Fan Service

Prologue

Seventeen years ago…

Alex Lawson was infamous several times over.

Ask any of the polo-wearing, pearl-clutching WASPs in her small Florida hometown and they’d tell you her father—Dr. Isaac Lawson, conservation biologist—was a dangerous menace. His crime? Reintroducing a pack of red wolves to their native habitat in Ocala National Forest.

It didn’t matter that he was trying to save a majestic species from extinction or that numerous safety measures separated his pack from their precious thoroughbreds. Tompkins, a tiny blip an hour and a half north of Orlando, boasted more Triple Crown winners to its name than anywhere else in the world, and rich people disliked the idea of beasts roaming the perimeter ready to sink their claws into two million dollars’ worth of horseflesh. Was it any wonder that the first whisper of the word “wolf” sent every breeder and buyer in town reaching for their pitchfork?

In true lemming fashion, kids at school inherited their parents’ prejudice. But obstinance ran in the Lawson blood. Alex met the taunting howls that greeted her on the school bus with a snap of her teeth and a snarling vow: “I’d rather be wild than whipped.”

Then, one quiet morning, her mom left. And Alex quickly learned that dirty looks were a lot easier to swallow than pity.

“ At least we managed to chase one of them out of town ” followed her down the hall to English.

“ I heard her sniffling in the bathroom ” crawled across the back of her neck during lunch.

Alex always knew her mother, born and raised in New York City, hated Tompkins. That she saw its smallness, in every sense of the word, as a cage. But she didn’t realize until she stood barefoot and bleary-eyed on the front porch watching her mom’s Subaru pull away that Natalie Yates hated Tompkins more than she loved her family.

If The Arcane Files hadn’t premiered that same night, maybe Alex wouldn’t have fallen so hard or so fast into the fandom. But as it happened, the TW network’s weird, experimental supernatural detective show found her at exactly the right (or wrong, depending on your views of a teenager forming an intense attachment to fictional characters) moment in time.

In Colby Southerland, chosen one, lone werewolf turned in a generation, Alex found a slice of hope. For Colby, there was power in otherness, strength born from trials, and purpose in isolation. And of course it didn’t hurt that the actor who played him, Devin Ashwood, had tousled golden hair, eyes that glistened like emeralds in the sun, and, objectively, the world’s most perfect mouth.

All it took was forty-seven minutes, not counting commercials, for Alex to fall into her most infamous identity to date. From that moment forward, she wasn’t just an unwelcome outsider, or the girl whose mom bailed on her. No. Sitting in front of her ancient Dell desktop, in a small, inconspicuous corner of the Internet, Alex’s passion for The Arcane Files and a natural aptitude for HTML turned her into the Mod.

Approximately two years and fifty-three episodes later, Alex attended her first and last fandom convention.

“I heard the Mod is gonna be here,” the guy behind her in line whispered.

Alex subtly scratched at the back of her neck, where a seam of green face paint dipped below the collar of her velvet cape, turning just enough to catch a glimpse of the speaker in her periphery.

Tall, white, middle-aged, and wearing a decent approximation of Colby’s signature leather-and-shearling bomber jacket.

“No way. Are you serious?” said his companion, the words coming out with a slight lisp around the fake fangs he sported. “The Mod’s a living legend. The archive is my bible.” His heavily makeup-emphasized dark brows mimicked those of Colby’s frequent foe, the vampire, Nathaniel Van Lulen.

Alex’s cheeks heated, threatening the glue that held on her papier-maché facial wounds. It was nice to be appreciated for the embarrassing number of hours she spent meticulously cataloging the minute details of a television show Entertainment Weekly called “a poor man’s Twilight Zone with excessive homoerotic tension.”

“I know, but how are we gonna find him?” Cosplay Colby said. “No one knows who he is.”

Yeah, that was by design. Alex doubted the Mod would command the same amount of respect and authority if people somehow found out the person behind their favorite episode summaries and character diagnostics was a gap-toothed high school student from bum-crack Florida. Still, she didn’t appreciate the immediate insinuation that the Mod was a man.

