The Classix

(OLD) Chapter 22

Note: I'm so so sorry for missing Friday!! I'm gonna make it up to you, I promise. It's 2:58 AM where I am right now. Soooooo.

PREVIOUSLY ON THE CLASSIX: The Famoux members moved to their new house. Cartney showed up. And now, what else would they be doing other than getting coffee and filling pages with meaningless dialogue!?

emeray

In all my times leaving the Metropolix, Norax has never once been as fixed on my whereabouts as she is today. In a place as big as the our new house, slipping out for a while without anyone noticing wouldn't be a difficult task at all for somebody with a low profile. I can picture Emilee Parvenu in a house that big––there are so many hiding places that my family could assume me to be in different rooms for hours without actually knowing where I was. If it wasn't for the ever constant broadcasting of my whereabouts from the press, there's a good chance Norax might not have noticed my absence at all.

    But of course, Cartney and I are not low profile people. Our entrance today at Wes Tegg's caused a global uproar. There was a calamity of shouting and cameras, and a booming applause broke out from everybody––employees and patrons alike. It went on for so long that Cartney felt inclined to bow.

    Normally, Norax has never been the kind of manager to worry about what we're doing, since she can usually keep up with it by the minute on a gossip site. I remember when Foster was once able to slip out for a few days to establish a public relationship with Marilyn Majo. Norax didn't have a fit once. And yet, within the mere hour we've been out of the Hideaway I've had to ask Angad to decline five separate, very terse-sounding phone calls, all from her.

    Apparently our the Hideaway, unlike the Metropolix, has rules––the first being that all Classix members need permission from Norax before leaving the premises.

    "Norax wants me to stress to you that this rule is a safety precaution," said Angad on the ride to Cartney's studio. "Only a safety precaution––not a needless effort to oppress your freedom."

    Either way, any unannounced departure is, as he tells me, punishable. Punishable by what, exactly, I'll find out about when I get back.

    "Emeray, she is getting very irritated with you." Angad holds up the device in his hands, his face delirious. We barely made it two steps into Cartney's studio with our coffees before his loud, special-alert phone started ringing once again with vigor. "This is an intense breach of the rules on the first day they've been issued. We don't even have the extra two guards she's assigned us!"

    "But I'm just going to listen to some of Cartney's new material," I fib. "We don't need three guards stationed around me for that."

    "In the words of the new rulebook, it's always when you think you don't need them that you need them the most."

    I give him a look. "She's never been bothered by me perpetuating this relationship before."

    "Sure, but seems really especially bothered about it now. I'm starting to think my job is on the line." He stares down at his phone as the last ring cuts off short. "Emeray, you got your coffee. We should really consider going back to the Hideaway now."

    "We just got here," Cartney says. "Why don't you tell Norax we'll get her favorite daughter back to that pretty little castle in one hour, tops."

    The Famoux members have been referred to as Norax's children plenty of times, but a bad taste forms my mouth when he says it now. The insinuation of being siblings with Carstan makes me feel sick to my stomach.