That had only been a few months ago. Sometimes it seemed like decades had passed since then.
“There’s a fire escape up there, on the west side of the building,” Morgan was telling Dana, although he was watching Cal, who’d finally pulled off his wet shirt and was drying himself with that towel. “And there’s a tunnel from the men’s room here on the first floor. It leads to the fun house, which is close to another hole in the fence. My girls guard all three egresses. I like that word.
Egress.
It’s cheerier than
exit
, don’t you think?”
Dana gave him her best dead-eye glare. “You don’t mind if I check it out? The men’s room and the loft?”
“Actually I do,” Morgan said, “but that’s not going to stop you, is it?” He turned back to Cal who was now pulling on an Adventure City sweatshirt. “Don’t schedule the wedding date just yet. I suspect Dana and I are not entirely compatible, especially since we both find
you
a bit uncomfortably attractive. For me, the discomfort comes from your being straight.”
“You’re gay,” Dana blurted.
“For Dana, it’s more complicated,” Morgan told Cal. He turned to Dana. “Cal said he wants us to be honest. Do be honest, Dana.”
“I don’t give a shit that you’re gay,” she blurted.
“Appreciated,” Morgan said, “but I’m pretty sure Cal was hoping you had something to tell
him
…?”
Dana opened her mouth, but then closed her mouth. She opened her mouth again, and said, “Calvin, it’s always been yuh—
What?
” She closed her mouth and even clapped both her hands over it as she continued to make some very strange sounds, her eyes wide. She turned to look furiously at Morgan.
“Don’t fight it,” he said. “Yeah, you’re powerful, but, darling, you’re no match for
me
. Let’s make this easier. Look, Ma, no hands!”
“Hey,” Cal said as Dana suddenly stood up tall. Her hands flew away from her face as her arms went down straight by her sides.
“Calvin,” she said, “I really suck at things like love because I’m scared to let people get too close, but I’m so,
so
crazy about you.” Her eyes welled with horrified tears. “I’d die for you, and I think maybe that means I love you because if anything ever happened to you, I’d fucking kill
everyone
!”
“Hey!” Calvin said even louder, his eyes hard as he rolled toward Morgan. “What the hell are you doing to her? You cut that shit out!
Right
now!”
“Suit yourself.” Morgan shrugged, and Dana collapsed into herself, nearly falling to the floor as he released her from whatever kind of weird control he’d had over her.
Calvin was at her side instantly, but it was clear that he didn’t know what to do. He awkwardly reached out and patted her shoulder, but she pulled away, her face hidden in her hands as she muttered, “Oh my God, oh my God…”
“That was you,” I realized, turning to glare at Morgan, remembering the unexpected declaration of love from the jock named Eric. “At the CoffeeBoy! You can mind-control people into, what? Embarrassing themselves?”
“Into speaking the truth,” Morgan said. “Your turn, Cal. Fair’s fair. You said you wanted honesty…”
Cal had been leaning over Dana, but now he straightened in his chair as if a puppet master had yanked hard on his strings. “Dana, I thought I was in love with you from the very first moment I saw you,” he said, “but as I got to know you, I realized just how incredibly special you are and—”
“Stop it!” Dana said, erupting up from the floor and getting directly in Morgan’s face. “Whatever the hell you’re doing, it is
not
okay!”
Morgan held his ground. “And whatever the hell
you’re
doing? That
is
okay? Coming here, tracking me down, getting me tangled up in the rest of your drama? Helping Sasha, finding Lacey, saving Jilly? Gods, Calvin, your emails damn near wore me out with the details of your quixotic quests. Tell me, does it ever end? And do you
honestly
think any of that bullshit is going to matter in the long run?”
Dana was silent, and I knew admitting as much would be all but impossible for her. So I stepped forward and said it for her—and Cal did, too.
“Hell, yeah.” He spoke over me as I said, “Absolutely—it matters.”
Morgan laughed and threw a
Can you believe these crazy kids
look at Milo, who folded his arms across his chest and quietly said, “We all believe it matters. Whether we save one girl or a hundred. It matters.”
Morgan shook his perfect head as he turned back to ask Dana, “How many years do you really think we have before
we’re
kidnapped and bled dry, too? Those of us who are G-Ts, that is. The others, Calvin and Hot-Angst-Guy over here—they’ll just be killed. Brutally, probably while we’re forced to watch. Or maybe we don’t have years before that happens. Maybe we only have months. Days. Hours. Hey, I have a good idea! Let’s spend it doing something else—anything else! Okay?”