Before today, Alex knew people appreciated the archive: her site’s hit count spoke for itself. And sure, the corresponding forum’s threads got a near constant flurry of activity from people discussing theories and debating ships. But these people were acting like the Mod was almost as big a deal as the actual celebrities they were standing in line to see.

Alex couldn’t bring herself to be sorry that her birthday brought out the worst of Dad’s divorce guilt. Not when he’d let her drive his precious Buick up here all by herself and shelled out for a con ticket that included an exclusive signing package that meant she got to meet her hero.

For once in her life, Alex was exactly where she belonged.

Miami’s Supercon reminded her of a circus: the color, the costumes, the random intermittent screams. Excitement hung palpable in the air, along with the faint fragrance of sweat and hair gel. The convention center’s vast domed ceiling might as well have been a cathedral, shimmering LEDs winking down as worshippers gathered to prostrate themselves at the altar of fiction.

From the unauthorized merch to the hand-drawn art to the people literally speaking to each other in invented tongues, one thing was clear: people here loved stories so much they wished they could abandon the real world to live inside them.

People here were like her .

After what felt like hours, the snaking line of ticket holders finally approached the photo-op room. A space as big as the school gym was split into thirds by long gray curtains strung up on metal rods and marshaled by con organizers wearing orange lanyards. Each of the show’s main characters had their own line and photographer. To the right was Colby (werewolf detective), in the middle, Asher (Colby’s human FBI partner), and on the left, Nathaniel (Colby’s vampire archnemesis/queerbait pseudo love interest).

A pink-haired woman took names at the door and directed traffic based on people’s preassigned time slots. While the Mod’s admirers broke left, Alex joined Colby’s line and got her first glimpse of Devin Ashwood through a slit between the curtains.

Only fear of asphyxiation from the stiff ruffled neckline of her Underworld Ambassador cosplay kept Alex breathing.

Devin’s hair—naturally dirty blond with highlights of honey and amber—gleamed as he bent forward to sign what looked from here like a print from the 1999 “Back to School” photo shoot he did for Gap against his knee.

In person, he was even more handsome than in the twenty-seven-by-forty-inch print she had hanging beside the floor-length mirror in her bedroom. Her dad (unfairly!) hated the poster Alex had gotten as a foldout from a special edition of Teen Beat . He periodically mumbled, “Someone should tell that guy his T-shirt shrank in the wash,” when he walked by her open bedroom door.

The thing about Devin Ashwood was that most people didn’t take him seriously because he used to be a child star. Not Macaulay Culkin level, but he’d done a few family vacation movies and then a long-running stint on a daytime soap for the majority of his adolescence. Alex had never actually watched an episode of Sands of Time . But she knew he’d played Griffin Antonoff—son of Esmerelda Casablanca Antonoff, the series’ beloved long-running heroine—from the ages of eight to eighteen.

Now twenty-five, Devin was playing Detective Colby Southerland, his first big breakout role as an adult. People who had never watched TAF often wanted to reduce Devin to a pretty face just because he had a roguish smile and washboard abs, but anyone who actually tuned in knew he was a once-in-a-generation talent.

Alex sighed with each step forward as the line dwindled, bringing her closer to the rays of his brilliance. It felt impossible that he was really standing there against that school-picture-day backdrop with a tiny rip in the pocket of his chambray shirt.

She pressed her fingernails into her palm. You’re seventeen years old. Get a grip.

The funny thing was, Alex didn’t want to like Colby when she first started watching TAF . It was so clear that he was the showrunner’s self-insert—this paragon of heterosexual masculinity—nailing chicks and taking names. But Devin brought a vulnerability to the role that didn’t come from the scripted lines. Even the goofy souped-up motorcycle they gave him couldn’t cover the fact that his face sometimes looked as if someone had cracked him wide-open, right down the center like a walnut.

When a tall woman in a homemade T-shirt made Devin laugh, Alex almost passed out. God, why hadn’t she brought a tape recorder? She wanted his voice in a seashell around her neck like Ursula the sea witch.

A few minutes later, he leaned forward to talk to an older woman stooped over a walker and took her hands in his. Alex’s heart fluttered. She knew Devin would be just like his character, sensitive and sincere.

