It’s My Mistake – Chapter 2

If you’re new to the story, please read chapter 1 here.

~~~

“Alice!” my startlingly beautiful, long blonde haired friend gasped in shock. Her gorgeous blue eyes twinkled at me, her mouth slightly ajar in surprised after I told her the train-wreck of an interivew I had yesterday. “You did what?”

“I know! After all that, I told the woman outside to fuck off too,” I said, before burying my face in my hands and groaned.

Olivia and I were sat in a café round the corner to where she worked. I decided to meet up with her before her shift started and I had explained what had happened with the interview from start to end in surprising vivid detail. Well, leaving out a few details; like the handsome man that was behind the table. That was something Olivia would have wanted to know more about rather than the interview itself. She had a bit of an obsession with men.

I liked Olivia, she was the closest thing I had to a best friend. She was originally my roommate for a few months after I moved to the city. She had a small spare room for rent, and luckily she had it up for quite cheap too. We hit it off quite quickly, which I was extremely surprised about. She was a beautiful blonde girl, only a year younger than I was, and was extremely outgoing. I was the complete opposite, but she was surprisingly easy to get along with. Our little arrangement only lasted a few months though, I had found out she was actually renting the apartment herself and wasn’t actually allowed to rent out the other bedroom. The landlord had kicked us both out and we had to go our separate ways. But our strange friendship lasted.

“That’s amazing! At least you fucked it up in style!” she giggle hysterically.

“It’s useless! I’m never going to get a job in a hotel! Maybe I am better off going back to care?”

“Don’t be silly, there are still loads of hotels out there, or maybe you’re better off starting somewhere smaller? Like a hostel or something?” she said, touching my hand in sympathy. “Just don’t yell at the interview panel and tell people to fuck off!” she suddenly smiled.

I groaned again. I realised after having a good long think about what I had done—the whole Miss/Mrs mistake—there was still chance to salvage the interview; just laugh it off as an administration error. But no, instead I decided to yell at people and storm out like a spoilt brat.

Plus, to make matters worse; I really wanted that particular job. Yeah, the role was just entry level, probably only filing and paper pushing. But the company was supposed to be a really good company to work for. I heard rumours that people who started at the company would be well looked after and they really helped you progress. I had dreams of going far in the company. I needed to go far in the company. I needed to prove myself. It was also a social enterprise too, so it helps the community, something that had caught my attention in particular. Global Elite, the company was called. That hotel was just one of two in London, and one of, probably lots around the world. I had done a bit of research, hoping my knowledge of the company and its history might have won me some brownie points. Not that I even got that far.

Olivia open her mouth—probably about to comfort me in her usual sarcastic way—but closed it when my mobile phone rang loudly next to me. I stared at the caller ID but I didn’t recognise the number. It wasn’t a saved contact, so I didn’t rush to answer it. Besides, I had a feeling I knew who it was.

“Aren’t you going to answer it?” Olivia asked, her well-manicured eyebrow rose at my curiously.

“No, it’s probably Simon,” I replied, still staring at the mobile as it danced and sang at me.

“I thought you like Simon?”

Simon was my ex. Well, he was and he wasn’t. We didn’t officially break up. I just walked out on him a while back and stopped talking to him. I guess that consitutes as an ex. We weren’t together for long anyway. Either way I didn’t tell Olivia the whole story. In fact, I didn’t really tell her anything. She didn’t even know I had stopped seeing him. She didn’t exactly ask.

“I did.”

She watched me silently for a few seconds as if trying to digest a hidden meaning in those two words. “Then what’s the problem?”

I sighed. “I’ve stopped seeing him,” I explained, and Olivia’s eyebrows rose together this time. “He came across… desperate,” I continued, when Olivia didn’t say anything.

