New Alternate Ending to Chapter Twenty

Posting this because I haven't posted anything in forever and I was working on it just right now. As for updates on stuff, I don't know when that'll happen again. The only thing I ever feel like working on is Better Than Revenge because it's familiar and sort of like a safe haven.

So anyways, here's this to entertain you all and stuff. Enjoy! =)

(I added a small part from Chapter 20 in case of confusion, but if you're still confused, just go back to the chapter.)

***

I ignored his jab and said, “Scared?”

“Of you? Don’t make me laugh.”

I knew he would deny it, but I also knew that it was undoubtedly true. He was scared, just like I’d been scared when he said he was going to get back at me. Despite our brave fronts, the fact that we were constantly in the spotlight made this a very dangerous game. If this lasted too long… our reputations could be shattered. And he and I both knew that very well. Yet neither of us was willing to back down, all out of pride.

“Oh, but you will be. This is war.”

“I thought this was already war,” he pointed out smugly.

“I did, too,” I admitted. “But now I see that I was wrong. That was nothing compared to this. What you did was unforgiveable and showed that there are no limits here. So now it’s on. Now it’s war.”

Feeling like that was a good moment to make my exit, I did just that. The last thing I heard before I slammed the door shut behind me was Blake saying, “Dude. You’re screwed.”

I took his spare key with me, assuming it might come in handy sometime in the future. It came in handy in the very, very near future. Part of my plan began to form in my head, and for it to work, I needed private photos of Christian. To get those, I would have to break in again and find his camera.

I ran through the side bushes until I got to the back of the mansion. The spare key didn’t work on the garage door, but it worked on the back door. I snuck in, tiptoeing out of fear of being discovered. It seemed silly to worry about being discovered after so blatantly breaking in before, but this time, I didn’t want Christian to know I was here.

The rest of his house was just as amazing as the part I’d seen before. There weren’t any lavish adornments, but frankly, I would have been surprised if there were. It was Christian-like this way.

After searching nine rooms to no avail, I had to admit something. I had no idea what I was doing. I was lost. This was place was just too big. It was like my first high school, and I’d spent the first few weeks getting utterly lost in that place.

To make matters worse, the tenth door I opened held something I hadn’t expected to find: a huge dog. I wasn’t scared of dogs, but I was kind of terrified of this thing.

It stared at me, half-growling and half-wondering if he should growl.

“Shh,” I whispered, holding up both my hands slowly. “It’s okay… nice doggy… I’m just here to steal your owner’s camera… that’s all… shh…”

It barked all of a sudden, scaring me out of my mind and making me jump. “Shh!” I whispered loudly. “Shut up!”

It walked towards me and I jumped back. “No, no, no reason to come closer,” I said quietly, shaking my head wildly. “Just gonna… run!” I sprinted past the dog, and in its confusion, it took a few steps forward and left the room. I slammed the door shut behind the dog, only realizing my mistake when I heard Christian’s voice. “What was that?”

“Shoot,” I muttered, slapping my forehead. Why had I slammed it shut?!

I heard footsteps on the stairs and cursed. Oh, God, he was coming in here. What was I going to do? How did you explain that? This was Christian’s room. How was I supposed to justify being in his room? Oh, hey, Christian. I was just hanging out in your room for fun, you know. Wanted to take a look at the scenery. Yeah, I broke in. Want a piece of gum? I have two left.

Well, I panicked. His voice was coming closer, and I felt like I had nowhere to go. His room was huge and I didn’t know where any of the doors led or what was behind them, and his bed wasn’t high enough off of the ground to crawl under. So I did the unthinkable. I climbed in his bed and hid under the covers, hoping I looked like a lump and not a person.

“Hey, boy,” Christian said from outside the room, talking to his dog, I assumed. “What was that? What happened? Come here, Bubba. Let’s see what’s in here.”

