The Called: Chosen (The Called Series Book 2) Read Free Page A

of our family now. Just call me Jenson. That’s what my friends call me.”
    Abbie’s face turned a bright red with embarrassment. “Of course Jenson.”
    The two of them walked into a private room across the hall where he laid the contract out on a solid oak desk. “Well, here it is Abbie. Your future…”
    Abbie just took the moment in as tears flooded her eyes. “You just don’t know the things I’ve been through to make it to this day.”
    Jenson smiled a crooked grin and said, “Those are the things that have made you who you are today. Our brand of music is all about the heartaches and hurt of life as well as the good times. You have lived a lot of those times since you came to Nashville. It’s all that living that is going to make you not just a good artist, but a great artist. I would rather have an artist with some life experience than one who had had everything handed to them on a silver platter with no experiences of their own. Good music sometimes comes from a place of hurt.”
    “I have definitely had my share, especially lately”, she said solemnly. The tragic loss of her best friend, Jenna, was still fresh on her mind. This was her dream too, but she wouldn’t be able to experience it. Abbie’s life had changed so much in just a matter of a couple weeks. She saw her best friend get brutally murdered and then she experienced Jesus in a dream during her recovery in the hospital.
    After her dream, she did some investigating and found a forbidden book at her mother’s house. It was then that she found the truth. She was still a baby believer, but her insatiable appetite for the things of God had caused her to pursue forgiveness of her attacker as well as her absentee biological father, Charles Billingsley. She had yet to locate him and she didn’t even know what she would do when she did.
    The only thing Abbie knew right in this moment was that many of the songs that she and Jenna had written and performed over their seven years in Nashville now seemed cheap and meaningless to her. They had significance because of the memories that they had shared while writing them, but the content was lacking depth. Partying and drinking had lost a lot of its appeal to her.
    Abbie knew that she was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Eighty years ago, she would have been able to just sing about Jesus without consequence, but now she had to try to convey a message of redemption more covertly. As she stood there, thinking and reading over the terms of the contract, she knew that she couldn’t violate her conscience and she needed to make that as clear as she could without giving her true stance away to Jenson.
    “There is one thing that I need to talk to you about before I sign this. I know I mentioned it to you the other day, but I wanted to make sure that I will have control over the types of songs that I want to sing.”
    “Well, within reason. If there is a song that we feel would do well and help project the image we are wanting to sell then there would be a discussion and we would try to come to a consensus on it. Sometimes, each party has to give some to accomplish what we want to accomplish…and that’s to make money. A lot of it.”
    Abbie decided to push the envelope a little bit more. “I understand that you are running a business here and that image means a lot to you and the label. I just want to be me. Who I am now is different than who I used to be. There have been experiences that have changed me as a person, and therefore, will likely change me as an artist. I want to do songs that people can relate to other than the normal drinking, cheating, clubbing, sex-filled songs that are usually put out there.”
    Jenson looked at her for a moment and furrowed his brow. The wheels were turning in his head. It wasn’t the first time he had to have a discussion with an artist over creative direction, but that usually came long after they had been recording and touring. This girl hadn’t even started