Generation Next (20 page)

Then her voice lowered to almost a whisper. “Listen, Jack, while your dad's popped to the kitchen, I need to tell you something, something very important.”

“I'm listening, Mum.”

“Whatever's happening here, with me, you have to carry on with your life,” she said. “You've done amazing things over these last few months and you've
got
to keep on; work harder than ever and be the absolute best you can be, do you understand me? That's really, really important.”

“I . . . I think so,” I said.

“Good,” Mum said, with a smile in her voice. “I don't need to be worrying about you as well as me, do I?”

“I suppose not,” I said.

Before we hung up, I told her I loved her and that I'd see her in just a couple of days. After that, I sat in the darkness wondering how the hell I was even going to get through the next couple of days. I was completely gutted: hollow and heartbroken. How could this be happening to my mum? I just couldn't get my head around it. Everything else that had happened that day—the Herald offer, the fight with Austin, Ava and Sai—suddenly seemed so trivial and stupid.

What seemed even more stupid was the fact that I hadn't had the guts to call Ella and tell her any of this: about Mum, about my real feelings for her. That was going to have to change. To use that ridiculous TV expression, I was going to have to man up. I had to call
Ella, hear her voice, speak to her. I had to tell her how I felt about her, because life was too bloody precious not to. And I
would
call her. Just as soon as the interview with Harriet was out of the way and I could think straight, that was exactly what I was going to do.

The following morning—you know, the one at the start of the most important day of my life so far—well, I wasn't feeling too great. You can understand that, right, after the news I'd had. The thing is, no matter how hard I tried to concentrate on all the positive stuff that Mum had told me during our phone conversation, my mind just kept tripping over into the negative, the sad, and the downright terrifying. So once I was up and out of bed—and that took a while—I just sort of blundered around like a trapped moth: banging first into the bathroom door and then the wardrobe door and then treading on all my crap, which was strewn about the room as I tried to pack, ready to move hotels. In the end, a cup of strong coffee followed by a long, hot shower helped bring the world into focus a little, while the chirpy buzz of
Good Morning America
in the background distracted me from my dark thoughts long enough for me to get my act together.
I just needed to get today done and dusted and then I could get home to Mum, to my family, where I belonged right now.

Finally packed and still swathed in a complimentary fluffy white bathrobe and slippers, I grabbed my phone to call AJ and find out the schedule for the day and what time we were leaving for The Four Seasons. That was when I spotted the text message; it must have come in while I was in the shower.

WTF? No contact details, and the number was a complete mystery, but surely it could only be from Herald Media, right? I mean, what other offer was there to reconsider?

As I was staring down at my phone, trying to fathom out what the message even meant and why on earth Angela Linford or Tyler would embarrass themselves by sending me such a random text, it buzzed with life again. Another message—same number.

This time the message was immediately followed by a photo of a girl and a guy—actually it looked more like
a screen grab than a photo. The girl was on a bed, half naked, and the guy was . . . Hang on . . . I widened the photo with my fingers, enlarging it as much as I could, my heart thumping in my chest. It was a bit blurry and the guy had his back to the camera, but . . . the blonde hair, the nose ring . . . I couldn't be one hundred percent certain, but the girl looked like . . . like Ella. Exactly like her. But how? How the hell would Herald even have such a photo? Was this a joke? Had some hideous Internet troll photo-shopped Ella into some tacky porno shot?

I stood there, my wet hair dripping on to my iPhone screen, trying to piece together a jigsaw of haphazard information in my head. Then another message arrived with another screen grab, this one more explicit than the last but the face, the features, much clearer. It
was
Ella. It was her. What the hell was going on?

My mind was all over the place, and I seriously expected to wake up at any second. What was this anyway—some kind of James Bond, Bourne trilogy blackmail crap? Was I actually supposed to take it seriously? I mean, how was it even possible that Herald could have got hold of a video of Ella in that kind of situation? Surely she couldn't have known there was a camera—no,
of course she didn't. I wanted to throw up, the whole thing was so sick and revolting.