Olivia burst out laughing. “Maybe he was just horny and wanted to get in your knickers?”

I gave her a look, which was supposed to be a don’t-be-so-gross look, but she clearly read it wrong. I hated the word ‘horny’ and Olivia knew it.

“Wait!” She gasped. “Did you two—”

“No!” I snapped. “I didn’t sleep with him!”

I had told Olivia that I wanted to wait, at least until I knew that he and I would go far in a relationship. Plus, I was a little shy in that department. Unlike Olivia, I wasn’t so confident. But I guess it was a while since I last spoke to Olivia about Simon. Knowing Olivia, she probably thought I did sleep with him and that was why I dumped him.

Olivia just held her hands up in defence. “Can’t blame me for asking, he is fairly attractive. I would. Even if it was just for a quick shag.”

“Olivia!” I gasped in shock at my friend. Although I wasn’t sure why I was still so shocked, she was always like this. But Olivia was a young, beautiful blonde woman, and she always had men after her. I was just lucky that I met Simon on my own and not when I was with her. I had visions of him going off with her instead. “You know I’m not like that!”

She shrugged. “Nothing wrong with it.”

“The guy wanted a serious relationship, not just a quick shag,” I said, lowering my voice slightly so the couple on the table next to us wouldn’t hear me. Which was pointless, they had clearly overheard Oliva. She was so embarrassing sometimes.

“I know, I know!” She nodded. “But you should at least consider it, you never know, you might enjoy it!” She winked.

But I ignored her, my mobile rang again.

“Hey, if it is Simon, wouldn’t it come up on your phone as Simon’s number?” she asked, pointing at the phone.

“No, I deleted it,” I said.

“You deleted his number from your phone?” she asked, her eyebrows rose again.

“I know, it was a mistake. I forgot I did it and he tried ringing me. I accidentally answered it, not realising it was him, until I heard his voice wheezing down the earpiece—”

“Wheezing?” Olivia asked, looking confused.

I shrugged. “Sounded like he was wheezing, maybe he’s asthmatic?”

“Or he was—”

“Don’t!” I said, stopping her saying something crude that I really didn’t want to hear. I knew she was about to say something crude, it was the look on her face that gave it away. She just laughed. “The point is, I ended up having to block his number in the end because he kept rining and kept for—” I stopped. I had Simon’s number blocked. He couldn’t ring me! I looked at the mobile which was still ringing.

“What?” Olivia asked, clearly not getting why I stopped.

“I have Simon’s number blocked!” I said. “He can’t ring me!”

“Then answer it!” she said quickly. “It might be another hunky desperate man wanting a shag!”

I ignored her and picked my phone up from the table, but just before I was about to answer it, it stopped ringing. I groaned.

“Well, I guess he’s got fed up and found someone else!” Olivia chimed, and took a sip of her coffee.

I ignored her and continued to look at my phone. I was quietly trying to decide what to do. Maybe if I sat and waited for a bit, the caller would ring me back, or maybe leave a voicemail. I liked the idea of someone leaving me a voicemail, if they gave me a hint of who they were, I could decide whether I wanted to ring back.

But after a few minutes ticked by on my phone, no one rang back and no voicemail was left. So instead I decided to ring the number back. Olivia’s attention was on something else—or shall I say, someone else.

“Hello, this is Daniel’s phone. Jason speaking,” someone with a rather lovely deep voice said on the other end of the phone. I didn’t recognise any of the names; I didn’t know a Daniel or a Jason, nor did I recognise the voice.

“Err, hi, I just got a miss call on this number?”

“Ah, yes. Dan did look a little flustered while trying to ring you. Let me find him,” the deep male voice said. I said a qiuck thank you but I got interrupted when I heard the same deep male voice yell in the background; “Oi, you cunt, you have one of your bimbos on the phone asking for you!”

My face dropped and I hung up quickly. Clearly not someone I wanted to know anyway. I silently hoped neither of them rang me again. Annoyingly, Olivia hadn’t even noticed what had happened.

