Free The Position 3 by Izzy Mason

complete.  
    As I pedal past the design and dev shops with their charming red brick facades, I become vaguely aware of a car tailing along behind me. I glance over my shoulder. It’s a black town car with tinted windows. Even the windshield is tinted, which I thought was illegal. Whoever is inside is completely obscured.  
    I make a right, even though it’s not the way home. My heart leaps into my throat as the car turns right as well. I begin to zigzag up and down streets at random, choosing the most unlikely routes, but sticking to increasingly busy streets, just in case. The town car follows me. At last I turn onto Colfax, which is jammed with traffic. I weave in and out of the lanes, passing all the cars. I chance a look behind me. The town car is stuck a half block back, totally locked into the traffic.  
    I take advantage of the opportunity and haul ass. I cruise through a red light, nearly getting myself killed, duck into alleys, and speed down the last street until I reach my apartment. Without even stopping I leap off my bike and throw it over my shoulder. I unlock the downstairs door and dash inside.  
    When I turn around a look through the glass doors, the street is empty. I race up the stairs until I’m inside my apartment. And I flip and chain every lock.  

Chapter Fourteen

    Devon picks me up to take me to the television studio just before three o’clock. I try to act as normal as possible, even though I’m feeling paranoid as hell. My eyes can’t stop flicking back and forth out the window and checking mirrors. Is somebody following us? Will the town car be back? Did I really manage to lose them in traffic? Do they already know where I live?
    But I don’t say anything to Devon about it. There’s a niggling fear inside me that I imagined the whole thing. When my mom was in her early twenties, she first starting showing signs of mental illness. Whatever it was, she never fully accepted it. She’d go off on bouts of insane paranoia and irrational rage. Of course, she didn’t see the purpose of any medication, outside of booze, of course. And believe me, that didn’t help a friggin’ thing.  
    More than anything else, I fear going insane like her. Mom’s delusions and episodes come and go, and could probably be managed by medication.   Still, I don’t want to turn into her. And now all I can think is that I imagined the whole car chase. That it’s starting. Just when things are finally coming together for me, my sanity is beginning to slip away.
    “Nervous?” Devon glances over at me, smiling warmly. “You’re pretty quiet.”  
    I nod and return her smile. “I guess. I’ve never been on TV before.”  
    “You’re the perfect face for our film right now,” she assures. “Young, beautiful, hip, confident. You’re feeling confident, aren’t you? Because you should. Your idea is aces, the project is going to be amazing, and your presentation was charming enough to convince a movie star.”  
    I roll my eyes. “Don’t remind me.”  
    She laughs. “Just remember, you earned it. You belong in that interview chair.”  
    The studio is a lot smaller than I expected. Beyond the waiting room is a news set and a weatherman platform, and a back area behind a series of thick glass windows where a crew mans the controls. It isn’t time for the live local news for a couple of hours still, so the receptionist leads me in to a part of the set that is just two chairs in front of a dark backdrop.
    “You’re kinda shiny,” she squeaks in a little girl voice. “Let me get you some powder.”  
    I sit tensely in the chair and cross my legs. First one way. Then the other. Neither feels natural or right. And my face starts to twitch self-consciously. All of my gawky, geek-girl habits seem to be creeping back. What am I doing here? I’m a strictly behind the camera kind of girl.  
    The receptionist returns with an oversized poof that she uses to tamp down the shine with powder. She cocks