Chapter 4

The sound of her alarm blaring had Rachael leaping from a dream so realistic, she’d thought she truly was a superhero capable of flying. Now, back in reality, her arms flailed to make the annoying noise stop. She made contact with her phone on the nightstand, and after three or four sharp jabs, peering through bleary, half-opened eyes, the beeping went away. Groaning, she put the pillow over her head and wondered why she had to get up so damn early when she was her own boss.

“Because most of your readers are in Asia,” she reminded herself, which meant her deadline of 11:00 AM her time to get her words in was really the middle of the night their time--which meant readers could start in on the story first thing in the morning if they wanted to. She had no idea why WebReader kept the schedule the way they did, but she was thankful that the editor who worked for her, Lark Anderson, was based in New York City, so even though that didn’t change the deadline time, it did mean if Rachael had an issue, she could call someone in her same time zone to help her out.

Hopefully, that wouldn’t be the case today, though, and all of her characters would cooperate.

After she’d returned from her lunch with bizarro-Ebony the day before, she’d done some reading in her genre but hadn’t touched her computer. She didn’t want to see what her readers thought of her chapters, not after the hasty decision she’d made to basically put herself in the story. Not that she was technically this Rachael chick--they just had the same name. Still, if they didn’t like her, or didn’t wonder what might happen next with the new student, there was a possibility she might take it more personally than she would otherwise. So… she’d spent most of the night binge watching "The Witcher" on Netflix and trying to figure out what to do next.

The new student, Rachael, probably wasn’t the best love interest for Graham, unless she was a non-traditional student, someone who was older than the typical new recruit. Silverwood Academy generally served as an alternative to college, so most of the students who attended were 18 or 19 years old, whereas the professors were in their mid-twenties, like Graham and Jared, or even in their thirties or forties, depending upon how good they were at killing the undead and if they’d been asked to teach. Graham wasn’t technically a prof--he was a recruiter. There were other characters who also didn’t teach classes but were essential to her plot. If the new girl was going to fit in with them, she’d have to be in her mid-twenties, like the real Rachael, not an 18-year-old baby-faced chick right out of high school. In the past, a few nontraditional students had joined the cast of characters, so Rachael could make it work. Or she could just forget this Rachael girl and pretend it never even happened, taking the plot a completely different way.

Nature called, and while she took care of that and then brushed her teeth, she went over a few of the scenarios that had come to mind the night before. She’d just spit out her mouthwash when she realized her phone was ringing.

Finding it odd that anyone would call her this early in the morning, Rachael rushed into her bedroom and picked up her phone off of the bed where she’d dropped it. The number was the same one Frank Merek had called from the day before. “What the hell?” she asked. Why was he calling her again? A knot formed in her stomach, and she let the call go to voicemail. If his message mentioned anything about not seeing her, not being able to find her, or questioned that stupid Stenzel account, she was going to freaking launch her phone through the wall. Or at least be very upset.

Since she had no place to be that day, Rachael put off taking her shower and putting on regular clothes until after she got her two thousand words in. She was wearing a different pair of ratty, cut-off shorts made of sweatpants material and a T-shirt she slept in so often it was all stretched out and deformed. But it was comfortable, so she didn’t care. It wasn’t like she was going to see anyone anyway. No need to fix her hair, which was somewhat still piled on top of her head in a messy bun, and she also didn’t care that her eyeliner was smeared. If Scrappy protested, she could get her own cat food for breakfast.

Rachael picked her phone up and glanced at it, seeing she had a voicemail, and mumbled a curse word under her breath as she padded out to the kitchen to fix a strong cup of coffee. She was going to need it to deal with all of this oddness two days in a row.

She started the Keurig and checked her texts, disappointed that she didn’t have anything new from Ebony. She’d sent her a message the afternoon before, apologizing again for being late and saying that she was certain they were supposed to meet at 12:30. Strangely enough, she wasn’t able to find the texts they’d sent earlier in the week about meeting for lunch in the first place, so she couldn’t prove she’d been right. Ebony hadn’t answered at all, though, which was one more strange occurrence to add to the list.

Her coffee done, she poured in a bit of creamer, not too much, and put it back in the fridge before she carried the steaming cup and her phone in to the little table where she did her writing. Her laptop was sitting there, closed, but if it could wear an expression, she would have to say she felt taunted, as if it were telling her today would be no different than the last several days, and no one would be cooperating with her.

She set her coffee aside and flipped the computer open, deciding to listen to the idiotic voicemail while she waited for it to find the WiFi and connect. The sound of Frank’s annoyed voice hit her ear and immediately made her stomach cramp.

“Rachael… it’s Frank. It’s, uh, 8:30, and I haven’t seen you yet this morning. Ebony said she thought you weren’t feeling well yesterday and that’s why we never spoke. I’m going to need you to go ahead and call me as soon as you get this ASAP. If you’re ill and need to take the day off, I understand, but I need to speak to you about the Stenzel account right away. Thanks, Rachael. Speak soon.

A wave of nausea washed over her as she stared at her phone, wishing it could do some explaining. “What the hell is wrong with him?” she asked aloud. “It’s like he thinks I still work there.

Shaking her head, Rachael set the phone aside, wondering if she should call human resources and suggest they send Frank for a CATscan. She opened her drive where she kept her story, hoping to just get into it, and froze. It was gone--all of it. The chapter she’d written the day before, the one from the day before that. In fact, all there was in her folder titled, “Silverwood Academy” were the notes she’d started making years ago, back when she first started working at Merek and Merek.

Frantically, Rachael searched her computer. Sure, all of her chapters were posted now, assuming Lark got yesterday’s update with no problem, but where the hell had her 2 million word story just vanished to? It didn’t make sense--none of it! Gulping in air, Rachael looked through all of her programs, all of her files, but it did her no good. It was as if the story she’d been writing for almost three years was just gone, and Silverwood Academy had never existed.

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