Calder shook his head. “Shit, man. I knew you were gonna be trouble from day one. I told Linc and Jackson you were a goddamn psychopath, but they wouldn’t listen. They said it would be good to have a guy like you on the team, one who didn’t mind getting his hands dirty. Jackson said you were just a little off, but now I’m thinking you might be section eight crazy.”
Shep blinked in surprise. “I’m not a psychopath.”
Calder scoffed. “Whatever you say, man.”
“I’m a high-functioning sociopath. There’s a difference.”
“Yeah, sure. Okay, well I’m just telling you right now that I like my hands clean. Wet work isn’t for me. I have a delicate constitution.”
Shep chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
By the time they made it to the office, the others had already gathered in the conference room. Linc stood from the head of the table, pointing to the boomerang shaped device in the center. “Jackson’s conferenced in. What the hell is going on?”
Shep closed the doors to the outside office noise. “I need your help.”
“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” Charlie asked.
Elijah shook his head. “I couldn’tsay anything. There’s an agreementthat my mother signed. She took money to keep quiet.”
He sat with his head in Wyatt’s lap, Charlie curled around his left side, her limbs thrown over him like a rose scented octopus.
Wyatt combed his fingers through Elijah’s hair. “You never signed the agreement. Your mother did. Besides, is that even enforceable? The man assaulted you, numerous times. Do you think if you went public he’d have the balls to sue you for breach of contract?”
Elijah’s heartbeat stuttered out of sync. “I-I don’t know if I can look people in the eye and tell them what he did to me.”
Charlie snorted. “You don’t have to look anyone in the eye anymore. It’s 2019. These battles are waged digitally. Reactivate your social media and tell your story. David Cane’s been running unchecked for ten years or more. There could be a lot of other victims out there just waiting for somebody to be the first to step up.”
The thought curdled Elijah’s blood. Demi had texted Elijah to say she’d questioned Tobi, and he seemed oblivious to her inquiries. She would take him to his pediatrician’s later, but she was almost positive David Cane hadn’t harmed her son. But Charlie was right. There were other victims still out there, maybe hundreds. “What if nobody believes me?”
“You’re a huge star with fifteen million followers and you just turned down a multi-million-dollar contract to stand your ground. They’ll believe you. The world will stand by you. This is a new era in Hollywood. People are fed up. With the TIME'S UP and MeToo movements and the documentaries coming out every day about the rampant pedophilia among executives in the industry, there’s no way people won’t believe you. And even if they didn’t, so what? We believe you. We love you. Shep loves you. You deserve to tell your story in your own words.”
Tears sprang to Elijah’s eyes, but Wyatt swiped them away with a wet smile. He was teary eyed too. “I know what it’s like to live with a secret like this. When I finally told the world what happened, I took away his power. Their power. It turns out he’s hurt other people too. They’ve stepped forward. There will be enough evidence from one of them to put him away. Sometimes the good guys do win. You could save people’s lives. You could pave the way for other victims too afraid to tell their stories.”
What did he have to lose? He loved acting, but if he had to give it up to get a monster or two off the streets than he owed it to the kids they preyed on risk it. Tobi could have been his next victim, tomorrow there could be another. He could be hurting somebody right that moment. The idea spurred him into action.
“Okay. I’ll do it.”
Charlie sat up, pushing her hair out of her face. “You will?”
Elijah sat up, wiping at his stuffy red nose. “Yeah, just give me my phone before I change my mind.”
It seemed to take forever. He first wrote it as an Instagram post, beneath a childhood picture of himself. Wyatt and Charlie hovered nearby but not close enough to stifle him. He had to stop several times just to pull himself together. He typed it out with almost clinical detail, his phone automatically correcting his typo-ridden story.He tried to come at it with some level of detachment just so he could get through it. He needed to pretend the innocent little face of his twelve-year-old self was a different boy. When he finished,he hitpost and handed the phone to Charlie who then repeated the entire post as a series of tweets under Elijah’s account. Within minutes, hundreds of people shared it. Thousands of people called him brave and strong and tweeted haloes and hearts and praying hands.
It was overwhelming. He had to step away from it. He fell asleep in his bed sandwiched between Wyatt and Charlie, but he woke to Shep leaning over him, undressing him. Elijah smiled. “You’re always taking my clothes off.”
“You’re always falling asleep fully clothed and I like you naked.”
“I like you naked too.
“You sound happy,” Shep observed as he stripped. “I like you happy.”
Shep slid into bed once he was naked.
“Where have you been?” Elijah finally asked, stroking Shep’s bearded cheek.
“Just putting in my resignation with Linc.”
Elijah’s hand froze. “What? Why?”
