Living the Role

Filming on Episode 2 had been running over a week, and it was going smoothly.

The cast was good, all of them, but Ronan was the one people talked about. What he was doing in front of the camera had Jane working hard just to stay level with him in a scene.

He had been killing it as Elijah the whole episode. He showed real military discipline in everything Elijah did. And in the scenes where Elijah stood guard over Rose, he had the actors playing opposite him properly scared, treating the men who wanted to put their hands on her like the perverts they were.

Every single time, the director and the crew had nothing but praise for him.

Even Jane had come round to it, though she was the one established young star on this show.

At 3 PM, on the break, she went out to his trailer on the backlot and sat down with him. He had the script open and he wasn’t looking at anything else.

She didn’t say anything to him. She put the coffee on the table, left him alone with it, and watched his face.

’I really do wonder what’s going on in his head right now.’

What this guy did was unbelievable, and she hadn’t seen it out of any of the high-profile actors she’d worked with either.

He wasn’t only reading, though, and she had no way of seeing that from across the table. He’d been in the [Half-Immersion] since he sat down, taking the scene through again, and again after that, and it was a while before he felt her watching him.

"Something wrong with my face?"

"Nothing." She didn’t bother looking away. "I’m just wondering what’s going on in your head, that’s all, whether you’re already picturing how the last scene of Episode 2 plays out. Sorry, am I interrupting you?"

He shook his head. "No, I’m done anyway." Then he set the pages down. "And you’re right, that’s exactly what I was doing, because the end of this episode is Elijah going after Cornelius for trying to force himself on Rose, and Rose is the one he’s been guarding this whole episode, and somewhere in there he started falling for her too, even if he’d never once put that into words. So when he gets that door open and sees it, he isn’t going to be a little angry about it. He’s going to be out of his mind."

She took that in and nodded. "And Rose is going to be frightened watching him do it, because she’s never seen that side of him before, so that has to be where the trauma finally shows, doesn’t it? The whole beating is him coming apart."

He nodded back at her, and they went through the final shot together.

* * *

Later, they were on the interior set, dressed as the room in Cornelius’s house.

Charlie had the perversion right in his face as he forced himself on Rose.

Jane looked absolutely frightened, and she played it beautifully. She shook, and when she got both hands on him and pushed, there was real force behind it.

But the one who stole the scene was Ronan. He kicked the door open, and without a word to anyone he pulled him off her and started an absolute mad beating.

Charlie’s heart nearly stopped when he got a look at Ronan’s eyes. Wide, and red through them, and if a look could kill a man he was already gone.

The punches came with a slight tremble in them, like there was more adrenaline behind them than he could hold.

None of them connected. The whole sequence had been choreographed beforehand, every angle of it. Charlie was flinching off them anyway, hard, the way a man flinches from something that is going to land.

’This kid’s an absolute monster, and I’m the one scrambling to stay in the scene with him.’

The fear running through him was real, and the performance in front of him had put it there.

[Full-Immersion Effect Detected.]

[Target: Charlie]

[Conviction Threshold: 99%]

Ronan could see it, and much as he didn’t want the Billy situation happening a second time, not wanting it made no difference, because he couldn’t step out of the scene now. He was too far down inside it.

In the [Full-Immersion], the punches were landing. Cornelius existed, and he was taking every one of them.

[Safety Threshold: Active]

[Fictional damage will not carry to the target’s body.]

If the system hadn’t put up the message telling him the actor was fine, he would have believed all of it.

If he were himself right now, he’d be too frightened to look at what he was doing to that face. But he wasn’t himself. He was Elijah the whole way through, and there was nothing in him but murder.

[Conviction Threshold: 100%]

Charlie was all the way there now. That was when the punches started to reach him, faint as they were, arriving where nothing had touched him a moment before, and it started him panicking.

Between two of them he shrieked. "S-somebody, take him off me! Stop this madman!"

He knew none of it was true. Knowing made no difference, because he was too far inside it by then. He remembered Billy telling everyone Ronan was so good it had him hallucinating, and how he’d put that down to Billy laying it on thick and never quite believed a word of it.

Now the same thing had come for him, and it astonished him.

Off to the side, Jane was still in Rose, and the scene playing out in front of her had shaken her badly.

’They’re both on another level. I’m only standing here watching him beat an old man and I can’t hold still for it.’

It really was something to see. And watching it that closely was what pulled her under.

[Full-Immersion Effect Detected.]

[Target: Jane]

Ronan barely registered the panel. He was down in the scene and nowhere else, and he didn’t quit until Cornelius stopped answering him.

He turned to Rose, and that was when he saw how frightened of him she was. Exactly the way the script had it, once Elijah had put Cornelius down.

She backed away from him as he came toward her.

"Rose... I did it to keep you from him. That’s all it was..."

Her eyes shut tight. Then, after a hesitation, she came to him and held on hard.

The fear was still in her, and she cried into his chest.

Elijah looked relieved. He smiled, and put his arms around her. The hug ran on longer than it needed to, and Henry still wasn’t calling cut.

Somewhere in it, Jane started to feel warm. She’d been truly frightened a second ago, and now she felt safe.

There was more under that. Something starting up in her that felt like the beginning of love, and it put colour in her face.

’No, this isn’t mine. None of this is mine. It’s Rose, it’s what Rose feels for him after he saves her, that’s all it is.’

She told herself so, then pushed him back, her cheeks red.

Only then did Henry call cut, and it didn’t lift the room. The weight of what they’d just done was still sitting on everybody.

Jane could still feel it, and made herself shake it off.

"Are you alright?" Ronan asked her.

"I-I’m fine." She wiped the tears off her cheek, and her assistant came over to take care of her.

He didn’t push it any further, not with the [Full-Immersion Effect] still on her. He turned his attention to Charlie instead.

Charlie was sitting up on the floor and he looked fine, which came as a relief.

"Are you doing alright, sir? I’m sorry if I went too far in there."

Charlie chuckled at him. "No, no, you did fine, kid, better than fine, because you pulled something out of me in there I didn’t honestly think I still had in me. So don’t come at me with sorry. I ought to be thanking you."

That threw Ronan. "I’m just doing my job, Mr. Ostrander—"

"Just call me Charlie."

Ronan nodded, caught off balance.

"And we should keep in touch once this one’s finished." Charlie worked his jaw while he said it. "Because I’m nearly done here, you know. I’ve got the next episode and then the real antagonist of this show kills me off, and that’s the end of Cornelius. So I’ll have my assistant send you my number before I go."

Ronan only looked at him, not following.

"I’ve been doing this a long time," Charlie said, smiling, "and there’s still a few people who’ll pick up when I call. If something comes along that you’d be right for, I want to be able to reach you."

Ronan understood what he was being handed. "Thank you."

They talked a while longer after that, and then the production officially ended for the day.

Episode 3 wouldn’t be at Seventh Pictures at all, not the soundstage and not the backlot. They were going out to the Golden Oak Ranch in Newhall, a huge place where historical movies and series were shot. Almost all of Episode 3 was exterior, which was why they were going, and it would film from 6 PM to 6 AM. Brutal, for everybody.

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