Read Acting Brave (Fenbrook Academy #3) for Free Online

to him. He was gulping at the air like he was trying to bite off a piece. Blood had already soaked his shirt and a lake of it was spreading out beneath him. It hit me that he was going to die, and that I should be screaming “ No! No! Stay with me!” like you see in the movies, but I just stared into his eyes and he stared into mine and then he was gone.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 6
    Jasmine
    One Month Later
     
     
    I was one shoe short. Literally. I’d only discovered the second one was missing when I already had the first one strapped on, so now I was staggering around the apartment with one leg three inches longer than the other. I had maybe three minutes to find it and get out before I crossed the line into being seriously late to class.
    I could have just worn a different pair, of course. But Jasmine wouldn’t compromise. Always looking good was a part of her...and therefore me.
    I looked under the bed for the third time and then tried the wardrobe again. Bathroom? I hop-walked there. Nope. This was getting ridiculous, now. There were only so many places it could be.
    The apartment was by far the nicest place I’d lived since coming to New York. After the seedy motel and the roach-infested first apartment, I’d spent a few weeks sleeping on Karen’s couch—okay, technically that was the nicest place I’d stayed, but it wasn’t mine. Then, when Connor moved in with Karen, I’d moved into his drafty but homely little place for a glorious rent-free month until his lease ran out. Between that and the time on the couch, I’d finally been able to save some money and get this place—a small but warm little nest where I wouldn’t get stabbed or beat up or eaten in my sleep by hungry roaches. Money was tight but, if I was careful, I could just scrape by. I’d even managed to furnish the apartment with some flea market rejects: posters of Hollywood sirens, some old-fashioned mirrors, and lots of throws everywhere: dark green that looked good against my flame-red hair. The bedroom was a particular favorite. I’d gone for a full-on seduction vibe, with black sheets, an iron bedstead, and fake red satin staple-gunned to the wall in thick, shining ripples. It looked like a Parisian prostitute’s boudoir, which I figured was perfect.
    And that was the problem. Like everything else in my life, I’d made those choice because they were what Jasmine would do. Most of the time that felt fine. But occasionally, I’d catch myself and wonder if I really liked all that stuff...or if it was just in character.
    Being intensely Jasmine was working, though. Sleeping in the boudoir-chic room separated me from my past and that seemed to help with the nightmares. They only came once a week or so, now, and they didn’t burn themselves into my brain so deeply—sometimes, by around lunchtime, I’d actually stopped shaking and feeling like I wanted to throw up in fear.
    The worst events weren’t necessarily the worst ones for hanging around my head all day. Like the time my dad had tried to drown me—or scare me, I’ve never been sure which—by pushing my face under the freezing water at the bottom of the old ice chest and holding me there. He’d been drunker than usual, that night. Angry, because someone had tried to stiff him for a few hundred bucks. That was all it took.
    I’d been twelve, at the time.
    The ice chest was a regular in my nightmare cycle, but it usually faded fast, once I’d realized that I was safely in my bed. But others were harder to shake. The first time he’d taken me with him in his truck to collect money from a debtor, for example. He’d left me in the passenger seat while he talked with the guy in his garage, maybe ten feet away. My dad’s voice had started out friendly, then turned threatening, then taken on that cold, detached tone I’d learned to fear.
    He came back to the truck and fetched his baseball bat. I hunkered down in my seat and kept my eyes on the dashboard.
    I heard the bat