Chapter One Hundred and Seventy Two
...
Nina hadn't been on a school excursion without Warren before, and found that she missed seeing him with others like this. It was different, seeing your child in a school environment, especially her son. This would have been the first excursion since he'd been a child where Warren would have had friends, and she missed seeing it because he was still recovering. Ida and Honey had told her enough about that little trip to France that Nina was grateful Warren had even come back alive.
She also wanted to kill him herself for leaving on a potentially life-threatening mission without even telling her, for fuck's sakes! The minute Ida cleared him, Warren would be grounded. It didn't matter that his groundings never seemed to last long, or that she couldn't enforce them when he looked at her with the same sort of look that had her returning to Barron time and time again. Layla would probably pout as well, and Nina still couldn't get her power to stick with the red-headed girl, so enforcing it that way wouldn't work, either. Still, he was going to be grounded just on the principle of the thing.
Ryuu and Zach looked outside of their comfort zone with the respective sidekick and hero they'd been paired with. Ryuu's sidekick kept their distance, like being trans was contagious, while on the other hand, Zach's hero kept trying to look over Zach's shoulder any time he thought no one was looking. It was enough to give Nina the creeps.
"All right, everyone. Another two minutes before we switch exhibits. We're going to Super Superstition next," Nina called, looking at the map to try to work out how to get there from this exhibit. "Ritchie, can you help with this map?" she asked, waving him over, not missing Zach's look of gratitude and relief.
"Hey, Ry. You 'kay?" Zach asked, nudging him with his shoulder.
"Hmm? Yeah, I'm good."
"Is it your sidekick? I can blind 'em for a bit, if you want?"
Ry blinked, frowned, and shook his head. "Nah, they're leaving me alone, which is better than the alternative, so just leave it."
"Then why're you all emotional?" Zach asked.
"Oh. The exhibition. I just... I didn't know there were supers like me out there," he said, nodding to the exhibit of LGBT+ supers on the map of the world.
Each person's super name was written on their representative flag, with a rainbow of blues, yellows, pinks, purples, and greys covering the map.
"You knew Babs though?"
"She was all over the news, and kinda hard to miss," he said, Zach conceding with a nod. "I never looked because I was afraid they wouldn't be out there," Ry said, somewhere between a laugh and a sob as he counted eight different transgender supers in the US alone.
"I'm sure there's even more out there. I'll get Eth to put a list together for you," Zach said, wrapping his arm around Ry's shoulders. "You gotta stop growing, dude, you're gonna be taller than me soon."
Ry sniffled and laughed. "That's the aim, Zed."
"Good. Now, c'mon, we can walk to the next exhibit together. No one said we had to be stuck by our partner's side for the whole day. Going to the bathroom would be hella awkward," he said with a grin, offering his hand.
Ry laughed, took Zach's hand and headed out with the rest of their group.
...
Layla felt like her head was spinning. She'd spent the morning looking at the files Honey had brought over, but the paperwork was heavily redacted. Each member of the security team had a small file as thick as her hand, but none of it actually made sense considering how many names and places were hidden beneath solid black lines. Some pages had entire paragraphs redacted, and three whole pages in Connor's file were blacked out entirely.
"Getting anything useful, hippie?" Warren asked, his mind more alert after his nap.
Layla shook her head. "Not much. It's too heavily redacted. I can guess, but making assumptions won't help us in the long-run. I'm tempted to just ask them outright."
Warren considered it for a moment, then shrugged. "Why not? They'll either say it's classified and clamp up, or they'll tell us."
"Ry and Connor will be over this afternoon; can you help me think of a way to ask him gently so it doesn't set off his PTSD? The group chat was one thing, but face to face is another."
"You've got more control than I do at the moment. You keep him calm and I'll ask. I'll heal from a punch faster than you."
"He won't punch us," Layla said certainly.
"He might be emotional enough to get through the brand. We haven't dealt with anyone with PTSD yet. We don't know what will set him off, really."
"Hmm. Okay, I'll text Ry and see if he has any suggestions."
Warren was distracted as his phone alarm went off. "Oh, The Days of our Super Lives is almost on. We should find out who wins the bet today," he said with a grin, turning the TV on.
Layla snickered. "You just want to watch soap operas."
Warren shrugged. "There's worse things to watch on TV."