I glanced back down at my phone, my heart rate going up a notch—as if that was even possible—as I looked again at the guy in the screen grab. It was just the back of his head in one shot and a shadowed profile in the next, but could that be him? Could that be Hunter? Oh. My. God. Jack, you idiot! Of course it could be . . . of course it
was
.

Within a few seconds, I'd thrown my phone down on the bed and was hunched over the desk in one corner of the room, hammering the keys of my laptop, filled with adrenalin and dread as the penny finally began to drop. OK, Google—
Herald Media, location
 . . . no; IMDB . . . no; Facebook . . . no;
shows produced by
,
website
,
career opportunities
 . . . no, no, this wasn't it. Come on, there had to be something. OK, try again. Google—
Herald Media staff
,
Herald Media CEO
 . . . Images, yes, that was what I needed, images. I scrolled through a few dozen images of logos and screen shots of TV shows I hoped never to see before I finally double-clicked on what I was looking for: a handful of photos from some low-rent awards ceremony—definitely not the Golden Globes: “The Herald Media team toasting their success in the Most Popular Daytime Quiz Show category.” And there they were, staring up at me, champagne flutes raised and cheesy grins from here to Mars: Angela Linford, Tyler Masterson, and standing next to
them, “founder and owner of Herald Media, Callum Connor.”

I jumped up from the desk, knocking the chair over and laughing out loud like a maniac—mostly at myself. So this was what Hunter meant when he warned me there was much worse to come. And how stupid had I been not to figure out that Callum's company
was
Herald Media—or at least that there was a connection? Sure, it had seemed a little weird that GenNext got one big offer right after the other, but I had no idea Callum's company was anything like the huge corporation that Herald had turned out to be. I wasn't sure if everything suddenly made sense or if I was just losing it. I wanted to kick myself for not checking all this stuff out before the meeting—but that ship had well and truly sailed. The only thing that mattered was what I did next and how I retaliated. OK, I needed to send a return message, right? Tell them I knew who was behind the video and that I wasn't going to give in to their blackmail. Or should I ignore it? Was it just a bluff, an idle threat? I also needed to warn Ella that all this was happening, but how I was supposed to deliver
that
piece of news was completely beyond me. Oh God, somebody tell me what to do, please!

There was no time to think. Before I could make any sort of a move, AJ was hammering on the door of my room and angrily reminding me that I was supposed to have been downstairs in the lobby twenty minutes ago.
I threw my laptop into my bag, grabbed my case and opened the door, heart still thumping.

The second AJ saw me, his face dropped. “Jack, what's wrong? You look bloody awful.”

I opened my mouth to blurt out everything: Callum, the video of Ella, the blackmail, my mum, but something stopped me in my tracks. Call it instinct, call it a gut reaction, but something caused my mouth to shut like a trap.

“What is it, Jack?” AJ said again.

“It's . . . it's nothing. I'm just not feeling very well. I think I might have a bit of food poisoning,” I lied.

AJ's face softened. “Oh, Jack, sorry to hear that. Are you going to be OK?” He put his hand on my shoulder, squeezing it firmly, and for a second I thought I might actually cry. There was just too much to think about; too much information to process, and I was trying to do it all on my own.

“Yeah, I'll be fine,” I said, attempting a smile. “Let's go.”

As I followed AJ along the hall toward the elevator, I wondered if I could do a runner. Maybe I could just jump in an Uber and head back to Venice Beach; sit there in the gorgeous sunshine looking at the sea until I made sense of everything and could decide exactly what to do. There was no chance of that, though. Before I knew it, a porter had taken my bags off me and AJ had hurried me out of the hotel's front door. Almost immediately, a car pulled up in front of me—a blacked-out SUV, no
less—and within thirty seconds I was in the back with Austin and AJ, pulling out of the hotel driveway and heading for The Four Seasons Hotel . . .

Oh . . . and I guess that's where you came in.