“You’ll be the last one for Ashwood this morning,” the volunteer gatekeeping his line said after verifying Alex’s badge number on her clipboard.

Alex nodded, unhearing, as she mentally ran through her talking points one more time. She’d prepared various niche questions about the show’s most ambiguous lore and discreet commendations on his craft choices.

For the few precious seconds that Devin Ashwood had his eyes on her, Alex wanted him to see that she wasn’t some casual viewer. No. She’d been there since the beginning, rooting for him. Behind the cheap special effects and occasionally overwritten dialogue, Alex saw the potential: all Colby and the show could be if only the network gave them the chance.

And then it happened. She was next. The last in line. For a few brief, spectacular moments, Devin Ashwood’s brilliance was going to block out every bad thing in Alex’s life.

“Hey,” he said as she stepped in front of him, his voice somehow even deeper than it was on TV. “How’s it going?”

Devin Ashwood held his arm out, inviting her to slide under for their prepaid picture.

Alex’s brain turned static. Her feet grew roots.

Devin Ashwood wanted her to press her inferior mortal body to the chiseled marble of his chest.

And she just couldn’t.

Her entire frame locked up.

All she could do was stand there and sweat.

The photographer, a middle-aged man with a goatee, huffed. “Let’s go,” he muttered. “You’re the last thing standing between me and lunch.”

When it became clear that Alex wasn’t coming any closer, that she couldn’t, Devin gave the bespectacled man a “one sec” gesture and slowly approached her until they stood almost toe to toe.

“My name’s Devin,” he said, low enough that his words wouldn’t carry across the room.

Alex laughed; the sound punched out of her. It was so goofy, and so kind, for him to offer her his name.

His smile transitioned at her outburst, got toothier. “What’s yours?”

“Alexandra,” she managed, which was so formal, so not her. A name she hadn’t used since birth. Alexandra was a ballet dancer or a cheerleader. Student council president. Alex was a friendless dork who subsisted fifty percent on Cheetos.

“Nice to meet you, Alexandra.” Devin Ashwood offered her his hand.

Alex extended hers, forgetting it was occupied.

He reached for the glossy print. “Is it cool if I sign this?”

His gleaming smile didn’t falter, even when he had to tug a little to pull it loose. If anything, it softened.

Devin signed his name big and loopy, with emphasis on the D and the A and the double o ’s of “Ashwood.”

“I like your outfit.” It was clear this man had experience managing hysterical fans, making small talk to put people at ease. “You’re the Underworld Ambassador, right? From season two? Very niche.”

“You noticed.” The words came out mostly breath.

The Underworld Ambassador only appeared in three minutes and forty-eight seconds of the season’s fourteenth episode.

“Of course.” Devin returned the photo and shoved his hands in his pockets. “It was great to meet you.” His eyes flickered to the door.

Oh no. It was over. Already. Alex’s chance to make an impression was slipping through her fingers like sand. Say something. She mentally kicked herself. Say ANYTHING.

“Wrap it up,” the photographer stage-whispered.

“Wait,” Alex squeaked. “I have a question.”

“Hit me,” Devin said, still smiling.

Jesus. Six hours into this event, his cheeks must hurt.

“What’s your deepest fear?”

The words flew out of Alex’s mouth before she could stop them, with zero forethought, pulled from somewhere deep in her subconscious.

“Excuse me?” Devin’s eyes went wide.

Holy shit. Why had she asked such an intrusive, weird question? One so obviously inappropriate for a fan at a staged photo op. Was this punishment for having zero real-life friends and a mild obsession with the Proust Questionnaire?

Any second now, Devin Ashwood was gonna tell her to get lost. Or call security.

Instead, he exhaled heavily through his mouth. “You don’t pull your punches, do you?”

“I’m so sorry.” Embarrassment seeped from her pores to drip at his feet.

This poor man had tried so hard to make her feel comfortable, telling her his name, making small talk. He’d been determined that Alex should get something nice out of this stiff paid interaction, and she’d ruined it.

Devin Ashwood opened his mouth and then closed it, shaking his head a little.