Layla grinned and sent her message to Ry, rather than the whole group text so Connor wouldn't see. Navigating to the group chat, she sent a message to say hi to everyone and sent a photo of Warren watching the TV with a serious expression on his face.
"What're you doing, hippie?"
"Nothing!" she quipped, grinning.
...
To stay calm, Angelina had to use every single one of the skills she had built in the years of working in the hospitality industry after dealing with self-righteous customers and demanding chefs, her husband included. Somehow, one teenage girl made all of those people pale in comparison with her snide remarks and holier-than-thou comments, and Angelina had to tell herself that bitch slapping a teenager was not the way an adult responded to a little bitch of a bully.
Besides, it would probably upset Milo further, and one person ruining her son's day was already one too many, in her entirely biased opinion. Cathy was clearly trying to get on the good side of the Morton heir and had somehow decided that making bitchy comments about Najair - from his hair to his shoes, clothes, feminine personality, and everything in between - was the way to do that. Angelina was one more comment away from sending the awful girl to Jared to deal with, and was surprised the Morton heir hadn't lost his temper yet. She'd seen him and Najair holding hands on the way to the exhibit, something Cathy had obviously missed.
"Cathy, if you don't shut the fuck up, I'm going to take off my shoe and stuff it in that useless hole you call a mouth!" Pat snapped, 150% done with her remarks about his boyfriend.
Ah, there it was.
Cathy's eyes widened in outrage at Pat's words, and she turned to Angelina with all the force of a woman scorned.
"Don't even try it. You'd best listen to him, 'cause I'm about this far from handing him my shoe instead," Angelina said.
So much for not upsetting Milo further. Oops.
Najair hummed and tapped his chin, as though curious about the proceedings, then flipped his pink braid over his shoulder before looking at Cathy. "What's your name short for?"
Cathy frowned at the question, probably surprised that Najair wasn't joining in the tirade considering the things she'd said about him in the last hour, and answered, "Catherine. Why?"
"Oh! I thought it was short for catheter," he said in a simpering tone, then turned on his heel and offered an arm to Milo. "Come on, we've still got another question to answer, and I'm sick of hearing Catheter go on and on."
Milo followed along with Najair, too stunned to do otherwise, and Pat elbowed past Cathy to follow after them. Milo was grateful Najair still had hold of his arm because his legs were weak and trembling beneath his skirt. Cathy had seen him and immediately started saying how men wearing women's clothing was against nature and Super God would destroy his soul and a whole slew of insults that just seemed to never end. She'd said it all to Pat as though they were having a conversation, oblivious to the anger that was clear on his face. Then she'd started on Najair, with his long pink hair and wearing an actual sundress with tights, and she didn't know how he could dare leaving the house dressed like that. Milo was honestly surprised Pat had lasted as long as he had without giving Cathy a verbal smackdown. He knew she would be quiet for a few hours, but she would probably start up again once she found out what a catheter was.
Angelina made a note in her folder for Jared, then looked at the timetable. Another five minutes and they were due at Gender and Super Status.
This exhibit was about jobs for both supers and their alter egos. Jetstream and the Commander were the main attraction with other heroes and villains also featured around the room, including ones that Jetstream and the Commander had defeated. Sandsapien had a frame, though it seemed Yichen didn't know his secret identity as a citizen. Captain Stronghold's frame was larger than others, but smaller than his son and daughter-in-law's, and displayed his work as a superhero and a citizen. The rank of Captain had been true, but according to the exhibit, he had been dishonourably discharged from the Navy for fatally punching a superior.
"Now, Milo. We have to discuss whether the military report provided details about what happened correctly, or if it was modified based on what we know of Captain Stronghold's crime fighting style," Najair read, the three teens looking at the report.
"Is 'punching things until they stop moving' a real crime fighting style?" Milo asked, smiling when Najair and Pat both laughed at his weak joke.
Maybe today wouldn't suck as much as he'd thought.
...
Wendy breathed in slowly, imagining sending a lightning bolt at Magenta's head. Placing the thought on a leaf in a stream she pictured in her mind, she then imagined the thought-ridden leaf floating away, the water's current calmer than her heart. Another thought appeared about sending Magenta flying with a hurricane, so she added it to another leaf and imagined it floating away calmly.
" - and then he said that he didn't believe in fairies! What do you think it means?" Magenta asked.
