The Queen Imperial

Chapter 16

"Good job Anne-Marie."

"Thank you Christopher."

"You did so good today Anne-Marie."

"Thank you."

"Nice work today Marie, keep working like this and you could even be a real actor one day, maybe a main character."

"Thank you sir Boyce."

Anne-Marie kept getting lots of compliments as she walked away from the crew van and it made her smile a great deal. It made her heart so warm. It only took her a few seconds to get changed into the clothes she came with. That day's shoot had to be the longest and the most exhausting she had ever done as a stunt double. She was super exhausted and it felt like all the bones in her body were ripping apart. She stretched her arm one after the other as she slowly approached her bicycle. At that point, she knew she would do anything to have a hot bath and a good rest.

She was so happy, maybe it was because it was pay day again. Anne-Marie slowly reached for the envelope in her pocket. She needed to take a good look at it and when she did, her smile brightened. Finding Keisha wasn't exactly fruitful up until that day. It was a dead end but she didn't stop. At that rate, all her problems were going to be over if she found Keisha soon. She just couldn't wait to show Abel and Mickey how much she had earned.

That reminded her,

She got out her phone immediately and pushed a few buttons. She stretched her phone to her face just as Mickey's face appeared on the screen.

"Marie." Mickey sounded so excited. She watched the little lady hurry to the bed. "Abel, Marie is on the phone."

It looked like she pushed herself close to Abel so he could look into the screen too.

"Anne!" Abel waved into the screen with a huge smile on his face. Anne-Marie's face brightened when she saw him. He still looked so pale and really bald with his scarf off. His eyes had lost a lot of color too but he managed to smile so brightly, Anne-Marie waved at him too.

"Hey you!"

"Anne-Marie, I've got good news. The royal family provided the hospital with a lot of televisions today. They just fixed one in our room."

"Oh really?"

Abel nodded.

"You should see it, it's really big and has really great channels and shows too, including keeping up with the royals."

"Woah." Anne-Marie pretended to be impressed. "That's really amazing." She could hear the excitement in his voice.

"It is isn't it?" He asked her. "Where are you? The show is going to start soon, we should see it together."

"Yes Anne-Marie, where are you?" Mickey asked.

"Uh," Anne-Marie looked around for a second and then returned her gaze to her phone. "I'm at the shooting site. We just shot the final scene for this movie-"

"You went stunt doubling again?" Abel asked her as a huge frown appeared on his face.

"I got paid," she raised the envelope so they could see it. "And it's a lot too."

"But you promised. You said you weren't going to take such jobs anymore. They are illegal for teenagers remember?"

"And dangerous." Mickey added. "You're too young to be a stunt double."

"It's not like I'm dead or anything." Anne chuckled. "Trust me guys, this pays better than all my other jobs, at this point, we wouldn't need to worry about getting the rest of the money for your upfront payment Abel. Just a few more hundreds and we're done. The bills keep piling and they aren't going to pay themselves. It's hard enough Mickey had to take that loan for us from her office, just so you could get admitted and start your treatment, the deadline is almost over, we need the money for the upfront payment and to pay off Mickey's loan."