Alex witnessed the moment of resistance in him, how he winced and pushed through it, as if he owed her an answer for some impossible reason, and knew exactly how much it would cost him.

“The mask slips,” he said finally, softly, ducking his chin, almost…sheepish. “From the outside, on a good day, I’m a decent stand-in for Colby Southerland. But underneath all this”—he gestured to his face—“trust me, it gets messy real quick.”

The rawness of the confession made Alex’s throat hurt. She didn’t think as she followed her feet to slot herself against his side, slipping under his arm. The pipe cleaners on her headdress brushed his chin.

“Well, I think you’re perfect,” she swore solemnly.

Devin Ashwood laughed like it hurt as he squeezed her shoulder. “Thanks, kid. I try really hard.”

A flash went off, accompanied by a loud pop that made them both jump. The photographer apparently had seen his chance for a candid and taken it.

Devin pulled back. “Take care of yourself, Alexandra.”

“Alex,” she said, voice only a little hoarse.

He raised his brows.

“Everyone calls me Alex, actually.”

Devin Ashwood gave her a nod. “Alex it is.”

In that moment, her crush grew into a mountain, a continent, a star.

Sure, she had loved him before, but that had been superficial. A child’s crush. She’d loved Colby, really. A fictional character.

Now? Devin Ashwood had trusted her with his insecurities, had literally whispered his secret pain in Alex’s ear. She would guard his tender heart as long as she lived.

She made it halfway to the food concourse before realizing she’d forgotten to grab the candid photo on her way out.

“Oh no.” Alex sucked in a sharp breath. No. No. No. No. She couldn’t lose the one memento she had from today. The one talisman she could take back with her, to ward against whatever came next.

She raced back, climbing the escalator like stairs even though her mom once told her more people died on them every year than in car crashes. The fates had aligned for her to see Devin Ashwood for a few extra seconds.

By the time Alex got back to the photo room, the place had totally emptied out. There was only Devin in the corner, chugging a bottle of water, and the hangry photographer packing his camera into a shoulder bag.

Having learned her lesson, Alex stepped behind the last curtain to collect herself for a moment before announcing her presence.

“Fancy seeing you again,” she tried sotto voce before shaking herself. Ugh. No. That was horrible.

Alex would simply say, “Hey.” Stick to single syllables. Nothing fancy.

“It ever weird you out?” a gruff voice with hints of a Boston accent—the photographer—asked. “Having all these strangers go to pieces over you?”

“Nah, man.” There was Devin’s mellifluous bass. “It’s all part of the gig. You get used to it.”

“You were really good with that last one, the mess. I thought she was gonna puke.”

Devin laughed a little, hard, quick. Unkind.

The sound poured like ice water down Alex’s spine.

“Tell me about it. I felt sorry for her. Did you see that costume? I figured the least I could do was show a little mercy. Grade A freak like that? Poor thing’s gonna die alone.”

Alex stumbled on limp noodle legs to the door, her ears ringing.

Screw the photograph. She didn’t need it. Didn’t want it.

A crowd from the lunch rush jostled her as she made her way to the bathroom. Alex rubbed at her stinging shoulder. Don’t you dare cry.

Devin Ashwood’s condemnation wasn’t special. It came in the same pitch as the remarks from the people at the grocery store in Tompkins.

Colby Southerland. The Arcane Files. None of it existed.

In real life, being strange wasn’t a virtue. Being rejected didn’t make you strong.

It drove people away.

Alex thought about her dad, caught totally off guard by his wife leaving. Mom always said Alex took after him.

In front of the smudged bathroom mirror, she ripped her headdress off. Pins pulled at her scalp, but Alex welcomed the sting. She yanked one sleeve off her costume, then the other, shoving the cheap, synthetic material—all she’d been able to afford—into the metal trash can before bracing both hands on the porcelain sink.

Face paint and mascara bled down her cheeks. Tangled black hair hung limp around her shoulders. The person staring back at her was grotesque. A grade A freak .

Devin Ashwood agreed with every asshole in her hometown: Alex was doomed to be a social pariah.

The monster in the mirror broke into a terrible grin.

So be it.