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DISCLAIMER: Do not read this chapter. It contains spoilers.
Peter Van Houten was not a genius.
He was a bloated, miserable man in white linen pajamas who smelled heavily of scotch and regret.
Hazel sat frozen on the couch in the Amsterdam townhouse, the air vibrating with the jarring bass of Swedish hip-hop.
She had crossed an ocean for answers. She had carried his book like a holy text.
"But what happens to her mother?" Hazel asked, her voice cracking, desperate for the story to continue past the mid-sentence ending. "What happens to the Dutch Tulip Man?"
Van Houten took a slow, agonizing sip of his whiskey.
He looked at her not with pity, but with absolute disgust.
"Nothing happens to them," he sneered, his voice dripping with venom. "They are completely fictitious. They cease to exist the moment the novel ends. You are asking what happens to a drawing when you close the sketchbook."
"No, you don't understand-"
"I understand perfectly!" Van Houten slammed his glass on the table. "You are a fiction. You are a side effect of an evolutionary process that cares little for individual lives. You are a mutant, Hazel Grace. A flawed experiment. And you expect me to coddle you with fairy tales?"
Augustus stood up, his jaw clenched, his eyes blazing with a protective fury Hazel had never seen before.
"We're leaving," Augustus said sharply, grabbing her oxygen tank.
He looked down at the author with absolute contempt. "You are a pathetic old man."
________________________________________________________________________________
"Why?!" a wailing voice echoed through the luxurious penthouse suite of The Newt hotel. "Why do you have to kill everyone?!"
Michael looked up from his black coffee.
Across the room, Evans was sitting in a velvet armchair, clutching his tablet like it was a dying animal.
Tears were actively streaming down the manager's face, ruining his perfectly groomed appearance. He aggressively wiped his nose with a silk pocket square.
"You wrote a beautiful romance!" Evans sobbed, scrolling furiously through the final chapters of the manuscript. "They went to Amsterdam! They drank champagne that tasted like stars! And then you give the boy a recurrence?! What is wrong with your soul, Michael? Why do you kill a person in every single book?!"
Michael took a slow, calm sip of his coffee.
He maintained his unreadable expression.
"I am just maintaining a consistent brand, Evans," Michael said deadpan. "Think of it as population control. It saves on fictional real estate."
Evans's head snapped up, his eyes red and furious.
"That is not funny! I am grieving! I am emotionally compromised! I just want one-one-book where people get a golden retriever and a mortgage and live happily ever after!"
"Living happily ever after is a logistical nightmare," Michael countered smoothly. "Tragedy builds character. Now, put the pocket square away and tell me objectively. Is it good?"
Evans sniffled loudly, his face still blotchy.
He looked down at the tablet, and then, despite his immense emotional pain, a massive, stupid grin slowly spread across his face.
"Good? Michael, it's a masterpiece," Evans laughed wetly, shaking his head. "It's devastating. It's witty. It's going to absolutely ruin people. This is going to go wild with the masses. Teenagers are going to make this their entire personality. We are going to sell so many boxes of tissues we should invest in Kleenex right now."
Michael nodded, setting his coffee cup down. "Good. When you talk to dad at the publishing house, tell him to use everything in the marketing arsenal. Don't hold back on the advertising budget. We need to push the 'star-crossed lovers' angle hard. I have a hunch."
"A hunch?" Evans asked, wiping the last of his tears away.
"A studio is going to want the film rights within the first month of publication," Michael stated confidently. "I want us in a position to start a bidding war."
Evans's jaw dropped.
The sadness completely vanished, replaced instantly by the burning fire of capitalism.
He jumped up from the velvet chair, pointing the tablet at Michael.
"You are a prophet!" Evans yelled gleefully.
"You are a literary guru! A genius! I am calling Terry right now! We are going to make millions off this emotional devastation!"
Evans spun around, ready to sprint into the bedroom to make his calls, but Michael held up a hand.
"Wait, Evans. One question before you go."
Evans stopped, vibrating with excitement. "Anything, boss. Name it."
Michael cleared his throat slightly.
He looked down at his coffee, suddenly finding the dark liquid incredibly interesting.
"Hypothetically speaking... what do girls my age like?"
Evans blinked.
He looked at the twenty-one-year-old millionaire author, completely baffled.
The sudden shift from cutthroat business strategy to dating advice gave him whiplash.
"Girls your age?" Evans repeated.
He thought about it for a second, stroking his chin. His mind, currently ravaged by his own impending fatherhood, supplied the only logical answer. "Well, security is very attractive. You should show her your 401k portfolio. Or maybe buy her a top-of-the-line baby monitor with infrared night vision. Those things are heavily back-ordered. Very exclusive."
Michael stared at him. The silence in the room was deafening.
"...A baby monitor," Michael repeated flatly.
"Chicks dig a man prepared for parenting," Evans shrugged casually. He checked his watch.
"Anyway, we've been hiding in this hotel for two days since the cigar incident. We really need to show our faces and go back to the set tomorrow. Make sure the director hasn't had a heart attack."
"Yes," Michael agreed instantly, completely ignoring the terrible dating advice. "We should definitely go back to the set. Bright and early."
"Great. I'm calling Terry!" Evans shouted, running out of the room.
________________________________________________________________________________
Meanwhile, in a quiet cafe in somwhere...
The bell above the cafe door chimed softly, but the girl sitting in the corner booth didn't look up.
She took a slow sip of her iced matcha latte, her eyes scanning the glossy pages of The Paris Review. She had read the interview three times already. Her finger traced the printed words on the page, specifically stopping at the final paragraph.
"I am someone who wasted a lot of time. I used to be someone who didn't matter... And then, one day, you wake up and realize how incredibly fragile everything is. You realize that you can be gone tomorrow... Because I finally know what my life is worth, and I refuse to waste a single second of it."
The girl stopped reading. The ambient noise of the cafe-the clinking of cups, the quiet chatter-seemed to fade away into the background.
She leaned back in the booth.
She tapped her manicured fingernail against the table.
"Transmigrator?" She whispered to herself.