Wendy stopped her meditation reluctantly when she realised Magenta was actually waiting for an answer, and opened her eyes. "I think it was a bad dream after too many Halloween goodies. Sometimes a dream is just a dream."
Magenta frowned. "But I thought all dreams had to mean something?"
"I think this one was telling you not to eat so much black liquorice before bed," Wendy deadpanned.
She wished Layla was here so she could control Magenta. Maybe she could shut her up for longer than three minutes. Or asphyxiate her with a vine. Whichever was easiest, of course.
"Have you written your answers yet?" Wendy asked.
Magenta reddened. "Oh, right. I'll do that now. Uh, do you have a pen I can borrow?" she asked, looking at the pen Wendy was holding.
Her grip tightened on the pen. There was no way in hell she was giving it to Magenta even temporarily; her father had gifted her the pen for passing her exams in the top half of the class. It had a barometer in it and Wendy considered it her lucky pen. Wendy reached into her bag and grabbed an old ballpoint pen, offering it to Magenta. She looked disappointed but took it without complaint.
"Thanks. There's another dream I had about - "
"Don't you want to concentrate on your answers?" Wendy asked, almost desperately.
"Oh, it's okay! I can write and talk at the same time!" Magenta said, continuing on obliviously, and writing as she glanced at the exhibition every so often.
Super superstition involved more than black cats and ladders. There were lucky capes and underwear, the superstition about raising the dead after Super Heroes Day, and shifters couldn't stay shifted for more than a day without losing control of their humanity.
" - and then the ducks ate me!"
"I wish," Wendy muttered under her breath. "Hey, what happened with that fight at the aquarium? I didn't see the news."
Magenta winced and shifted on her feet like she could still feel a phantom pain on her ass. "It all happened so fast," she murmured, then started talking about her dreams again, writing in the workbook.
A little satisfied by her response, Wendy returned to her meditation, thinking of more creative ways to kill Magenta and letting the leaves float away before she could act on them. Maybe she'd test how long Magenta could stay in guinea pig form.
"All right, kids. We're going on to Supers and Sex," Tilda called out, rolling her eyes when several kids giggled. "Yes, the word sex is hilarious, I know."
Wendy looked from her mother to Magenta, who was now furiously scribbling an answer to the last question before they had to leave.
"There, done!" Magenta said proudly, handing the workbook back.
Wendy glanced at the barely legible handwriting and grit her teeth when she saw all three of Magenta's answers had basically copied her own. Removing oxygen from her lungs would take work, but Wendy was sure she could do it. Sighing, she let the thought drift away.
"C'mon, Maj! Hurry up!" Craig called from the hallway.
"Oh, coming!" Magenta called back, hurrying to catch up with Craig.
Wendy took the space to breathe, and almost smacked into Craig when he stepped out from behind the ladder, Kiara on his shoulder. "What are you doing?" Wendy hissed, surprised.
"Giving you time away from Magenta. Super Jesus, she never shuts up," Craig groaned, hugging Wendy tightly and not even caring when she almost crushed him in response.
Kiara jumped off Craig's shoulder and reformed in the same instant, her hair tied up in a multicoloured bun. "I can poison her, if you like? Just something small, it'll keep her occupied in the bathroom for the rest of the day and away from everyone else."
"No. I can handle her. It's only another hour 'til lunch,'' Wendy added, trying to convince herself as much as her friends.
"Ugh, you might be able to, but I don't think I can. What do you think this dream means?" Craig asked in Magenta's voice, his tone mocking.
Wendy felt her eye twitch and forced herself to breathe. "C'mon, let's get to the next exhibition before she tries to find us," she muttered.
Craig offered an arm with a flourish and Kiara took her hand as they headed after their group reluctantly.
...
Frieda found several statues of ancient sex and fertility gods, and spent far too long taking photos to send to Babs. The piece de resistance of the Supers and Sex exhibit in Frieda's opinion was the book showing various ways to have sex with certain types of physical powers. There was even a bed with two mechanical mannequins, one equipped with the Commander's supposed strength to show how the wall behind the bed was being destroyed with the missionary position. The group of teenagers had giggled about it for so long they hadn't even noticed Frieda taking photos of the statues.
Donny had lasted the whole of five minutes before he found a spare power repressing cuff in his bag and shoved it on firmly, looking paler than usual. Maleah looked concerned over his pale expression, and kept both herself and her assigned hero support close until Donny's cheeks gained some colour again.
