“But what about auditions, Miss G?” Terrance asked. “Those directors don’t want you to overact, do they?”
“No. And that’s not what I’m talking about now,” Roz pointed out. “Never oversell. But you have to remember that everything looks small on stage. It is the actors who bring the big. It is the actors who stretch the limits of the environment so that you aren’t just looking at little people moving around on a stage, but individuals moving around. The audience can’t just see a guy. They have to see Terrance. The audience can’t just see a girl. They have to see Alice. It’s stagecraft. It’s knowing what you’re doing. It’s not getting caught up in the glitz and glamour of being on stage, and running to Twitter to tell all about your experience. It’s about living that experience on that stage at that moment in time. Because if all the audience sees is a boy and girl moving around on stage, you have lost them. They have to see Terrance. And Alice.”
Roz turned to her remaining students. But before she could instruct them too, or entertain more questions, the doors of the studio flew open and five men, five gunmen, came rushing in.
The students let out screams of horror.
“Shut the fuck up!” the men began yelling at the students, and Roz, certain that whatever was going on was all about Mick, quieted the students too.
Then she looked at the gunmen. They were ready to strike. She knew it. But she belonged to Mick, which made her valuable. She knew that too. They were not going to hit her. Those were not their orders.
That was why, when they pointed those guns at her students, and were about to kill them all to get rid of any witnesses, she moved in front of the students. The students, smartly, moved behind her.
“You don’t want them,” she deployed.
“Get out of the way,” one of the gunmen yelled.
“Don’t you do it, Miss G,” Terrance said, who ended up directly behind her.
But Roz wasn’t about to anyway. “I’m the one you want,” she said to the men. “I’m his girlfriend.”
“Get out of the way,” another gunman screamed, pulling her by the arm.
But Terrance was pulling her back. “Don’t you do it, Miss G,” he said again. “Stay right where you are.”
But the gunman managed to pull Roz away. Roz knew she had to think fast. “The cameras already have you on tape,” she said, and the men immediately began looking around. “Killing them will only make your escape that much more unlikely. Cameras are everywhere! If you murder all these innocent people, the entire police department will be after you. You won’t stand a chance!”
She was pointing at what was actually stage lighting in the ceilings, but could easily go for high tech cameras. “There’s one there, and there, and there,” she said.
Terrance, figuring out what she was doing, started pointing too. “And there, and there,” he said. “And there’s cameras in the walls y’all can’t even see!”
“Let’s go!” the gunman at the door yelled again. “Get the package and let’s go!”
The men, panicking now too, grabbed Roz and took off. When they ran out of the door with her, Terrance ran and locked the door.
“Call the police!” he yelled to his fellow students. “Call the fire department! Call the ambulamps!”
The students were all calling on their cell phones until he said that last word. “Ambulamps?” Alice asked him. “What the hell is an ambulamps?”
“Just call,” Terrance said. “Lord have mercy just call for Miss G’s sake!”
But Miss G knew she was in trouble when the gunmen ran her down the stairs of the studio, and she saw a pile of dead bodies. There had to be nine or ten men. Mick’s invisible men no doubt. But completely visible, and outmatched, by these five.
She also knew she was in trouble because they were going to take her to a second location. She knew she had to do something. She knew she had to think fast. But when they arrived at the exit door, they waited. They didn’t go anywhere.
One man had an earpiece as if he was waiting to get the word. Finally the word came because he said okay, and then motioned to the other men. They then moved into a one line procession, with Roz in front, and hurried out of the building.
A limousine was just driving up as they hurried out, and Mick and Leo jumped out. Roz realized at that very moment that it wasn’t about taking her to a second location. It was about using her as a human shield so that they could gun down Mick.