Lights, Camera, Action!

Chapter 14: Finances

Yippee! Lights, camera action has reached over 100 reads! Thank you to all of the readers who have read and continued to read this story. It means a lot and I hope you're all enjoying it. We are on the penultimate chapter before Part 2 which is good. But for now, on with the story!

Beauty Rose was nervous but she never showed it to anyone. Any emotion was never shown in full, only a fragment of what she was truly feeling. A hint of her fury to terrify people into submission or a stroke of affection towards her daughter. She would do anything for Amy and what she did do was for her. Beauty would not allow the only rose without thorns to make the same mistakes she had. Some mistakes were irreversible and she'd learnt that the very hard way.

Cold, distant, powerful, cruel. Defence methods to stop that happening again. Beauty refused to be make a fool of twice. People got hurt when that happened. Badly. Plus, more often than not it was her that became the most damaged. Amy would not be on that list, no, Beauty wouldn't let that ever happen again. A searing burn raced through her heart and guilt clamped around it. She wouldn't never forget that terrible moment when a great fear and hate fueled her blood and Beauty realised how terrible and dangerous she could be. Amy didn't deserve her as a Mother, no one did.

Sarah and Petal helped to run the company though. The three women all had unique and similar skills that complimented each other well and allowed the trio to work in harmony together. Sarah was kind and gentle, she didn't judge people and diligently got on with any tasks required. She provided a calm peace in the otherwise raging storms both killer women were comfortable with. Petal had a more perfected and certain finesse to her work that put people in line. She could read them like an open book and they wouldn't even know. Her skills with a blade were legendary and ten years ago or so, people whispered her name in fear of bringing her terror onto them. Beauty had an elegance and knowledge of the upper classes in society to mingle with them. She understood consequences and would do anything to get to get goal. Whereas Petal had certain rules as to who she kills: No infants, toddlers, young children, elderly or already dying, Beauty had none of those rules. She was an unrestricted monster who would kill anyone and anything who got in her way. From this respect, one could see where Beauty had trained Honey in becoming the assassin she is today.

Oh, but you don't call her that word. The M word. The noun that set her on this dark and twisty path many moons ago. That's a death sentence. You barely even think it, but you can. 'Oh wow, that Beauty Rose is a complete and utter monster.' Everyone would agree with you, but you would never admit to thinking that. Never. Don't even whisper it to your best friend in the dead of night. For she will know, she will know and she will hunt you down. Make you and all your loved ones pay fir such an insult. Your torture would worse than death and you'd wish you were in Hell. But she would never grant you such a mercy and heaven forbid you ever spoke his name. The one that started it all, that would only be a surefire way to join him.

Shift Blossom. A rather gentle name in reading, if you heard it you wouldn't think of a bad person. And you'd be right because Shift was not a bad man. He was a man who slept with a lot of people with no proper compassion for them, but a man who would give his life fiercely protecting his family and friends. As a boy, he was the same but didn't sleep with people. His sister meant the world to him and when you day a kind girl of her age rescused her from ruin, Shift showered her with gifts and praise. These two girls became the most important people in the world to him, much to the annoyance of the other girl's older sister. Star Rose. A woman who was darker in heart than her sister. Someone who would do anything to get what she wanted... And she wanted power. Power her sister would inherit. So Star made some choices, that had consequences, that are still present today.

None of the three women ever spoke of them but that's not to say they don't miss them. Sarah always feels bitter knowing her brother never got to meet her husband or kids in person. Sarah and Beauty still lick their wounds of a broken heart, affecting the relationships they have with their children. If someone ever asked Amy: "Who is your Father?" She would reply: "I have no Father." Beauty was the only parent she had and in her eyes the only one that she would ever need.

The young artist actually had no disliking of Shift and sometimes curiously asked the women what he was like. Around the time of Beauty's worse breakdown, the CEO had come to realise that her daughter had been using what she'd learnt Shift had done, adapted it and was using it on her. Beauty knew it would work but it was weird to see the similarities between them. It was at these moments that her mother would miss him greatly and sometimes wonder if his death was completely unavoidable as she'd believed all those years ago.

Honey on the hand, couldn't hate Shift enough. While Beauty talked gently about Shift in a general sense to her daughter and Sarah spoke in detail about her brother's flaws so Sonic and Shadow wouldn't make the same mistakes, Petal gave her three children a completely unbiased view. Twig, his son, came to love his father even though he wasn't with them and her younger sister didn't really understand what he'd done but didn't groan or glare at any mention of him. Honey took his bad points to heart, for he was not her dad. All the poison that runinrd her first home came completely from his side so she hated half of Twig. She had a slight argument for that but Petal always disputed it. She always hoped that one day her children and herself could reconcile and become whole again.

Yet while everyone has dreams, reality is still a very real thing. Beauty had been lacking in ideas of her own and let other directors take on projects she would've been great at. As a result, they'd gotten bad reviews and the money that had once flowed through the doors now struggled to even be called a trickle. They needed money that they were desperately running out of. Even though she despised asking for help, Beauty took out a loan and asked the council for some funding. They told her that they would cover whatever the cost of one final project, if it succeeded then she was fine. If it failed, they would shut her down and turn the site into a water park.

After they had given her this ultimatum, Beauty had been furious. The next day, a junior member of the council was found dead with no proof as to who was responsible. While the prospect of having all expenses paid for is nice, Beauty had to make it worth it. She couldn't let this job fail, it was her last chance at a happily ever after as a normal person. She would succeed, even if they all died trying.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, I'm sorry it's a day late but I had the majority of this chapter written on Sunday night but then it got deleted. Nevertheless, it is up now. I think how the three women think of Shift and the pressure rising on Bloodshed is interesting. I'll update again tomorrow bye, bye.