Frieda watched as the others all interacted, some personalities clashing and others meshing well. It didn't mean they were instant friends, of course, but she hoped it wouldn't result in arguments like she was sure some of the other groups were experiencing. A few of the poor dears in this group had secrets that had made her clutch Donny's hand far too tightly when they'd first arrived at the exhibit. The rest of the school children were just as likely to have secrets that would turn her grey hair white, and she wasn't anticipating lunch.
"Ah, there you are, Hayley. Would you mind looking at this map for me, dearie? I've left my reading glasses at home," Frieda said, holding the map out for her.
"Sure. We're going to Supers through the Ages next, yeah?" Hayley asked.
"I believe so. Group Six is there at the moment with that dear Mr. Boy. He's a lovely fellow, isn't he?"
Hayley grinned. "He's certainly something, Ms. Bettendorf. We need to go to the left down the hallway. It's near the ladies' bathroom, which... Can I go?"
"Of course, dearie. No need to ask, you're old enough to go when you need," Frieda said, patting Hayley's hand and taking the offered map back, watching as she left the room. As soon as she was gone, Frieda headed over to Hayley's hero support, smiling at the young man. "Let's talk, shall we, Tate?"
Donny was tempted to take the cuff off, but decided to leave it on. Frieda's thoughts on seeing everyone's secrets had been bad enough and he didn't want to know why she was singling Tate out. He was going to grab a plate of food at lunch and hide in one of the exhibition halls so he could eat without wearing a cuff for the whole damn day. Maybe he could convince Wendy to join him.
"Hey, have a muesli bar or water or something, would you? You look like you're about to faint," Maleah said, frowning at his face. "Wendy would kick my ass if I let that happen."
Donny looked away from Tate and Frieda, and nodded, grabbing a bottle of water from his bag and drinking deeply. "Happy?"
"Eat and I will be. Pepe packed us a few treats, so I've got brownies if you need sugar. Just not the red lid, okay? Those are chocolate bug brownies."
Donny blinked. "Why's your dad packing food on a trip with food that's supplied?"
Maleah raised an eyebrow. "Pepe gives us food if we're going out the door, it doesn't matter where or what the occasion is," she said with a shrug, then continued to answer Donny, "He wasn't sure there'd be food to meet our dietary needs, so it's emergency snacks. We don't have a handy way of carrying it around like Eth, so I'm lucky I got him down to one backpack, or else we'd all have one."
"All right. I'll try a brownie, if only to lighten your load," he said, grinning.
"Thanks. Think the rest of the group would want one?"
"Yeah, can't hurt. Unless there's nuts? Pretty sure Hayley has a nut allergy."
"Oh. Nah, he just replaced the walnuts with extra chocolate," Maleah said, grinning at the post-it note on the green-lidded container before offering it to Donny.
"Is that... a chocolate bar family?"
"Triplets," Maleah confirmed with a nod. "That means triple chocolate. Enjoy."
"I hope you don't mind that I check before biting into it? I'd prefer not to try cricket without some warning," Donny said with a wry grin, opening the lid and taking one of the brownie squares out.
"It wouldn't be cricket, it's probably larvae. Sometimes he just puts whatever we have in the fridge and covers it with brownie batter. Those are the best," Maleah said, grinning.
Satisfied it was only chocolate and not bugs, Donny took a small bite. "Whoa. That's a lot of cocoa."
"Too much? Pepe will want feedback."
"Yeah, it's a little bitter. I'm still gonna eat it, don't worry."
"All right. I'll offer the rest," Maleah said with a smile, turning and stopping when she saw Tate push past Frieda and run out of the room. "What happened there?"
Donny frowned. "No idea."
Maybe he should have left the cuff off, after all.
Frieda looked around the room, noticing several teens looking at her. "Sorry for disturbing you. Keep going, I need to find somewhere to sit," she said, heading out of the room to locate a chair and look for Tate at the same time.
...
Josie was preparing for an open house when her phone pinged with a text. Hoping it wasn't the potential buyer, she looked at the screen, a frown forming when she saw it was from Will.
"Is everything all right, dear?" Steve asked, seeing her expression as he came into the kitchen.
"No, I need to go. Can you handle the open house, Steve? I don't want this sale to fall through, so make sure you close it before the end of the day, understood?"
