CHAPTER TEN
ORION FENIMORE
Breathe, Lila! Just breathe!
LILA MURPHY
You breathe! I can’t feel my damn face!
Vampire Falls. Season two, episode fifteen – “We’ve Been Expecting You”
I can’t possibly tell you what just happened but I’m standing on my chair and a steward is yelling at me from the aisle, and I can’t hear what she’s saying because the entire hall is screaming. Screaming.
I have a singular, one-track, blinkered thought flashing in neon inside my head, and that thought is that I must win that trip to Comic Con. Nay, not must, I will win that trip for me and Roxy if it’s the last thing I do.
“Not only that,” says Megan Nicole Jefferies, amid some deranged ssshh-ing but mostly still screams, “but the runner-up gets to have coffee with the nicest guy I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with . . .” More pausing. OMG my heart. “That legend right there, Mr Damon Van Schwartz!”
Apart from taking certain people who have done the Heimlich on him out to dinner, Damon Van Schwartz never does one-to-ones.
I turn round to scream with the rest of the audience.
A few are on their chairs. One woman has pulled her T-shirt up over her head like footballers do, so her Rassmussen family crest tattoo on her chest is on display in all its glory. Good for her, I say.
Hands grab at my legs, and I try to kick Roxy away until I realise she’s lifting me onto her shoulders.
Fake McKinley helps steady me, and I raise my hands to the ceiling of Conference Room A in thanks to Varelia, the Goddess of Good Fortune.
The crowd chants WE LOVE DAMON and I scream the words even though my throat is on fire.
Happy fire. Damon Van Schwartz is smiling, wiping tears of happiness from his cheeks.
Only he would do something like this for his fans; only he gets what it means.
“Guys, guys. I know we’re . . .” We can just about hear Felix’s voice above the noise.
“I know we’re excited, but it’s gravely important we set up for later.
After we’ve changed the hall around there’ll be a small window to put your name into the actual Cauldron of Metallica prop from the season four finale, to enter the competition.
Then names will be drawn tomorrow. I think that’s it for now, right, Damon? ”
Damon Van Schwartz nods and then pats his chest, right where his big loving heart is.
He looks out at us with his Sharpie Nano Blue eyes, wet with tears, and I love him so much I just want to crawl inside him and love him from the snuggly confines of his ribcage.
Roxy lowers me onto the chair and helps me hop down.
I smile at her but she’s giving me a look.
“What?” I ask, my voice croaky.
“You just screamed I want to crawl inside you.”
“Did I?” I say, shrugging. “Heat of the moment. I’m sure nobody noticed.”
Roxy raises her eyebrows and gestures to the rows in front of us, and behind, where everyone is looking at me like I’ve maybe crossed the line from superfan into stalkerdom.
“I’ll rein it in,” I say, crossing my heart.