4. Thorn
Chapter four
Thorn
T he convention is now in full swing. I’ve been here since the early hours of the day, doing walkthroughs, talking to the other security, and familiarizing myself with the building’s layout. Then, I was sure to walk past every vendor so I knew who belonged at what booth. There are over four hundred booths, but I have a good memory, and it’s scarily accurate.
Ephemeral—not Effy—got here over an hour early. She had last-minute things to put up, her laptop and tablet to check repeatedly, and a cat to settle.
Or so I thought.
In reality, Peach Lips went from her carrier to the cave cage thing just fine and got a dish of cat food and some water, and then Ephemeral just sat and waited while stabbing at her phone. Probably updating social media about the convention, adding photos, answering messages, and doing all sorts of things to market—or not market, as she firmly stated—her cat and make everyone else happy.
She strikes me as the number one people-pleaser type. I know her background. I know all about what schools she went to, every stage in her life, every phase, every tragedy. I know she’s entirely on her own now, living in a small bus that she painted purple. What other color would someone who wears the brightest cat dresses and has hair like the deepest reaches of the galaxy paint it?
You can’t learn everything about a person by reading their background information alone. I know people because it’s my job to know people, but I always leave room open to be surprised. I refuse to make assumptions as they’re the height of ignorance, and looking like a fool isn’t something I’m willing to live down.
Hence why I’m here, currently watching swarms of people approach Ephemeral’s booth to coo over the little patchy-haired, one-eyed, no-teeth bag of potatoes—fine…her cat.
The current and rather obnoxious lingo is people repeatedly saying this or that is giving this or that. My internal badass bodyguard is so in touch with the younger generation. For the record, I’m thirty-five, but I look like someone in their early twenties who has a fitness obsession, and I feel mentally like someone in their fifties. Sixties. Seventies? Anyfuckingway, this crowd is giving hives.
Wait. Maybe I don’t know how it goes.
It’s pretty much the worst nightmare of anyone who is trying to do any kind of security anything.
There are plenty of animals here, but it’s the human ones who concern me. I’m on ultra-alert mode.
My hands curl into fists as I stand well back in the shadowy black backdrop that divides the booths. They’re small, or at least Ephemeral’s is, which is a bonus because less to watch and guard. I’m following one of her rules. She laid out the list, ending each point with a verbally punctuated skull emoji. She’d stood on the stairs of her bus and ticked them off like a teacher to a group of unruly children. I listened like the perfect angel I’m not because that’s what I’m going to have to be over the next month, which is all the time she agreed to give me. There’s no room for disagreement or error. She’s the one doing me a favor. Redemption isn’t something I usually have to claw my way to, and favor isn’t something I curry, but I’m going to be motherfucking currying today.
I’ll stand back as Ephemeral commanded. I won’t interfere with Peach Lips’ fans, and I’ll make myself invisible. I won’t crack skulls or break bones or appear like a menacing hulk. No scaring anyone off in any way. I’ll respond only to certain dangers and known threats.
Check, check, and fucking check.
My left eye twitches as I watch an elderly man with a group of little kids running around him like flies, screaming and snotty and being generally loud and obnoxious. They’re about as good a reason as any not to procreate if anyone should ever need a reason. Don’t ask me why, but apparently people do.
Two of the youngest beasts, dressed in superhero costumes to a cat convention, start tearing at the black pleated skirting on the tables while another drops down onto his bottom and starts screaming. He’s maybe two, so that explains the tantrums, although all the boys up to the ages of fourteen or so aren’t behaving either. They’re flicking through the brochures, messing with Ephemeral’s books, and touching the cat toys she has in little baggies to sell to make extra money for her cat charities. She has a few racks of T-shirts and sweaters with Peach Lips’ face on them, and one of the brats is shoulder-deep in the rack, about to tip it over.
It’s when the five-year-old or so literally drops his pants and whips out his you-know-what and decides to try and practice writing his signature in yellow that I have to step in.
