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“How do you deal with that?” Sophie asked as she took her last slurp of her Big Gulp.

“The fans?”

“Yeah. It’s so intrusive. Like they want a little piece of your soul.”

I shrugged. “They don’t really want me. They’re just excited to see someone that they’ve seen in a movie. Mostly, they’re not really interested in me. They’re interested in Natasha Blade. Looking at it like that makes it a lot easier.”

Sophie got up from where she was sitting at the desk and held out her hand for my empty cup. I handed it to her. “That makes sense.”

“It’s going to happen to you one day,” I said as I watched her put our cups in the trash.

“Yeah, sure.” She scoffed.

“Really, Sophie. You’re talented. Now that I’ve seen what you can do, I’m going to talk to my agent and have him represent you.”

She turned around, her eyes wide. “Kit, you’re out of your mind.”

“No, I’m not.”

She stumbled back to the desk chair and plopped down. “Explain to me why you would want to do something like that for me, when my stepbrother blackmailed you in the worst possible way so I could get a part?”

“Because you’re mired in this mess just as deeply as I am. You’re a victim too. But I’m not doing this out of pity, I’m doing this because you're good. And this is how this industry works. Yeah, you work your ass off, and go to audition after audition, but sometimes it is just luck, or sometimes it's someone helping you out. That’s what this is. You’re unlucky that you're in this mess with me, and therefore I’m helping you out.”

I watched a smile bloom across her face. “You’re amazing, you know that?”

“I’ve been told that a time or two, but it’s always nice to hear it again,” I said with a grin of my own.

My grin got even bigger when I heard a buzzing sound. It had to be Code. I lunged for my purse, but when I pulled out the phone that Code had given me, it was blank. I turned to Sophie. “It must be your phone.”

She got up and went to her bed and scooped her phone out of her purse. Then she stared at it in amazement. “It’s a text from Russell,” she gasped.

“No fucking way.”

“Way,” she nodded. “He says he’s on a plane to Knoxville. He must have actually listened to one of my hundred voicemails.”

I felt a surge of excitement burst through me. At last we could get to the bottom of things. We could stop everything. The deepfake of my racist comments. We could get him to stop blackmailing all those other people.

“When is his plane due to arrive, did he say?”

I watched Sophie’s thumbs furiously text back her brother, then she looked up at me. “He’s due to touch down in an hour and ten minutes. Do you know what that means?”

“This nightmare is almost over?”

“No, I’ll finally be able to beat the shit out of him the way he deserves.”

I shrank back a little bit. For just a half a second I felt sorry for Russell Dunlap.

I’d texted Code with Russell’s ETA, but I hadn’t gotten a response. I hated that. It meant that they were in the middle of the operation, which scared the hell out of me. They could all have superpowers like Natasha Blade, and I’d still be ready to throw up. My stomach lurched and I realized I really did feel nauseous.

Aw shit. The hot dog felt like it was going to come back up.

“Kit, Russell just got into an Uber, he’s on his way,” Sophie said.

“Still feeling bloodthirsty?”

“Oh yeah,” she said. I winced when she cracked her knuckles.