And that was something Dana could respond to. “I’ll spend my last fucking
minutes
on Earth searching for my sister and yes, protecting my friends, if that’s what I have to do.” She glanced over at Calvin when she said
friends
, and Morgan laughed again.
“Oh, we’re back to pretending it’s just
friends
, are we?” he said. “I’ll tell you what, Dana.” He said her name mockingly, as if it were two separate words.
Day. Nah.
“I’ll help you. I’ll go meet little Sasha and fish around inside her sad, broken little head for any sign of Lacey.”
“Sasha’s not broken,” I said, but I wasn’t so sure about that.
Meanwhile, Dana’s eyes had narrowed. “What’s the catch?”
“Ooh, you heard that silent but deadly
if
, did you?” Morgan asked. “
If
you manage to do anything at all in the next, oh, let’s say…ten minutes. Yes. Starting right now, you have
ten
minutes to do something that
completely
surprises little, old jaded me. Ready? Go!”
Dana laughed, but it was devoid of humor. “Figures you would make it into a game.”
“It’s life and death for us,” I chimed in.
“Darling, we’re G-Ts,” Morgan chided me. “That’s nothing new. It’s life and death for us twenty-four seven. And it’s nine minutes and thirty seconds now. Ticktock.”
“Just tell me what you fucking want me to do,” Dana snarled.
“Oh, anger and foul language,” Morgan said, feigning a yawn. “
That’s
no surprise.”
In a sudden flash, I knew what Morgan wanted Dana to do—what would surprise him—and when Cal looked up at me, I realized that he’d figured it out, too.
“Hey, c’mere,” Cal said, holding out his hand to Dana. He pulled her with him over to a bench shaped like a happy-go-lucky wooly mammoth and tugged her down so that she was sitting at his eye level. “I know you’re gonna hate this because it’s so public, and you probably would walk away from me even if it was just the two of us alone, but…” He took a deep breath and exhaled fast. “I’m completely in love with you.” She started to get up, but he didn’t let go of her hand. “And that’s me talking, that’s not Morgan doing his voodoo, and I think from what you said when he
was
doing his voodoo that you maybe kinda like me, too, and I also think it would surprise the crap out of him if you were honest about that. To me. With me.”
Dana was silent. She was just glaring down at her boots, muscle jumping in her jaw.
Cal reached out and gently tipped her chin up so that she had to meet his eyes, and he quietly added, “And if I got it wrong, and you really only want us to be friends, Dana, then I’m kinda trusting you here to break that news to me gently. I know that’s what you’d do, but see, Morgan? He doesn’t know you at all, so that’ll surprise him, too. Either way, we win this.”
Those tears were back in Dana’s eyes as her mouth moved, half in a smile and half in refusal to cry.
“Winning is good,” Calvin continued. “Helping Sasha and finding Lacey is better and we’re gonna do that, regardless of—”
“Just shut up,” Dana said, “and kiss me.”
And Calvin did just that.
————
I pulled both Morgan and Milo away in an attempt to give Cal and Dana a little privacy.
“Surprised or not, you’re helping us,” I told the powerful G-T.
“Oh, I’m surprised,” he said. “Beyond surprised. Fully flabbergasted, in fact. So, fair’s fair. You win.”
“Thank you,” I said grudgingly. “Although, FYI, you suck. And this is Milo, by the way.” Not
Hot-Angst-Guy
, as Morgan had nicknamed him.
I glanced over at Milo, who’d reached into his pocket for his burner phone. It was chirping. “I gotta take this,” he told me before turning to include Morgan. “Excuse me.” He headed back to the front door and stepped outside, probably hoping for better cell service.
All I could think was,
Who was calling Milo?
Was it Rochelle—
Rochelle
—
ROCHELLE! ARGH!
Of course, now Morgan was eyeing me. One side of his mouth curved up into that now all-too-familiar impish grin. “Trouble in paradise, I’m sensing.” He kept his voice low so that neither Dana nor Cal could hear him.
