I sat in Jarreau’s borrowed office as he made notes on the video, the sound muted.
“Mason, we need to go through and get the names of each of the people you have pictures of,” he said.
Jarreau activated the phone gallery and started going through the pictures with me, asking me to identify each person. As a picture popped up of Tobi, Jeri and I at the signing, I took a deep breath. I realized I wasn’t any less frightened than I'd been before, but I couldn’t back down. Not when there were kids like me, like Tobi, who needed their own Dark Angel to save them.
A thought occurred to me, I might not be Dark Angel material myself, like Lee was, but maybe I could make sure that the men and women like Jarreau, who were heroes every day, had what they needed to help these kids.
32
Lee
“Where the hell is he?”I growled, checking my watch for the umpteenth time between customers. How could he be doing this to me, tousagain? How could I be letting him?
Lines of people were doing the slow shuffle up and down the too-close aisles of the Akron Convention Center, and the people in the queue that ran past our booth for entry to the main auditorium were starting to get restless as word somehow spread that Mason was a no-show. Again.
The week since Mason had left had been a roller coaster. My instincts were telling me there was something really wrong here, that everything he was doing was out of character. But then, did I really know what Mason’s character was? I’d only known him a few days. Maybe what I had seen in that waiting room had been the real Mason, not the funny, sweet, talented man I’d been getting to know. As much as it bothered me, the situation at home hadn’t allowed me the chance to get to the bottom of it.
The twins were still in the hospital. Sonny had gotten a nasty infection in his leg, most likely from the dirt and gravel at the accident site. Hicks was still having major memory problems.
Mason had gone radio silent. I hadn’t heard a thing from him sincehe left the hospital. In the week since he’d been gone, I’d reached out to him several times, in several ways, but there was no response. I'd even gone so far as to try calling Lizzie and the Talent Management Group he worked with, but while the agency confirmed he would be back for the convention, as contracted I got no other information.
I found Lizzie’s cell phone number in some of the paperwork the twins had in their office, but when I’d called her, I was told by her assistant that she was on a medical leave and they didn’t know when, or if, she would be back.
I paused for a moment and considered the possibility that Mason’s “emergency” might have been real, and he was just pissed at me for not believing him. I knew Lizzie’s Mom had medical issues. That was why Mason had come on this trip alone. Could her mom have taken a turn for the worse? Could something have happened to Lizzie, herself? I really hoped not. Losing Lizzie would devastate Mason.
My thoughts kept circling as I bagged books, just like they had for the last week. I glanced up and caught a glimpse of Bill Conyers standing nearby, his sweaty t-shirt sticking to his beer belly, a smug look on his greasy face as he caught my eye. I felt my eyes narrow automatically as I looked at him. I’d never really liked Bill, and the way he had fleeced the boys didn’t make me inclined to either. It was all I could do to not walk over and beat the smug look off his fat face.
“This was such a bad idea,”I mumbled, as I slid bagged and boarded comics into packages for customers. I looked out across the throngs of people in the convention room, my head pounding.
“You could have told your twinkies no,” A voice came to me out from under the table. Jeri stuck her head around the pile of comic boxes, her short and inexpertly colored teal and purple hair standing on end, face flushed with exertion.
“You know I couldn’t have, Jer. Not with the shape they’re in.”
Jeri’s face, always pale, seemed to pale further and turned solemn for a moment.
“I know, Lee. Really. What I meant was, I can handle this,” she grinned again, gesturing to the crowd of fans in line around our booth.
“I know your moms were worried about me getting ‘overwhelmed’,” she said, putting little air quotes around the word, and adding the sound of an eye roll to her voice, as only teenagers could do. “But these are my peeps, my tribe, my kind of people.” She pushed the box she was attempting to manhandle out of the way and stood. “I can handle anythingtheselurkers can throw at me. Your brothers know that.”
I grinned at her confidence and I wanted nothing more than to take off in search of Mason, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave her. Watching the store a few nights a week was one thing, but managing a regional convention was expecting a lot even from her talents, or so my parents had thought when they’d asked me to cover the con after the accident.
How much the twins knew, or didn’t, about what was going on was hard to tell, since they were both still on some pretty good painkillers. They had taken Sonny’s pain pump away from him the second day after the accident. The nursing staff said he was having way too much fun with it, and if he was feeling well enough to flirt with anything with a dick, then he could start taking his pain meds from a pill bottle. He’d pouted a bit, but hadn’t really complained. He was getting back to his normal self, though he still had a long road to recovery.
Hicks was who I was most worried about. The accident had caused a blood clot on his brain. He had no recollection of the day of the accident, and was struggling to form new memories. The doctors were hopeful that his brain would heal itself over time and that he’d overcome the trauma and be able to function normally, but there were no guarantees.
My moms had recognized how crazy the hospital was driving me and they’d decided it was a better idea to put me to work than to keep wearing a path in the hospital hallway. I couldn’t wave a magic wand and make the twins better, but Icouldhelp make sure they didn’t lose their dream business.
I’d apparently lost myself in thought too long, because Jeri continued. “What I meant was,youcould have picked Mason up at theairport. I can handle this,” she said, struggling to push two long boxes of comics out of his way, while also pulling out a box of silver age comics for a customer. The boxes balanced precariously, threatening to spill out onto each other, or the grinning teen.
“Yeah, right, Supergirl,” I said, “Bill is supposed to have transportation taken care of. I’m sure they’re just… stuck in traffic or something.” I responded reasonably, slipping past Jeri and dragging the two boxes from under the table, setting the comics on the small table that held our phones, cash box, her iPad and our drinks.
I eyed Bill where he stood to one side of the auditorium, chatting away with some of his cronies. Bill’s store was more of an inspirational bookstore than a general book shop, They sold Bibles and other religious books. I knew we had a lot of churches in the area, but I still didn’t know how he kept his store afloat.
“Besides, what if Tobi showed up? I need to be here to protect your virtue,” I teased, raising an eyebrow at Jeri. Her face turned pensive.
“I… I haven’t seen him in a while. He disappeared the day after Mason left,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes. “I just hope he’s okay. They… they were threatening to send him to one of those conversion camps. His parents, I mean.”
I squeezed her shoulder gently.
