it takes me to get down there needles Esau. I can’t help it. Getting under his skin gives me more satisfaction than a lot of things these days.

When I finally reach the stage, he’s glaring, corded arms crossed over his chest. “Didn’t know you were an old lady,” he says. “Should we install a ramp to help you get around faster?”

“What do you want, Esau?”

“Your new job is feeding the actors their lines if they need ‘em.”

“No more gophering?”

One of his thick black eyebrows lashes upward. With a grunt, he walks away. It’s not exactly a promotion, but I’ll take it nonetheless. Anything is better than pinballing all over campus on the stupid errands he’s tasked me with every other time the drama club has met. Maybe I won’t need to shower as soon as I get home tonight, slick with sweat from running.

The rest of practice goes smoothly, with most of the actors not needing much prompting. They’ve pretty much got their lines down with a few hiccups here and there.

Marisa, though, isn’t doing well. Whenever Esau is listening, she gets even worse. By the end of the