Page 71 of Don't Game Me
Emma produced a bottled water from her purse. Jake unscrewed the top and guzzled half the oversized bottle.
Emma directed her to a seat just off-stage, behind the curtains close to the exit door. The position meant when Jake was on stage he could see her, but the audience couldn’t. She could just sneak out…
“Don’t even think about it,” Emma hissed. “If you walk out that door, I guarantee he will lose his momentum. He might even make a scene to go after you.”
“No, he wouldn’t. Listen, Emma, this is serious. I have to get out of here. I’m in the middle of something big. Something to keep my family safe, Jake safe, you…everyone. I have to get free.”
“Don’t move.” Emma pressed an earbud tight to her ear and signaled to the stage.
The lights dimmed.
Emma whispered to her, “If you exited the room right now, he’d go after you. You’ll sit your ass down because Symphis is not going mess up the biggest moment in NJ Legacy history.”
Jake walked out on the stage. The audience went wild. He launched into his talk, with breath-taking visuals.
Her mind spun on the possibilities. There were no maybes in this situation. There was her walking out that door. Time tick-tocked. The person at the booth would be there for a half hour.
Jake mesmerized the audience and her. Although she knew he planned out exactly how everything was going to go and precisely what he’d say, he made it look effortless, as if he spoke off the cuff. By the time they cued a video of the goggles and Tori’s fantasy game, even she was ready to preorder both online.
Emma leaned over and whispered again, “The FBI’s on their way here. They didn’t expect a need to be at the convention. You’re going to hold tight here until they arrive.”
“They can’t keep me safe. We both know that.”
Emma squeezed her arm.
When Jake finished the closing video, Emma stood and signaled some guys in the shadows. Several burly bodyguards closed in on Jake as he exited the stage. The crowd began to swarm. Emma got pulled away by a group of teeming people.
Alone, Becca scooted out the exit with the flood of people pressing through the double doors. She wove through the crush of the overly enthused, the curious, and the avid fans toward Artist’s Alley where artists from every genre of comics and illustrated fiction presented their wares. The number of people was thinner in this area than out in the main hall, but the high noise level and constantly bumping into people had her feeling dizzy by the time she made it to the designated booth.
The booth was small, in a corner, and relatively private. Wild, colorful prints with a heavy anime influence hung or sat on every available surface. The artist’s name wasn’t familiar to her, which wasn’t saying much since she wasn’t a comic book or graphic art aficionado. A stunning brunette with several facial piercings and colorful tattoos on display in her skimpy halter-top drummed her fingers on the top of a pile of plastic-wrapped prints. A light weaving of gold extensions sparkled in her hair.
“You made it.” The brunette smiled a wide expanse of white teeth that wasn’t friendly but instead was an eerie spread of her darkly lined lips.
“Stardust?”
She nodded.
“How do you know who I am?” Becca asked.
“You’re cute, Rebecca. If I can pull off what you’re here to request, then you have to believe I know exactly who you are and everywhere you’ve been in the convention center since you stepped foot in here sixty-two minutes ago.” Her dark, heavily lined eyes conveyed a vacancy of emotion, not boredom.
“How do I know you’re who you say you are?”
“I guess you’ll have to trust me.”
Becca snort-laughed. “Right. If you were a part of the Stadium operation, how’d you get free enough to be able to have a second career as an artist?”
“Because I’m that good. I got out in the early days when it was less complicated. Less global. At first when I played in the Stadium, I kind of liked it but then…too much misogynistic bullshit. No one believed a girl could be as good as a guy when it came to gaming. Assholes.” Her bony shoulders lifted and dropped, shutting off the brief surge of emotion. “They weren’t heartbroken when the sole girl wrote herself out and disappeared. Maybe they assumed I OD’ed or something.”
“How much do you want for this?” Becca pulled her backpack around to her front and unzipped.
“Money? Nah, I have more than I need. My price is something more valuable.” She leaned forward, which launched a cloying perfume up Becca’s nostrils. A long fingernail with dark blue sparkly polish tapped a slow beat on the top of the prints pile.
This wasn’t part of the deal. “What are you asking for if you don’t want money?”
“What’d Symphis force you to do that was so bad you’d stay in?”
“That’s your price? You want me to tell you what they’re using as blackmail?” Becca glanced around with a creepy sensation of being watched by someone. No one around.