Steve straightened at her forceful tone and nodded. "Yes, dear. I will. Promise."
Josie smiled absent-mindedly. "That's good. Thank you, dear." She dropped behind the kitchen island, Jetstream stepping out.
She kissed his cheek before flying out of the open window and in the direction of the museum where her precious son was being served food containing insects and bugs.
...
"How's everything looking from your vantage point?" Jared asked Yichen as the students started to gather for lunch.
Yichen pushed his glasses up his nose and shook his head. "It's worse than a telenovela. Oh, and Lorraine threatened you on her way out. I have it on camera with audio if you need evidence. You dealt with her in a very professional manner; I doubt I could have held my tongue if she'd said that shit to me."
"It's an unfortunate side effect for lots of citizen parents with super kids: they think they're special because their genes produced a kid with a power," Jared said, rolling his eyes. "It's not the first time someone's called me a powerless freak, and it probably won't be the last. But I will take you up on that recording; she'll probably say I said or did something and try to threaten me again."
"And your wife?" Yichen added.
Jared stilled, his face losing any hint of patience. "What?"
"Lorraine knows people who know people who know that Sarah works at Labyrinth. She won't have a job there by the end of the day, apparently," Yichen said.
Jared clenched his jaw and tried to breathe. He could be threatened from here until the end of time, but to go after his loved ones? Fuck that.
"Need to use my phone? It has a secure line," Yichen added with a sly smile, offering the handset to him.
Jared shook his head. "Excuse me for a moment?"
"Of course. I'll turn the stairway camera off for five minutes. We seem to be having, uh... technical difficulties. Maintenance must be working on it or something," Yichen lied, nodding in the direction of the stairs.
Jared nodded shortly, heading to the door marked 'stairs' and taking his phone out of his pocket to call Honey.
Yichen returned to the drama that was super-powered teens at the illustrious Sky High. When he was a teenager himself, he hadn't been interested in the prospect of fighting or doing crime, which were really the only two options that an education at Sky High afforded, so had continued with his public school education and using his power sparingly. It worked well for him, as he'd been able to follow his interests in historical artefacts, eventually accepting a job at Maxville Super Museum. Even if it initially came with far too much merchandise about Jetstream and the Commander, Yichen had been able to build up the museum to include historically-relevant information about superheroes and supervillains, long before Captain Stronghold had come into the public eye. As far as most citizens were concerned, Captain Stronghold was the first superhero, but Yichen knew that he was just the first one willing to take on the public. The events leading up to Captain Stronghold's rise to stardom were far from heroic, though very few knew that, of course.
Movement on the exterior cameras caught his eye suddenly. Yichen frowned as he rewound the video, pausing to see the edge of a familiar red cape, just as Jetstream herself appeared in front of the museum's glass doors.
Ah, fuck.
...
Tate was trembling and he hated that he was. No one was meant to know and he wasn't going to let them know, but that old woman had taken one look at him and she'd known like it was written over his head in flashing neon lights. He ran his hands over his face, tugging at his hair sharply so the pain would redirect his thoughts. He needed to stop thinking. He'd seen Donny, the mind reader, looking at him curiously, and he'd bolted. Tate didn't know if he'd been fast enough for Donny to not read his mind, or even if his power worked like that, but he hadn't been found yet and it had been almost ten minutes since he'd run from the exhibition room.
"Tate? Oh, there you are, dear. I'm so sorry. I didn't realise or think, really. I was just worried, and I upset you," Frieda said kindly, setting the chair down nearby and sitting down with a heavy and grateful sigh.
Tate shook his head mutely, biting his tongue so he wouldn't respond aloud. She didn't really care, not about him or his sister, no one did. He'd found that out the hard way when his parents had died: promise after promise had been broken by adult after adult. They'd promised that he'd be looked after, that his sister would have a job at this company or with that person, that he'd stop grieving his parents' deaths eventually. None of the promises had been kept. Tate supposed he was lucky in a sense because if they had been kept, then he would have been taken away from his sister. Etta was eighteen when their parents had died, still a year too young to be considered his legal guardian, but his paperwork had been lost in the mail, accidentally shredded, lost in the Ethernet - whatever shitty excuse the adults in charge could pull out of their ass every time she called to ask for help or an update on the application or to beg for money for food or bills - and in the end Etta had stopped calling and the adults had stopped asking. Tate was just one out of hundreds of orphaned children and he was one of the lucky ones with an older sibling who actually gave a shit about him, so he wasn't a priority like the other orphans were.
