Page 97 of Guarding the Singer

"Mandy?" She turned her head and felt something crash into the side of her face.

Selene stumbled back and hit the wall behind his desk.

She reached out a hand to grasp something to keep her on her feet.

One hand touched a part of the chair and then slipped down onto what was likely Cooper's thigh.

Her other arm hit the wall and while she splayed her fingers out, there was nothing that she could get a hold of. She went down beside Cooper's chair looking up at his assistant.

The normally mousy young woman was seething with anger. Her dark hair, so very different from the blonde hair that she'd had when she'd been acting, was mussed and stringy.

The skin under her eyes was smudged dark, but it was the look in her eyes that put abject fear in Selene. Mandy's eyes looked haunted as if she wasn't looking at her, but through her. "Mandy?"

"What? What do you want?"

Selene didn't know what to say. She was lost in the other woman's anger. Confused was an understatement.

"See?" Mandy was looking at Cooper. "She's here! Are you happy?"

Selene didn't know what to say or think, but she looked down at her bag on the floor beyond Mandy. She was sitting on her butt on the hardwood floor, her legs a little weak.

She licked at her lips and tried to move across the floor.

Selene's shoulder bumped into Mandy's leg. She tried to lunge past her, but something hit her in her middle, pushing every bit of air out of her lungs.

Another hit. A kick. Sent her into the wall. Her temple and shoulder took the hit.

Selene tried to get up, at least she made the effort, but her arms shook and then she fell face first into the ground, moaning.

And very near crying, but she wasn't going to give into it.

"M-Mandy? Did you... call... 911?"

"Did. I. Call?"

She heard a sound hit the floor beside her and managed to turn her head.

Mandy's face was nearly at her level. "Why?"

Her teeth were bared.

"Why would I call? The sicker he got, the more he asked for you!"

Selene's eyes opened wide at Mandy's word and then wider when she felt her hair pulled back, yanked almost to the root.

Her vision was filled with Mandy's face, eyes staring, her pupils barely pin pricks.

It looked... it felt like madness.

"Ah..." Selene's mouth dropped open as Mandy's hand twisted in her hair.

"I was you, you know?"

Selene could only stare as pain lanced through her scalp, the side of her face tingling with prickling sensations.

"I was his favorite. His protégé!"

"I saw..." Selene felt a pain throb in her temple and it worked down to her jaw. "I saw pictures of your movie."

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