Dark Angel 03: Broken Dream by Eden Maguire Read Free Book Online Page A

the set of his jaw. We saw him tense up as Jack Kane’s character walked through the door and began to make his way between the café tables. The camera caught Jack’s back view – black-shirted, broad-shouldered.
    ‘Jack or Charlie?’ I whispered to Orlando. ‘What’s your guess?’
    Orlando shrugged. Who knows?
    Rocky stood up from his flimsy chair, full of menace. Jack/Charlie swayed and lurched against a table as he walked forward.
    ‘Jack,’ I muttered.
    Cut!’ the director barked and prepared everyone for take two.

    After thirteen takes of Jack stumbling into things and fumbling for his gun, Orlando and I went back to find Gwen.
    ‘You’re leaving already!’ she exclaimed, pouting as she glanced up from a magazine.
    ‘It’s four thirty,’ Orlando pointed out.
    ‘You’re right. They’ll soon have to quit – not enough daylight. How did Jack do?’
    We both grimaced but said nothing.
    ‘So thanks,’ I told her, quickly moving on. ‘And please thank Charlie when you see him.’ It had been a fascinating afternoon. A few dreams had been shattered and I’d learned a lot, but on the whole neither Orlando nor I was sorry to be leaving.
    Gwen put down her magazine, zipped up her jacket and put on her suede hat to walk with us down the row of trailers. She’d been right – the light was fading and it was growing colder. ‘Come again tomorrow?’ she enquired brightly, aiming the question at Orlando rather than me.
    I tried not to bristle and say thanks, but no thanks.
    ‘Tomorrow’s Saturday, right?’ Orlando checked.
    ‘Yeah. We work twenty-four–seven until we get what we need.’
    ‘So Tania has a workshop.’
    Gwen dipped into her pocket and drew out two familiar-looking pieces of card – more crew passes, dated for the next day. She had her back to me so I had to imagine the bright smile to match her light, childlike voice. ‘Which means you have time on your hands,’ she told Orlando. ‘Here, take these, why don’t you?’
    She said goodbye and turned back to the trailers before he had time to reply. We went on by the side of the lake until we reached the striped tape. ‘Did you see that?’ I exclaimed. By now I was bristling unashamedly.
    ‘See what?’
    ‘Gwen came on to you,’ I complained. ‘With me standing right there beside you.’
    ‘No way,’ he argued. He nodded thanks at the guy who let us through the tape then led the way through the crowd of hopeful spectators. ‘Why would she come on to me?’
    ‘Doh!’ Because you’re easily as good-looking as any guy on that movie set, I thought. And maybe Gwen likes your type – someone who keeps in the background, without the huge ego she’s gotten used to dealing with in every actor she ever worked with. And your eyes – you just have to look at a girl and her knees turn to jelly. Orlando didn’t know the power he had. I thought these things but kept them to myself in case he accused me of acting like a jealous bitch.
    ‘Where do you want to eat?’ he asked. ‘Here or back in TriBeCa?
    ‘I don’t care,’ I said. He seemed to have forgotten all about my carousel phobia and was walking towards the south gate. I was sore that he’d cut off any discussion about Gwen.
    Music played, lights winked, the painted horses went round and round. I shuddered as I relived the moment of my mugging.
    ‘Let’s ride the subway to Hubert Street,’ Orlando decided.
    He knows but had ignored the fact that subways freak me out.

    I don’t like being below ground.
    A million people ride the subways of New York without even thinking – more than a million; who knows how many each and every day. They read their ebooks and newspapers, step on and off without any of the knotted-up anxiety I feel about taking the right train and getting off at the correct stop. I don’t like being rammed in, shoulder to shoulder with a thousand office and shop workers, staring into their armpits and breathing their stale air. As Natalia said back