Unmasked by Hope Bolinger Read Free Book Online Page B

face.
    “All right, now for question 72 it was a short essay asking who you look up to most, for characters both fictional and real, and why, and you put down the Author. This question earned you points toward Fantasy, but the way you worded the question intrigued me…”
    She cleared her throat and began to read:
    “ I think that the Author is who I look up to most because he promised to always be there for me. He also promised to always come when I call on him, and most people cannot fulfill this promise all the time. I think that I can trust him more than anyone else, even at the camp.”
    The woman shot Noelle a dissolving expression of expectation for her to contradict that the writing wasn’t hers, but she made no argument.
    The lady clapped her hands together back and forth as if trying to formulate her next words carefully together.
    “Um – your answer was thoughtful, but the way you worded it. Well, it almost seems as if the Author is real.”
    “He is real,” Noelle answered simply.
    “Right, right,” she added quickly, “real to you, sweetheart, but is there anyone else a little more real to us who you look up to?”
    “The Author is who I look up to,” Noelle answered with a slight rage begin to fill her bones.
    After a moment’s silence the woman quickly scanned the packet for another question.
    “Well there were no other essays in the packet,” she continued. “So, I guess I’ll just ask you a couple more questions. Has anyone ever told you that they loved you – besides the Author, I mean?” she added quickly obviously knowing what Noelle would have said.
    Noelle heaved a laborious sigh before recounting her story with Blade the other night.
    “And do you love him?”
    “No, I despise him,” Noelle answered bitterly.
    “Why?” the woman asked slightly alarmed.
    “He says that he loved me, but he treated me like some sort of play thing,”
    The woman paused to choose her words carefully, once more.
    “Maybe it was love; you just don’t know it yet.”
    Noelle desperately wanted to explain to the interviewer that the Author truly loved her, and that ‘love’ didn’t make her feel like crap afterward, but the continued on her final question.
    “In each genre, we want for there to be minimal drama or tension between our members. Seeing that you and Blade are in the same category, I must ask this final question: If, in the story, you and Blade were to fall in love, would you make amends and cherish each other?”
    “No,” Noelle answered without even thinking. “I would rather be an Unwanted.”
    The words escaped her mouth, and immediately she wanted to pull them back.
    The lady shot her a terse glare before clearing her throat.
    “All right, well thank you dear, I think that’s all I needed. Go ahead and return to the rec. center and we’ll have your results in less than half an hour.”
    #
    She pressed her palm against the dark purple envelope. She didn’t want to know what awaited her inside but wished that she could have redone her interview and just lied for all the questions.
    “Might as well open it, Saint,” Blade urged. “Almost everyone has their results already.”
    A slight candle of despair arose in her throat burning her oxygen-starved lungs.
    She fumbled with the envelope as she tore it open and pulled out a half-sheet of white paper, and in the center it simply read:
    NAME : Noelle
    CHARACTERIZATION : Extra
     

Chapter Five – Unwanted
    Noelle’s heart concaved as it slowly wilted away. Like a rose, its shredded pieces drifted to the depths of her soul waiting to burn in a fire of despair. She glanced down at the letter once again to see if she somehow misread the font, but the letters cruelly bled into the paper.
    Five simple letters that could rip a soul apart with its icy grip. 
    E-X-T-R-A.
    Inevitably, the tears streamed in a rapid descent as she thoroughly tried to convince herself that she had fallen into a nightmare and that she would wake up