I glanced up at Viola, whose eyes were wide as saucers. The last thing I wanted to do was make Sol upset with his mother, but I wasn’t sure what else I could say. Thank goodness Viola was an expert in this, and she snapped back into nanny mode quickly. “Oh, come on, Sol, you know it can’t be helped. If there is an emergency at the bar, your mom has to go. We should just head back home and wait there. She will be back before you know it. We can rewatch the games on TV if you want. See all the highlights. You love doing that.”
It was weird to think of the games right now, even though we had just gone through a round. It was a bit like they never existed because I was so caught up in my terror for Maeve. All the worst possible solutions were careering through my brain and I hated it.
Sol wasn’t happy, though, made obvious by his muttering. Insults about his mother, no doubt, because he was a teenage boy who didn’t see what an incredible woman she was. He would, though, in time, I was sure of it. If it had only taken me a couple of days to have Maeve on my mind all the time, then there had to be something incredible about her.
“Matt, buddy!” a familiar voice called out to me, shaking me from my thoughts and worries as we got closer to Maeve’s place. Chase, an ex-contestant in the Astro Games who was eliminated in the first round. I knew him from years back when I was travelling the empire for work. He was a good guy. I was surprised he hadn’t gotten much further actually. “How are you?”
I waved back and gave Chase a quick answer. Not only because of the worry, but because I was distracted by who was with him. Karly, the reporter from the Morning Show, whose hand was linked in his. But also in Alek’s. Hatcher and Rory sat at her feet, all of them looking close.A harem, I realized. Not a new concept to me, but a very interesting one. Especially because they were all ex-contestants, only just eliminated, with Alek being the favorite to win at one time. But now they were all out, and shaking up with the queen of TV. Couldn’t be a coincidence.
My phone went off, and I took my eyes off the harem. Hope bloomed in my chest. I desperately wanted it to be Maeve letting us know what was going on, or, preferably, that she was fine, but it wasn’t. Just Kai letting me know he had beaten us to Maeve’s house and was waiting for us. It was safe to assume she wasn’t there. This was bad, really bad. I gripped Sol’s hand a little tighter, silently praying I could make everything alright for him. This poor boy had been through enough in his life, he didn’t need something happening to his mother as well.
Somehow, we had to find her and ensure she was okay.