The door to his room slowly creaked open. “Hello? If there’s someone in here, can I just say that I have a gun and know how to use it?”

Oh, God. If he found me, I would get my brains blown out. This was such a sad way to go. There was so much I hadn’t done yet. I never even got to deny the STD rumors. I would be remembered as Christian Ryder’s infected costar.

The dog barked and I heard the pitter-patters on the floorboard as it ran closer to the bed. The dog sniffed at the covers, occasionally biting at them.

“Down, Bubba,” Christian commanded. “No, my bed is off-limits. You know girls hate it when my bed smells like dog!”

Please just leave… please, please, please, I pleaded internally. I swear I’ll never do anything this stupid ever again… please, please, please leave.

Christian opened all of the doors and closets before being reassured that there was no danger here. “Huh. Come on, Bubba. Let’s go downstairs. Blake’s there. A new leg to hump. Come on, boy.”

I wrinkled my nose. So he was one of those dogs. Suddenly I was glad it had seen me as more of a mild threat than something to hump.

Their footsteps retreated and the door was shut behind them as they left. I breathed a sigh of relief and sat up, throwing the covers off of me. When the thought of what had possibly gone on in these covers came to me, my eyes widened and I jumped off the bed, almost throwing up. “Oh, God, eww! Gross!”

I would have to take a two hour long shower after this. What if he hadn’t washed his sheets recently? The thought was sickening.

After that dawned on me and began to haunt me, I started searching his room so I could get out of there as quickly as possible. I flew through drawers and randomly placed objects to no avail, until I caught sight of Christian’s phone charging on top of a small table beside his bed.

“Bingo.” Better than a camera. Cell phones were used as cameras more often than actual cameras were.

Pocketing the phone, I jogged over to the door and slowly opened it. I poked my head out of the opening, looking both ways before making a break for it. I tried to run quietly, but I must have failed because just as I was about to exit through the back door, I heard a voice behind me. “Going somewhere?”

I stopped in my tracks and whirled around. “Christian! Hi.”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “Any reason in particular you’re here, Soph?”

I cringed at the nickname but answered him nevertheless. “No.”

“That was you in the bed, wasn’t it? That Bubba was sniffing at?”

I didn’t reply, not wanting to admit out loud that I’d willingly, in all my senses, climbed inside Christian Ryder’s bed.

He laughed and gave me a cocky look. “You know, if you really wanted to get in my bed so badly, you could have just asked or told me so. I’m an understanding guy. I’d have helped you out.”

I made a face and mockingly laughed. “Ha, you’re so funny.”

“Tell you what. I’ll let you go back and take a field trip to my room with me on one condition.”

“What condition?” I asked, obviously not planning on taking him up on his offer. I was, however, curious as to what he would say.

“Give up on this war and this’ll be yours for one night,” he promised, gesturing to himself.

My jaw clenched unwittingly. “No. I’ll see you tomorrow, Christian.”

I think he was actually surprised at my refusal. That would explain why he didn’t follow me.

Climbing the gate was much easier this time, probably because I didn’t have to worry about the man who was monitoring the gates. He already knew that I had snuck past him, and had no choice but to let me leave. It wasn’t like I was a danger, after all. I was just Christian’s crazy costar. My anger probably scared him off, as well. It definitely scared Tori when I got home. As soon as I got back, the first thing she asked me was what I was going to do.

I responded, “Nothing too bad. Don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t go overboard,” she warned. “I know he would deserve it, but think of your image! And his image, even!”

I just waved her words off and went to bed, my plot for revenge further developing. Normally, I would have found some more dirt on Christian and retaliated with that, but I couldn’t do that now that Christian had decided to play dirty. I would lose if I did. What Christian would imagine next would probably be much worse than the dirt I might manage to find on him. Instead, I decided to play the exact same game he was playing. He wanted to play dirty? I would play dirty right back. This was how my revenge came to mind. It was pretty clever, in my opinion, although something told me Christian wouldn’t wholeheartedly agree.