"Would you like to talk about it? I have these gloves, if you'd like? They're spares, so don't worry about me," Frieda added, rummaging in her handbag for her gloves. "There we go. I know they're pink, but they'll help with your... uh, problem."
She had seen his secret and had been worried enough to touch his skin, to try to offer a tactile comfort, only for Tate to go pale and run like the hounds of Super Hell were after him. Frieda felt awful about it; the gloves were an apology and peace offering all at once, but it wouldn't be enough. Not after everything she'd seen from him, a familiar heart monitor beeping in his head, the sound echoing like a constant unwanted companion.
Tate swallowed hard and reached out for the gloves, if only to stop his hands from trembling. When he was younger, his power had been weak to the point where he'd had to spend months begging his parents to go to Sky High - he could be a hero, he could help people with his power, he knew he could! They'd been worried since his power seemed to have a mind of its own and would work at random times. They'd been right and Tate had been slotted in the sidekick track without Boomer listening to his explanation. After their deaths, however, Tate found that he couldn't power down, no matter how he tried. Not only that, but his power had become stronger, too. It was something he'd wished for every birthday and with every night star, but if his parents' death was the price for his power increase, he'd rather be a citizen.
His fingers closed around the offered gloves, his eyes open wide as images assaulted him... falling in love with Henry, being wooed and seduced by Henry, having Henry's daughter, their daughter serious and wide eyed as she stated things clearly and never quite a baby or child, her terror of her own child and the days and nights spent sobbing, Henry staying away for longer business trips each and every time, her betrayal sharp as her daughter's words came true when she found lipstick stains and phone numbers scrawled on pieces of paper, the arguments becoming longer and louder, the silence deadly between them, and her daughter spending more time with her only friend as Frieda spent time alternating between sobbing and ranting on Edith's couch. The gloves had been stuffed in a basket as time passed, picked up again when Frieda had stopped associating the gloves with her now ex-husband, her adopted daughter showing her how the smallest seed could bloom even after the coldest winter, secrets seen in each of her friends as they trained underground and after school, looking to her daughter not just as a friend but as a leader, a crowd of bald and malnourished children hiding and terrified, and their secrets were so bad that she would protect them all however she could, even if it meant fighting at her age...
Tate blinked, his eyelids feeling like sandpaper, and his breath ragged in his chest. It was all over in three seconds, but felt like three lifetimes. He could still remember the feeling of being pregnant, which was goddamn weird since he didn't have a womb; Tate was so fucking glad she hadn't kept the gloves on while giving birth. The later things she'd seen and done while wearing the gloves made Tate think; Frieda could obviously keep secrets, since she'd kept her own since she was a child, and he licked his dry lips as he considered his next words.
"My sister was crushed by a building because of Will and Larry."
Frieda knew, of course, it was the reason she'd wanted to console him in the first place, but she simply nodded. She was the first person Tate had told. He knew he couldn't trust other adults, since they would try to put him in the system while his sister was recovering, and he couldn't let that happen. He'd looked after himself even while he felt like he was falling apart, travelling through the neighbourhood to catch the bus each morning and then making his way through the streets of Maxville each evening to go to the hospital where his sister was being treated. Super doctors there treated him like a child while also trying to get him to make decisions for Etta that would have lifelong impacts.
It felt like every decision he made had a price and while Etta had been in a medically-induced coma, Tate had desperately hoped that the decisions he was making on Etta's behalf wouldn't result in a price he couldn't pay. Not just metaphorically, like his power and his parents, but literally, too. Insurers and lawyers had found out his sister's name after that stupid fight between Earthstone and Airborne, and had been calling and emailing and dropping off letters and flyers and business cards, promising him copious amounts of money for little work - after their own cut, of course - but Tate knew that if it sounded too good to be true, then it definitely was a scam. He'd rejected all of their offers and ignored the phone calls, even as Etta's savings were whittled away as expense after expense piled up.
"I'm going to offer you something, Tate, and while it sounds too good to be true, there will be a price."
Tate's thoughts of his sister and their problems were interrupted by Frieda, her voice firm and vulnerable at the same time. Slipping the pink gloves onto his hands, he nodded. "I know."
