A smiley face.
"What do we do?" the footballer asked.
Because Niko had built his hollow bones on applause. At seven, he'd cried on cue for a yogurt commercial. At fifteen, his boy band's breakup was a carefully managed PR catastrophe that launched three solo careers. At thirty-two, he'd entered the I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! jungle compound in Greece as a "legend," which was the industry's kindest word for "still breathing." A smiley face
He picked up the machete. Not to fight. Not to flee. At seven, he'd cried on cue for a yogurt commercial
He confirmed it last night by shaving a branch with the machete. Inside, a carbon-fiber spine gleamed like a bone tumor. Get Me Out of Here
They'd laughed. Marco had thrown a rock at the speaker.
Niko Velis, former child star turned reality TV perennial, watched a centipede crawl over his knuckle. He didn't brush it off. The centipede, at least, was real.