I got to work bright and early that next morning, waking up earlier than I needed to. I logged onto my computer and ate some breakfast while the photo editing program I had just bought downloaded.

When it was finished, I got started. I looked for a random picture of a cute guy on the internet. Once I found a suitable one, I photo-shopped it until it was absolutely unrecognizable to anyone who knew the random guy. It wasn’t too hard. Changing hair color, eye color, hairstyle, facial structure and muscle definition created a whole new person. No wonder models in magazines looked so perfect. Photoshop was a marvel.

I then took Christian’s phone out of the pocket of the pants I’d been wearing the day before. To my dismay, it was locked with a password. “Damn it. Now what?” How was I supposed to guess his password? This could take ages!

Tori walked by as I was pondering what his password might be. While she was doing this, she backtracked, walking up behind me. “What are you doing?” She glanced at me suspiciously.

“I’m working on a little project.”

“Would I approve?”

“No, you would not,” I acknowledged shamelessly, getting back to work. I would just have to try every possible four number combination to unlock his phone. That was only… 10,000 combinations.

This might take a while.

I started backwards, assuming he wasn’t stupid enough to use obvious things like 0001 or something. I was on 8568 when I had to leave to go to work. I saved my progress on the photo-shopped picture on my laptop and shut it down. I wanted to take the laptop with me to work on it during takes and on breaks, but it wouldn’t be safe. Besides, cracking this password was more important.

Christian came up to me the second I got to the set of Kidnap My Heart. “Where’s my phone?”

I feigned confusion. “Your phone?”

“Yes, my phone. I know you took it. Where is it?”

“I don’t have your phone,” I replied, furrowing my eyebrows. I was so convincing that I almost believed myself. “I have my own, Christian. I don’t need to take yours.”

“You broke into my house twice last night, and even broke into my room, where I left my phone charging. Doesn’t that sound a bit suspicious to you?”

“Maybe your dog ate it. That Bubba.” I clicked my tongue and shook my head.

“Whatever you want it for, let me just tell you now, it won’t be useful to you,” he proclaimed. “It’s locked. You’ll never crack the password.”

I didn’t say anything, just pursed my lips. “I need to get to my trailer to get ready. Bye.”

He didn’t confront me after this, and things were calm until some stupid intern made a comment about the STD rumor. I had already released a statement to the press through my manager, denying Christian’s accusation of being afflicted with any sort of STD. I hoped that would be enough, but I doubted it. Once it was out there, it was out there forever. I just hoped people would forget about it soon and that some people would be smart enough to realize it was a lie.

“I heard you have herpes,” the intern had haughtily said to me.

“I heard you’ve never even had the opportunity to have it since you have yet to get laid.”

He didn’t say anything after this.

Every spare moment I had was spent trying to crack the code, but it was futile. There were too many combinations, and I couldn’t successfully keep track of which ones I’d already done.

I cursed violently while sitting my car, typing in password after password in the phone. It was no use! There was just no way. I was only on 7867 and I did not have the patience for this. “With my luck, it’d be the most obvious thing in the world,” I muttered darkly to myself, absentmindedly typing in 0000.

To my absolute shock, the phone unlocked. Of course. Of course it would be the most obvious thing in the world. Christian was so stupid, he was clever by default. I was frustrated that I’d spent the entire day trying to crack the easiest puzzle in the world, but it paid off in the end when I put the phone to use. I found just what I was looking for, and a little more. I could have settled for just one racy picture, but no. Christian was a documenter.

This ended up benefitting me, something that was very lucid to me as I admired the finished product I’d pulled an all-nighter on. “Oh, the press is going to love this. I can see the headlines now: Anonymous Source Sends Shocking Picture In. Does Christian Ryder Have a Boyfriend? How scandalous.” With one last evil giggle, I hit “send”, looking forward to tomorrow and the consequences this would bring.