~~~

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Rose Garden Sanatorium – Chapter 7

Note: If you’re new to the story please read from the beginning here.

Chapter 7

Officer Jennifer Finley

The young female agent slid through a dark internal door as quiet as a mouse, keeping every one of her senses alert for sounds, sights, smells, strange touches on her body, or maybe even changes in temperature. She stepped silently and slowly through the Sanatorium, but her mind was running one-hundred miles an hour going through the training sessions; move slow, check corners, especially dark ones, don’t trust anyone or anything. She held her P90 out before her, her grip tight on it, her focus through the infrared scope, the torch illuminating the way, and felt that little bit safer knowing that it had been modified specifically for these sorts of situations.

But she still felt defenceless, even with her specially modified gear and her extensive training. She had been told about the horrors of the enemy she faced; some were able to inhabit your body, take control of it, some were large, strong and ruthless. But there were those who were just so clever, stronger, quicker, able to take most living shapes, able to control fire, make things move with just their minds, knock people unconscious with just a flick of their hands, that Finley doubted her average intelligence and physical fitness along with all her modified equipment was enough to beat them.

She slowly kept her breathing under control in an attempt to steady her heartbeat as she looked around a corner. The only way she was able to keep herself from panicking was to continue with her job, to keep moving. She just hoped no one, or nothing, could hear the panic swelling in her chest. Part of her training was to regulate her heartbeat, to keep it steady; her instructor told her that the panic was a reaction from high levels of cortisol running through her body; the fight or flight syndrome, and it affected concentration, but she always had trouble keeping it down.

Ahead of her, she noticed a wall had fallen, opening up the next room. Slowly she moved, carefully avoiding the rubble on the floor as she did, to investigate the next room.

As she made her way towards the opening, however, she heard a noise. Her skin prickled at the sound; something was shuffling. She stopped dead in her tracks and listened out. Her heartbeat thumped in her ears, and she felt a roll of sweat run down her face. She doubted it had anything to do with the amount of gear she had on, keeping her safe but unavoidably warm. The sound continued as if what ever was making it didn’t know she was there. The shuffling was also complimented with what sounded like heavy breathing and rubble being moved. Suddenly her body felt heavy with fear.

She put her eye through the scope, not picking up any heat signatures yet—not that she could pick up anything through the thick walls of the Sanatorium. She didn’t have a visual. It could be anything. It could be the wind. She willed herself to continue towards the gap in the wall.

But as she moved again, the shuffling sound stopped. She stopped herself. She pursed her lips together to stop her from breathing heavily, not even noticing the grip on her gun had tightened, her knuckles going white. The sound started again only a few seconds later, as if what ever was making it had stopped to listen out but hadn’t noticed her. She moved her hand slowly up to the gun and turn off the torch accessory, then up to her smock and turned off those lights, her sole visual was now through the infrared scope—although she still saw various shades of blue, no oranges or reds to indicate a living being.

She continued to move slowly towards the break in the wall, keeping tight to the remainder of the wall that was still left standing, using it as a guide with the use of her elbow and being careful not to accidentally knock something on the floor, either resulting in her making a noise or tripping over. She shuffled her body towards the hole and stopped for a few seconds to listen out.

There certainly was something just there, only a few feet away. All she had to do was to take one large step to her right and she could swing herself round to see her enemy. Within a split second before changing her mind, she committed to her manoeuvre. She stepped and span her whole body round and saw the classic oranges and reds in her scope.

Something barked and the orange and red blob ran off. She turned on the light attachment on her gun just in time to catch sight of a red bushy tail flapping as it ran out of the door.

Finley sighed, relaxed slightly and let out a small laugh. It was just a fox. Although she was told to be vigilant of all living things, she was sure if it was anything but sinister, it would have just attacked her, and it didn’t.

Rubbing her face with a hand and letting her gun drop a little from her grip, she steadied her breathing to slow her heart and relaxed her tight muscles. She snorted suddenly in amusement at the situation, the fact she got so wound up over a fox.