My stomach did a flip-flop, and for a second, I almost considered playing it off like I didn’t know what Morgan was talking about. But his musical laughter was enough to let me know that not only did he more than
sense
the tension between Milo and me—he
knew
that it existed. And he also
knew
that I was trying hard, right then and there, to figure out how to pull a BS card on him.
“Yeah, fine, whatever,” I grumbled. “It’s not that serious.”
“You don’t believe that in your heart,” Morgan replied. “And it’s eating you up inside.”
I felt my eyes well with tears but I blinked them back. Hard. I didn’t want to talk about this right now. I didn’t want to talk about this—ever. And the absolute dead-last thing I wanted was Milo being mind-controlled by Morgan and blurting out some horrible truth, like he thought Rochelle was a million times hotter than me, because let’s face it, she was. Yes, she was also disgusting and dangerous, but… I shook my head and cleared my throat and stood up a little taller, my nose in the air.
“I’m fine,” I said. “And he’s fine. We’re fine.” I sniffed. “Okay? So don’t even
think
about doing your truth-telling voodoo on Milo.
Or
me.”
Morgan smiled. “I can see that you love him. With your whole entire rookie heart. But.” His eyes grew solemn. “Of course, you know that love sometimes just isn’t enough.”
I opened my mouth to respond—
Gee, thanks for the pep talk, Coach
—but just then a series of huge cacophonous
BAMs
, one right after another, rang out in the corner. Instead of speaking actual words, I screamed. In my defense, while I screamed, I also leaped on top of a display counter in order to give myself the elevation I needed to scan the room. The first thing I noticed was that Dana and Cal were no longer smooching on the wooly mammoth bench. In fact…
“Oh God, sorry sorry sorry!” Cal jerked back from the pile of Russian dolls, all of which were now lying on their sides in a heap. Apparently, he had gotten too close to one of them and tipped it over—which had prompted the others to fall, like a series of enormous egg-shaped dominoes.
Dana, clearly spooked by the sound, cascaded down the firefighter pole from the second floor, where no doubt she’d been double-checking Morgan’s security. As always, making sure Calvin and the rest of us were safe. Her leather pants squeaked against the metal as she landed hastily on the tile. “What the eff?” she barked. As usual, she used the full f-bomb.
“Everyone’s good!” Morgan exclaimed. “Just a minor doll avalanche. Kind of like global warming—the cause was human error.”
Dana scowled at Morgan, but then looked over at Calvin and saw the gigantic mess that surrounded his chair. She tried her best to keep scowling, but instead she started cracking up. It wasn’t every day that Dana belly-laughed. The sound was nice. Calvin thought so too. He smiled and shrugged. “I’ll be here all night,” he said and took a bow from his chair.
It was then that Milo came back inside. He looked concerned, his cell phone still pressed against his ear as he stepped through the doorway.
But Dana gave him the silent thumbs-up. He looked visibly relieved as he nodded and then said something softly into the phone receiver before hanging up and putting the cell back in his pocket.
“Who was that?” I asked. And then I felt like a complete idiot for prying.
But Milo didn’t seem to mind. “Garrett, with an update on Ro and Ashley. Rochelle’s still completely passed out—but Ashley’s moving a bit, like she’s going to be waking up soon.”
“Rochelle
better
wake up. She’s got a hot date with you in just a few hours,” Dana replied.
Morgan’s eyebrows were raised as he digested Dana’s words.
“Fake date,” Cal explained. “Crazy D-bag addict has the hots for Milo.”
“I’ll keep her distracted while they search a locked closet for Jilly.” Milo finished the explanation.
“Ah, yes, Jilly. How very…valiant of you to distract the crazy D-bag like that.” Morgan turned and studied me for a moment. His eyes looked as though they had changed color since the first time I’d met him in that CoffeeBoy. I’d remembered them as being bright green. At that moment, they were dark pools of hazel brown.
I narrowed my own eyes at him in a silent
Don’t you dare
.
“Well, okay then,” he said. “Since you’ve got
hot date
and
closet-rescue
plans for tonight, I’ll assume you’ll be in contact with a day and time for our special meeting with adorable little Sasha. Oh, and of course, it’s still a thousand dollars. Payable in full in advance. Small bills preferred.”
Dana looked at him with disgust.
“Seriously, darling,” Morgan said. “Did you think I was running a charity here?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Let me walk you to your car. My pups can get territorial.”