Chapter 0244
Abby
I feel frozen to my spot as the judges make their way toward Daniel’s station. The grin stretched across
his face almost makes me feel sick, and it’s all I can do not to run off the stage right now.
“Wow,” Vanessa says as she takes the first bite of Daniel’s dish, which looks leaps and bounds ahead
of mine just by presentation alone. “Really, Daniel; wow. Despite everything, you created a phenomenal
dish.”
“Thank you so much,” Daniel says, his eyes flickering toward me. “You know, with my sous chef’s wrist
in so much pain, it was difficult. But we made it.”
Next, the judges begin making their way toward me, and I feel like I’m going to be sick. They stop in
front of my station, and I can feel the cold weight of Logan’s gaze on me already.
“Hello, Abby,” Vanessa says, her gaze sweet as ever despite the circumstances. “Your performance in
the second round wascking, but you’re here now. How do you feel?”
I swallow. “I feel…” I pause, my throat cracked and dry. “I feel… Hopeful,” I mutter. Vanessa nods in
response along with the third judge, but Logan—his face is as inscrutable as ever.
As the judges begin their taste test, times feels as though it’s moving in slow motion. All eyes are on
me, Abby, the chef with the ‘violent’ partner. I wish that Karl was here now, if only to have his presence
by my side, but he’s not. Right now, this stage feels even more vast and cold than it ever has.
“Oh… Abby,” Vanessa finally says, her voice low. “This… This isn’t what I expected from you.”
I feel a tightness in my chest as panic begins to set in. “I... I tried to bring the vors together, to—” I
start to exin, but my words falter under her gaze.
She nods, but it''s not one of understanding. “I see what you tried to do, but it’s noting together on
the te. I’m sorry, Abby.”
My gaze flicks to the second judge, Xavier, a chef of few words. His eyes meet mine, and I see it there
before he even speaks—a profound disappointment.
“It’s unbnced,” he adds simply, his voice final.
I want to argue, to defend my dish, to say that the circumstances were against me, but I swallow the
words. They know the chaos that unfolded. They saw Karl being taken away, and yet they seem to
expect the impossible from me.
But it''s Logan’s voice, clear and authoritative, that slices through the tension. “Abby, what we have here
is a fundamental problem,” he states, his cold eyes meeting mine.
I clutch the edge of my station, my knuckles whitening. “Please, enlighten me,” I say, hoping that the
quiver in my voice isn’t too obvious.
He raises an eyebrow. “Well, to put it inly…” He pauses, as though for dramatic effect. “You didn’t
follow the instructions, Abby. This dish is not what we asked for.”
My breath hitches, and I find myself gasping for air. “But I—I don’t understand," I stammer, my
was asked of me.”
“But that’s where you’re wrong,” Logan says with a disappointed shake of his head. “This is not farro
mafaldine with ck truffle butter and mushrooms.”
My eyebrows raise, but Logan is already digging through the dish with his fork. I watch in horror as he
stabs a piece of ck truffle and holds it up in the light, turning it this way and that.
“Abby, does this look like a ck truffle to you?”
The studio suddenly seems as though all of the oxygen has been sucked out of it. I lean closer, my
eyes widening as I notice that Logan is right. The color, the texture, the smell… It’s wrong. It’s all
wrong. These aren’t the coveted ck truffles. They’re ck trumpet mushrooms.
“No,” I admit, my voice hardly more than a whisper as I feel the weight of the camera and the audience
pressing in on me. “It doesn’t.”
Logan slowly lowers the fork, a soft sigh escaping his lips that almost sounds like a hiss. “I’m
disappointed, Abby. Truly.”
“As am I,” Vanessa murmurs, bowing her head slightly. Xavier, the third judge, nods silently in
agreement.
I find myself scrambling for a logical exnation, as if that would somehow help here. “I—I took them
right out of the containerbeled ‘ck truffles,’” I stammer, my words tumbling out of my mouth like an
avnche. “I promise, I didn’t know—”
Property of N?)(velDr(a)ma.Org.
Much to my surprise, Vanessa’s eyes seem to sh, and she tilts her chin up to meet my gaze. “Abby,
you are a chef. It is your responsibility to know the differences between your own ingredients. I’m sorry,
Abby, but I’m with Logan on this one.”
The disappointment in her voice makes me feel as though I’m about to crumble. No, this can’t be.
Vanessa Greene, my number one idol in the entire world, my biggest role model, won’t even take my
side.
Xavier leans in then, his own gaze narrowed. “Abby, I must agree with my colleagues. This sort of
mistake is simply uneptable.”
My hands clench into tight balls of fury at my sides, my shoulders trembling. “But it’s not fair,” I murmur.
“The ingredients were swapped, same as my spices in the second round. How is this my fault?”
But the judges’ faces remain impassive. Even Vanessa’s.
“I do apologize, Abby,” Logan says, taking a step away from my station. “But this is not what we asked
for.”
“Well,dies and gentleman,” the announcer states, as the show must go on, “that was an emotional
rollercoaster, wasn’t it?” Co?tent belo?gs to Draм?nоvеls.cоm
The crowd murmurs in agreement, and I feel like a spectacle. But the announcer continues, because I
am not a person; I am a pawn on a TV show, a slice of cheap entertainment, a woman in a mask of
makeup, nothing more.
Maybe I was never meant to win. Maybe all of this has been rigged against me, and I’m a fool for
ying into it.
“And for now,” the announcer says, “we will be taking another break. And when wee back…”
“...We will announce the winner of this year’s Alpha party cookingpetition!”