Flipping Through the Pages
Copyright© 2026 by Dragonpig
Chapter 47
Alice forced her smile to stay in place as she watched Jervis lift another forkful of scrambled eggs toward Tammy’s lips. The young girl smiled and parted her mouth obediently, her hand briefly touching his wrist as she accepted the bite. They sat on either side of him at the long mahogany table—Jervis at the head in his burgundy bathrobe and leather slippers, completely at ease in his position of control, while she and Tammy were nude as he preferred them.
Alice kept her posture straight, maintaining the facade of contentment even as her stomach churned. She could see everything—every lingering glance between them, every casual touch, every moment that reminded her that Tammy was getting more than her fair share of attention.
Tammy had spent the night. Again. It wasn’t supposed to be a regular thing, but Jervis had insisted, and Alice had kept her mouth shut like she always did. Now Tammy was glowing with that post-intimate satisfaction, playing the role of the affectionate lover to both of them, touching Jervis’s arm when she laughed, sending Alice those knowing smiles across the table.
“You’re so good to me,” Tammy purred to Jervis, accepting another bite from his plate. She was younger, softer, more innocent than Alice had ever been. And Jervis was eating it up, literally feeding her while Alice sat with her own untouched breakfast, watching the display.
When was the last time he fed me like that? When was the last time he looked at me like that? Alice thought, forcing her smile to stay fixed. He used to do those things when she was Tammy’s age. Now she was twenty and Tammy was just a teenager. The bitch was getting everything Alice used to get.
“The quarterly meeting is tonight,” Jervis said, finally turning his attention to Alice. “Thursday, seven o’clock, like always. You want to come this time?”
“Sure, why not,” Alice replied smoothly, her voice betraying none of the jealousy running through her mind.
Tammy leaned closer to Jervis, whispering something that made him chuckle. Another forkful went to her lips, another intimate moment that excluded Alice entirely. The younger woman was working overtime to maintain her position, flirting with both of them but clearly focusing her energy where it would do the most good.
And Jervis ... Jervis didn’t care about Alice’s feelings at all, as long as she didn’t interfere with what he wanted. As long as she kept smiling and playing along with his arrangements.
It’s time, Alice thought. Time to get rid of the little slut. She didn’t mind sharing Jervis’s bed, but she’d be damned if she’d let some young bimbo push her out.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” Alice said, rising from her chair.
“Okay,” Jervis replied absently, already turning back to Tammy, already reaching for his plate to get her another bite.
Alice walked calmly to the bathroom, cell phone in hand, closing the door behind her before calling a familiar number.
“It’s me,” she said when Waylon’s familiar voice answered.
“Good morning, Alice.”
“It’s time.”
She ended the call and looked at herself in the mirror. Same composed expression, same perfect smile. When she returned to the breakfast table, nothing about her would seem different.
But everything was about to change.
The fire escape ladder felt familiar under Carrie’s hands now—two days of climbing up to this rooftop perch had become her workout routine. She crouched behind the abandoned office building’s concrete ledge, telephoto lens trained on the brick building across the street, surrounded by the debris of a long surveillance session: empty energy drink cans, protein bar wrappers. She took a swallow from her current can of liquid future cancer.
Hatter’s Productions. The name still made her stomach clench every time she thought about it.
She’d only discovered this place two days ago, following that scrap of paper she’d found in the destroyed Blockbuster. Yesterday had been reconnaissance—mapping the security setup, timing the guard rotations, figuring out which windows gave her the clearest view. Today was documentation.
Crack. She reached for another energy drink from the six-pack beside her camera bag, her fourth since returning this afternoon. The sugar rush hit her bloodstream like a freight train, sharpening the edges of everything until the world felt too bright, too real. But she needed the focus. Needed to stay alert for what she was witnessing.
Through the telephoto lens, she tracked another one of the fake vagrants as he shuffled past the building’s entrance. Dirty clothes, matted hair, shopping cart full of garbage—perfect disguise for a professional security team. She’d learned their patterns yesterday: six-hour shifts, overlapping patrols, radio check-ins every thirty minutes. Military precision hidden beneath Gotham’s ignored faces.
But that wasn’t what kept her coming back to this rooftop for the past several days.
Click. The camera captured movement on the third floor—a girl, maybe ten, pressing her face against the glass like she was trying to remember what freedom looked like. Behind her, Carrie could make out what looked like a common area: other girls scattered around bunk beds, some watching an old television mounted on the wall, others playing what looked like board games.
It looked almost normal. Like a group home or boarding school. But Carrie knew better.
On the fourth floor, through a window with curtains pulled back just enough, she could see the truth. Movement at the edge of her view—someone adjusting what looked like a boom microphone, the distinctive shape of a camera on a tripod. They were filming. Right now. In what appeared to be a classroom with rows of desks and a chalkboard.
Her finger pressed the shutter release again, documenting the sick theater playing out across the street. Through different windows on that floor, she’d cataloged other sets: an upper-class living room with an expensive leather couch, what looked like a church sanctuary with wooden pews. All of it designed to create specific scenarios for whatever taboo fantasies Hatter’s Productions was producing.
She’d told her anonymous client about this two days ago, described the whole operation in detail. His response? “Interesting, but that’s not what I’m paying you for. Focus on the person disrupting Gotham’s underbelly.”
The tone was dismissive—not subtle. Carrie caught it. Her client didn’t sound concerned at all. He was only interested in the disruption the mysterious, shadowy figure posed. And here she was, supposed to be tracking him down.
Click. Another photo of the girl at the third-floor window. She turned around, looking like she was talking to someone in the room that Carrie couldn’t see. She could see her pulling at her clothing like she was starting to undress as she walked deeper into the room, away from the window.
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