Page 18 of Seven Days in June

The audience began peering over their shoulders, eyes darting around the room. A flurry of exclamations floated from the seats. “What? WHERE? Stop!”

Eva said nothing.

When a horror-movie character sees a ghost, she emits a bloodcurdling shriek. Claws at her cheeks. Runs for her life. Eva was trapped onstage in broad view of New York’s literary community, so she did none of those things. Instead, her hands went completely slack, and her microphone slipped to the floor with a heavy thunk.

No one noticed, because everyone was focused onhim.

“Shane,” Cece bellowed, “is that you?”

He peered around the doorway, wearing a sheepish grimace.

“No,” he said.

“Yes!”someone yelled.

“Get up here,” ordered Cece.

He shook his head, with aplease don’t make me do thisdesperation in his eyes.

“Excuse me? I discovered you cleaning rooms at the Beverly Wilshire, kid—you better get up here. And you owe it to everyone in the room who has contributed to your popularity despite the careless way you’ve treated us.”

Shane looked behind him, as if assessing whether he could make a run for it. Begrudgingly, he headed to the stage.

Eva rarely saw things in crisp focus. Even with her glasses. Her head always made the world a shade fuzzy. But as Shane walked down the aisle toward the panelists—toward her—every detail in the room became razor sharp. She was agonizingly aware of everything and every part of herself.

This couldn’t be real. She knew it was, though, because her physical reaction was operatic. Her breath went shallow. Her pulse was thundering. She began to tremble all over, caught in the cross fire of a zillion powerful, conflicting emotions. Eva wasn’t particularly religious, but she’d always felt there was…something…out there, watching over her. For many reasons, but mostly because she had never run into Shane Hall. Ever. After all this time, it was definitely astonishing, given that they were both Black authors of the same age, who’d become successful in the same era. If that wasn’t divine intervention, she didn’t know what was.

But now he was here, flesh and blood. It was the moment she’d always feared. But below that, in the tucked-away pockets of her subconscious—wasn’t it also the moment she’d always anticipated? Planned for? Even dreamed of?

Maybe. But not like this. Not in public. Not unprepared.

The deafening applause sent the gentle throb in her temples to daggers and reminded Eva where she was. The room was in an uproar. Shane was a literary star. He’d written only four novels—Eight,See Saw,Eat in the Kitchen, andLock the Door on Your Way In. But they were canon. The setting was always the same nameless neighborhood crippled by devastating poverty.

His characters were whimsical, vivid, practically mythologized humans. And through ecstatic attention to detail, emotion, and nuance, he artfully manipulated readers into becoming so invested in his characters’ every thought that fifty pages would go by before they realized that there was no plot. None. Just a girl named Eight, who lost her keys. But they’d weep from the beauty of it. Eight could’ve seen a dude shot dead in the street while she was locked out, but readers would’ve cared only abouther.

Shane tricked his readers into seeing humanity, not circumstance. You walked away from his books dazed, wondering how he’d managed to rip out your heart before you realized what was happening.

Every five years or so he’d drop a book; give a few choppy, unrevealing interviews; sulk through an MSNBC segment; sweep awards season (unless he was up against Junot Díaz); land a massive grant to go off somewhere and write more classic shit; and then disappear again.

Of course, he never fully disappeared. There were sightings. He’d visited the opening reception of a Kara Walker exhibit in Amsterdam three springs ago, but when it was time to read the foreword he’d written for the show, he’d vanished (so had Kara’s curvy publicist, Claudia). In 2008, he’d gone to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner but spent the whole time drying dishes with the busboys in the kitchen. He’d definitely attended J. Cole’s nuptials in North Carolina, because he’d told a guest that the only thing he liked about the South was Bojangles—which was instantly all over Twitter.

Years ago, anLA Timeseditor had started a rumor that Shane was a hoax. And someone else was writing his books. Because he didn’t behave like an A-list author and, frankly, he didn’t look like one. He was all jawline, pouty mouth, and unreal eyelashes—a face that had made him special before he had proved it.

Shane Hall was intimidatingly handsome. And yet on the rare occasion he smiled, it was so radiant, so warm. Like peering into a goddamn sunbeam. The effect was disorienting. You wanted to either pinch his cheeks or beg him for a hard fuck on a soft surface. You just needed whatever he had.

Eva knew this better than anyone.

At least, she used to know. She hadn’t seen him since twelfth grade.

Chapter 6

Witch Trumps Monster

“HE CAME BACK.”

Eva didn’t realize she’d said this out loud until Khalil and Belinda both whipped their heads in her direction.

“What?” asked Khalil.

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