So there you have it. You're bang up to date with everything—right up to the minute. I'm perched on a stool next to Austin with a camera in my face and an audience of potential millions watching, and I've just announced to the world that my shoelace is undone. Nice. Austin is staring over at me, the denim-shirted host is staring at me—I don't even know his name—in fact the whole audience is staring at me, clearly waiting for something to happen. You can see now why I might be all over the place, right? This is a life-changing moment, a career highlight involving a massive pop star, yet I'm engulfed in a stinking quicksand of takeover bids, sex tapes and blackmail. Yeah, that. It's not the kind of thing a seventeen-year-old would normally be dealing with, is it? All I can think about is what the hell I'm going to do to stop everything tumbling down around my ears—and
more importantly, wondering how I'm to save Ella. Any ideas?

Just as her name flashes through my mind, so do the images on the video I received five minutes ago. The video followed the threatening phone call, just as we were on our way to do the interview, which followed the mysterious text messages earlier that morning. They were all from the same, blocked number. Callum and Herald Media have a video of Ella in a compromising position with Hunter, except that he's been mostly cropped out of the video so the focus is all on her. I'm finding it hard to get my head around the idea that even an idiot like Hunter would stoop so low and do something so vile to somebody he was going out with just a few weeks back, but there's no doubt. It was Hunter's voice I heard on the phone a few moments ago, threatening to release the video—I'm sure of it. And after the incident with me at his party, I have absolutely no doubt that he's prepared to do it. It's pathetic, really. The video isn't even that bad, nothing you'd call hardcore. It's enough, though. Enough to destroy Ella and maybe ruin her chances of building a career on what she started with GenNext.

“Jack? Jack, do you need a drink of water?” Austin says, leaning sideways on the stool and shaking me out of my trance.

I've been staring down at my untied shoelace while poor Austin tries to hold it all together, chatting to the
guy in the denim shirt and answering questions from the audience as best he can. When I finally look up, it's clear that all eyes in the room are on me. Most of the audience are wearing frowns and speaking in hushed tones, like “Who's the nutter?” and “What drugs is that dude on?”

Eventually I look over at Austin. “No, I don't want any water. I'm cool, seriously.” Only I'm not cool. I'm not cool at all. The guy in the denim shirt, who's been doing his best to get a word out of me for the past few minutes, looks vaguely panicky and glances over at Duke for guidance. Duke, meanwhile, is waving his arms about like an out-of-control helicopter. I can't be certain but I think the essence of what he is trying to convey is let's-wrap-this-crap-the-hell-up-and-get-to-the-main-event-fast. I look back over at the red light on the camera, which is now blinking, and I'm not sure if that means that it's off or that I'm still being beamed around the world looking like a total nut-job.

Denim Shirt is talking again, only now he's really animated.

“Folks, it's finally time for the main event of the evening. Please welcome our special guest, Harriet Rushworth!”

As the room erupts in cheering and applause, I look down to find AJ right in front of the stage, looking like he's lost his mind and is about to kill someone. Actually, not someone . . . me.

“What's wrong with you?” he hisses, but all I can do is shrug my shoulders and shake my head, wiping the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand as Harriet appears, striding regally through the parting crowd and stepping up on to the stage. Austin is looking at me like his life depends on it, but as hard as I try, I cannot for the life of me remember what I'm supposed to be asking Harriet, or what we're even doing here. I mean, this isn't what GenNext is about, is it? Sitting on stools and interviewing people like Graham Bloody Norton or Jonathan Ross. Surely we should be doing this on a roller coaster or something. That's what we do, right? My mind is wandering wildly, and I can see Denim Shirt's lips moving as Harriet sits down opposite me, but the only sound I can hear is my own heart, thumping in my ears. It occurs to me that I haven't taken a breath for several seconds, and suddenly I feel like I'm gasping for air. Is this what a panic attack feels like? Am I going to faint in front of half the world's teenagers?

Harriet gives the crowd a little wave and settles down, ready for the interview.

“It's so good to be here. Thank y'all for coming out today.”