She turned around to go back out of the room she had just recently deemed now clear, but she turned around to face a grotesque and inhuman face mere millimetres away from her face. She screamed and automatically stepped backwards, her heel hit a loose brick and she fell backwards, smashing her head—which was luckily protected in her helmet—on the debris of broken wall.

~~~

Next chapter coming soon!


If you liked this story, please check out my other works!

New Story Idea – “I fell in Love with a Psychopath”

It’s My Mistake – Chapter 1

Ender’s Love – Chapter 1

New Story idea! – Butterfly House

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Paying for Reviews – BEWARE!

Since becoming a self-published author, I have come across a wide range of new challenges. And I don’t mean just the usual publishing and marketing challenges. I mean, what happens afterwards.

I’m not going to pretend that my published book; ‘It’s My Mistake’ is a working masterpiece. I have had a few good reviews, but I’m not letting them get to my head. I’m too much of a perfectionist to believe it. I wrote the book quickly, and I know there are mistakes (no pun intended) in it.

But aside from that, since actually committing to publishing the book, I have had a string of emails through my website, private messages and tweets through twitter from people claiming to want to help you.

Yes, it’s lovely to know I’m being head-hunted (although, I know it’s got nothing to do with my writing, it’s all about them making money) and it’s nice to know there is a wealth of help out there. But I have to admit, it’s a little annoying!

For the time-being, I am not in a position to be able to pay anyone anything, I can barely get my own hair cut lately. I am not in full-time employment, I am a student. I write on the side as a hobby, for now. I am not pushing sales on my book, I am not approaching newspapers, magazines, radio stations, etc, to try to market my book, I am just a woman sat at her computer tweeting and posting blogs every now and then.

Once I finish my degree, I will be taking a year out (at least) to relax, move again (as I had to move in with my parents for a while) and take a holiday that I desperately need (I’m thinking for my 30th birthday this year). Then, and only then, can I really start thinking about making my writing career (if I can call it that) professional.

But while I’ve been just dabbing into the world of an author life, I have noticed that there is an awful lot of people / companies out there that pray on people like myself who are new to the game.

One in particular I will mention, because I want to expose them, is a ‘company’ on Twitter calling themselves ‘Booktasters Authors’ (I think they have a few names on Twitter, this is the one that contacted me though). They approached me back in November with a simple question, “Hi Alex, Do you like to get your book reviewed?” (see pictures at the end of this blog post)

Now, firstly, am I the only one that can see that that question is grammatically incorrect? Or are they asking me if I like the actual act of getting reviews?

Normally I don’t tend to reply to DM messages on Twitter, I get annoyed with the automated messages. Tweets, however, I do try to reply to. But I figured I’d see what these guys wanted. So I responded.

It turns out, this ‘company’ is offering ‘free reviews’ for your book if you sign up your book to their community. The catch is… you have to PAY to sign up.

So… you PAY for REVIEWS!

Apparently not, apparently the community of reviewers aren’t paid themselves, they are reading your book for free, unpaid, and in return are giving you an honest review.

But I was trying to make a point that I am still out of pocket, and then getting reviews in return.

Now, even if I HAD the money to fork out and get my book reviewed and help it’s sales, and that’s if I wanted to do that (as I am in the process of re-writing It’s My Mistake) I wouldn’t do it unmorally. I do not want my name tainted. I don’t want people to see my name, see my books and think ‘she buys her reviews, I don’t want anything to do with her or her books’.

I know, there is a very big possibility that if I get more reviews on Goodreads and/or Amazon, more people will want to buy and read my book. But I do not want to get there by paying a company to give me those reviews. It’s not honest.

Anyway, at first, I figured I’d just ignore the message. I wasn’t going to continue in a conversation and waste mine and their time. So I just ignored it.

Apparently they weren’t taking my silence as a no. A few days later they emailed me again. I knew right away something dodgy was going on when they wrote “We are very passioned to take…” Wait… ‘Passioned’? I’m not entirely convinced this is even a word. Microsoft Word doesn’t register it as a word, but I did find it online. But either way, what was wrong with writing ‘passionate’?

I just figured, if I didn’t reply again, they’d get the message.

Apparently not. If you see in the pictures below, they very unprofessionally sent me two emoticons. Ha!

I figured I needed to shut this down quickly before I got anymore emoticons… who knew what ones they’d send next!

So I replied, rather politely if I say so myself; “Thank you, but I don’t pay for reviews.”

Ooo… they are sneaky buggars. The next message (oh yes, they replied, persistent I’ll give them that) was sent the same day and they were trying to explain that I don’t pay for reviews, the fee is for offering the book to their community, some ‘managing process’ and guaranteeing a posted review on Amazon and Goodreads.

I just laughed when I read that. The way I see it… I pay them > they give me reviews back. Doesn’t matter how fancy you try and make it sound, what I’m getting in exchange of my money is reviews. I’m PAYING for REVIEWS.

So, not only am I out of pocket, but the readers are getting my book for free!

The thing that started to really annoy me though, was their persistence. Bearing in mind that this last message I sent them was the 3rd of December (2017) and their reply was almost instant. I ignored them and they didn’t take the hint… again.

Seven days later, I get another message. Another unprofessional one with one of those emoticons again.

I ignored it and made sure I wasn’t following them. (It turned out I was! I quickly rectified that!)

I got another message on the 13th of January. Clearly they didn’t get the hint when I not only ignored them, but I unfollowed them too.

It was at this point that I realised I wasn’t going to get rid of them politely. So I had to block them.

Now, the reason why I am writing this post is because I am not only annoyed that I was getting harassed by them, but that they are probably harassing other people too. There are a lot of new authors out there that are probably thinking that doing something like this is a good way to make a name for themselves.

DON’T! I am fed up with seeing people who are not genuine. I know it’s a harsh world out there, but do not fall prey to these people. Do not pay for reviews. You worked long and hard on that book, people should be paying YOU not the other way around.

And do not contribute to a world of con!

[photos removed, apologies!]