Frieda clutched his hands and squeezed. "Come with me this afternoon; I'll take you to see your sister, and then I'll introduce you to my daughter. Both of them, in fact."
Tate nodded. Frieda stood and hugged him gently. He hugged her back tightly, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to keep the tears at bay. Pulling away with a sniffle, Tate grabbed the chair Frieda had found and they headed back to the exhibition.
...
Honey wasn't entirely surprised to hear from Jared about Lorraine's threat over Sarah. Lorraine was insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but Jared's wife had been threatened, so that meant she was goddamn significant right then and there. Honey rolled her eyes when Jared had quoted the whole "she knows people who knows people" schtick.
"Everyone knows people who know people, Jared. That's what people do; she's not special."
Jared paused at her words, and there was a whooshing sound of super speed in the background. The actually-significant person had arrived, though Jetstream overestimated her significance just as much as Lorraine did.
"You go help Yichen deal with that problem. I'll handle Lorraine, okay?"
"Thanks, Honey."
"Of course. I'll bring Ari by this afternoon so he can get used to the apartment building."
"You're moving in, too?"
"Eventually, maybe. I haven't decided yet."
"Yeah, right," Jared snorted.
Honey's phone started ringing, the second line lighting up red. "That's Lorraine. I'll talk to you later. Bye," she said, ending the call before pressing the second line button. "Good morning, Labyrinth, this is Honey."
"Hello, Honey. I want to speak to your manager."
Honey smiled brightly. "I am my manager."
"Look, I'm not playing around here. I want to talk to your manager, not a call centre bitch. Put me through to the owner; you have no idea who you're dealing with here!"
"No, I don't. You haven't introduced yourself yet," Honey said, grinning outright now.
Lorraine spluttered on the other end of the phone. "You should recognise my voice! I am a very well-known actress!"
Honey pressed her lips together, trying to hold back her laughter.
"I'm Lorraine de Glasse," she said primly.
Honey gasped. "Yes, of course! I know you!"
"There, you see. Now - "
"You did that ad for genital herpes, right?"
Silence met her announcement and Honey counted down on her fingers - five, four, three, two, one -
"It was dandruff cream!" Lorraine exclaimed.
"Oh, right. Of course. Now, what were you calling about?"
Lorraine was pissed off enough to announce her intention to a lowly call centre operator, certain that it would get her put through to someone with actual power. "I'm calling to get Sarah Bowie fired."
Honey grinned as she took the right thread. "You are? Oh, wow. What did she do?"
"Her husband insulted me."
Well. That was disappointing. She'd even had all of this time to work out a compelling story, too.
"Uh huh."
"It was horrible, and I demand retribution!"
Honey paused, long enough for her confusion to be known. "From his wife?"
"Just put me through to the owner already!" Lorraine snapped.
"All right. I'll put you through now," Honey said with a bright smile, putting Lorraine on hold and counting to thirty before pressing the transfer button.
"Hey, Honey," Sarah answered.
"I've got an irate parent on the line. She's trying to get you fired because Jared threatened her."
"Wait, what?"
"Lorraine hit on Will Stronghold - don't ask, it's creepy enough just saying those words - ignored kids being bullied, and then had the gall to act like it was Jared's fault when he told her to leave. So he told her to leave before he called security, she got pissed off because she's missing out on the museum-provided lunch, and she threatened to have your job to teach him a lesson."
Sarah blinked.
"Oh, and she's an actress. Lorraine de Glasse. I already went with genital herpes, even though it was dandruff cream."
"What the hell, Honey?"
"I know, it's not my proudest moment, but I knew I wouldn't be able to say gonorrhoea without laughing."
Sarah's mouth twitched with a smile. "All right, put her through."
"Thanks, Mrs. Bowie," she said, purposefully using Jared's alter-ego surname.
"Believe me, the pleasure's all mine," Sarah said with a grin.
Jared had been excited to attend the PTA meetings, but had gone to one and never returned due to several overbearing women; Lorraine was one of them. Sarah had been imagining how she could take the woman on for ruining her husband's wonderful plans and ideas for the PTA, and this could be a start.
"Good morning, this is Sarah Bowie."
Lorraine very audibly gulped on the other end of the phone. "That stupid woman was meant to transfer me to the owner!"
Sarah smiled. "Oh, don't worry. She did."
...
End of the hundred and seventy-second chapter.
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed the update.