The audience gives another cheer, and now it's over to us. Duke waves madly at me to start, and I sit up and clear my throat, trying to push the rising feeling of panic back down, but it's not working.

“Hi. Hi, I, er . . . I . . .”

Harriet clearly senses that all is not well—maybe she thinks I've got stage fright or something—and she jumps in to fill the void like the professional she is.

“So, Jack, I'm thrilled to be here with you GenNext boys.” She smiles that wonderful smile, but her eyes are flashing panic. “I hope you're not going to ask me anything too embarrassing; I know how you boys operate.”

I stare her dead in the eye for a moment and finally I manage to speak. “How . . . how was the ice cream?”

“I'm sorry?” Harriet looks at Austin, then at Denim Shirt and then at the audience.

“You know, when you took your dress off the other night; the Caramel Chew Chew, remember?”

Yeah, I'm totally babbling, I know, but by now my mind is sludge. It's pretty much all over for me up there. Apart from the nervous giggling from the audience, I can see the glimmer of a hundred smartphones as people try to capture the moment.

Austin jumps in with a desperate question. “We were going to ask you about the new video, right, Jack? The video?”

The video, the video. All I can think about is the video I saw less than ten minutes ago, that horrible video of Ella, and then I think about what it will do to her, and I know I have to do something right then and there . . . I just have to . . .

Before I realize what's happening, I'm jumping off my stool and stepping down off the stage.

“I'm sorry, I have to go.” There's a squeal of feedback as I crash into a nearby microphone, knocking it flying. “Sorry, sorry, I have to get out of here.”

AJ grabs me as I climb down off the stage, frogmarching me through the audience and into a small room off to the side. Once the door is closed behind us, he lets rip, but I can't really hear what he's yelling because I'm too busy concentrating on trying to breathe; to slow my heart rate down. We're quickly joined by Duke, who's accompanying a beetroot-faced Austin, and I can hear one of Harriet's tracks blaring out of the speakers in the main room.

“You guys just wait here,” Duke says icily. “We're going to reset and get
our
guy to do the interview.
He's
a professional.”

I find a chair and sit down, finally managing to catch my breath.

“Can I get some water, please?”

“J, what the hell happened out there?” Austin says, waving his arms in front of my face. “You were totally fine up in the room earlier and then you just fell apart. God, you were going on about Harriet taking her dress off, and Caramel Chew Chew, whatever the hell that is—you sounded insane. What's going on?”

“Is it the food poisoning—are you feeling ill?” AJ says, sounding more concerned than angry now.

Austin looks both furious and confused. “What food poisoning?”

“It's not that,” I said. “It's, it's . . . Oh, I don't know anymore . . . Can you just leave me alone for a minute, please?”

I can't tell them. I just can't. This situation . . . this blackmail is something I have to deal with in my own way—that's all there is to it.

When the door to the small room opens again, Harriet stalks in looking utterly bemused.

“What the hell happened out there, boys?”

“We're really very sorry, Ms. Rushworth,” AJ says. “Jack isn't feeling too well.”

“Well I'm sorry too, but he shouldn't have gotten up there if he wasn't up to it,” Harriet says. Then she looks over at Austin and me, her eyes full of disappointment. “You blew it, boys. I gave you a big opportunity and you totally screwed it up. We all looked like idiots up there and now I'm going to have to go fix it—thanks a bunch, GenNext.”

I want to tell her that it's OK now, that I can get back up there and do it. I want to tell her I'm all right, but that's just not the case. I feel like something very scary is happening to me and all I want to do is get to my room and crawl into bed.

The door opens again and a very stressed-out Millie pops her head around it.

“They need you back on, Harriet. We're going again in less than five—we can't afford to lose the live audience.”

Harriet takes a couple of deep breaths and looks me in the eye, her face softening.

“You're a nice kid, Jack, you're just out of your depth.”

I watch her disappear through the door, back out into the main room, and then I stand, slightly wobbly for a moment, and head back to my room. I don't look back but I assume Austin and AJ are following, silently. I guess there's really nothing more to say.