This is a direct threat to Ephemeral’s personal property and an affront to her honor. Wrong century to talk about honor, I know, but still.
I charge into the crowd, some of whom are muttering and pointing out the literal pissant. I go to grab the little pisser by the scruff of his shirt to guide him back to his father or guardian or whoever the hell that old fart is, who is not even paying attention to the little demon spawns he brought here, but the kid whips around right as I’m reaching for him.
He soaks my front left pantleg, momentarily stunning me even though I don’t do things like get stunned. Nothing takes me by surprise. I don’t get distracted like normal people. Yeah, fucking yeah. Clearly, there’s a first time for everything because I’m frozen.
The brat pulls up his pants in short order, laughs at me, and then stops when he sees the look on my face. He goes from hellraiser demon child to holy shit, oh my pee pants, I’ve done it this time real fast. His sense of self-preservation is stronger than I give him credit for because he reaches out to me, probably to try and cry and induce sympathy…except I was wrong. He does reach out for me, but only to quickly grab my taser, which I’ve hidden in a case that snaps shut on the side of my belt. And while I’m shocked about that because he’s probably five, he gets the thing on and points it directly at my crotch.
I’m still shocked, but it wears off fast, and a sense of self-preservation kicks in. I shoot him a it’s okay, son, hand over the weapon look with both palms up in the air. Thank god he chucks it on the floor. As I move to pick it up, he belts me straight in the nuts with both fists, giving my squirrel prizes a quick one-two and making my knees buckle and hit the ground hard.
Who is this fucking kid?
The old man starts shouting when the little shit runs off, scream-laughing at the top of his lungs, and the rest of the boys take flight. They race down the aisle, shoving people aside, knocking things down, and causing general havoc.
And me?
I’m frozen on the ground, trying not to pass out or puke.
Yes, I’ve had worse.
It’s been a long time, though.
Holy shit, what is that wetness seeping into me?
Ephemeral. She’s suddenly right there, bending down to look in my face with her black dress and all the planets and stars, though it’s actually all cats. Cat faces on Mars and Mercury and Saturn. A cat is the sun.
“Thorn?” She sounds worried. She looks worried.
Where did everyone go?
What is wrong with my head?
My vision temporarily blanks out. Silence. Wait, there’s a whimper, some whispers, and a few gasps very far removed like there’s a crowd gathered around, watching. Watching me. Because I just about passed out here on the ground after a kid disarmed me, and now I think, on top of everything, I’m lying in a puddle of piss.
My vision clears, and I realize two things. The first is that, yes, I’ve fallen straight into that little demon pisser’s puddle of yellow gold. The second is that there is indeed quite a crowd. They are muttering and pointing while I’m down here, grabbing my poor nut bag.
Peach Lips sticks her little cat face over the edge of the booth. “Mrrrow?” She sounds like a bellowing yak if bellowing yaks were also seven-hundred-year-old potato wizards.
“No!” I yelp, but it’s too late.
She launches herself off the table and lands straight on top of me. For an old, slightly stiff, hairy root vegetable, Peach Lips pulls a perfect landing. Right on top of my mangled man bits.
“Awww!” Someone in the assembled crowd gushes as I try not to puke, shrivel up, and die.
“That’s so sweet!”
“She’s the little cherry on the red hot mess tower.”
“The perfect little cherry.”
“What a sweetheart.”
“What happened?”
“Oh my god, how can they get that sweet, innocent little cat involved in such brazen debauchery?”
“What debauchery?”
“That guy tried to tase a kid!”
“Tase?”
“What a horrible old buggar.”
I can’t see anyone who is making those comments, but I hear them, and the last was very prim and proper and old ladyish, with a tight and stodgy British accent.
Ephemeral quickly snatches up Peach Lips and stands above me, giving me a black, murderous staredown.
One more thing I know?
This was supposed to be about redemption, but it has quickly evolved into the most opposite of redemption there ever could be. Not only will I not live this down, but there is zero way to fix this.