“Yeah,” he said, the air going out of him in a sigh. He squeezed her fingers, but his eyes closed, and he slipped back into sleep.
This did, indeed, suck. But she finally believed he’d get better. Blaster would return.
Celia touched her shoulder. “We should probably get going, let him rest.”
“Okay.”
The leave-taking was awkward and drawn out. The Stowes seemed more stunned than when they arrived, not less, and Anna felt washed out. Just seeing Sam like that was exhausting. But she had to be thankful that he hadn’t died. How much more awkward, to be standing at his funeral?
She didn’t want to think about that.
They were in the elevator, descending to the lobby, when Anna felt a ping on her radar. “Mom, Eliot Majors is in the lobby.”
“Oh?” she said. “That’ll be interesting.”
They couldn’t help but meet him on their way out and his way in. Anna didn’t show any surprise at all, but Eliot’s eyes went wide, and he hesitated, as if thinking of turning tail.
“Hi, Eliot,” Anna said. Any embarrassment she might have felt had faded to trivia. “I don’t think you really had a chance to meet my mom?”
Celia smiled graciously and offered her hand. “So nice to meet you, Eliot. I never got a chance to thank you for what you did.”
He had a bouquet of tulips, which he awkwardly shifted from one hand to another so he could shake Celia’s hand. “Um. Hi. It…” His shoulders slumped. “I wish I could have done more. I wanted to come visit.”
Celia said, “He probably won’t be awake. But his parents are there, I think they’d like to meet you.” He blanched.
“So,” Anna said, jumping in to fill an awkward silence. “Are you going to stay in Commerce City, at the university, or go back to Delta?”
“I think I’m going to stay. I mean, as long as my father is here, I think I should stay.”
“A more urgent question for me, is Weasel going to stay?” Celia asked.
Eliot rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe that’s the name that stuck.”
“Told you,” Anna said. “You’d have been better off with Leapfrog.”
“My advice?” Celia said, grinning. “Since you’re never going to beat it, just own it. Put fur on your costume. Get a theme song.”
He didn’t look happy about any of those possibilities. “Ms. West, I’m sorry. For what my father did. If I’d had any idea, if I’d known what he was going to do, I’d have—”
“Eliot, it wasn’t your fault. None of it. I speak with great authority when I say that children cannot be held responsible for the actions of their parents. Now, let it go and just worry about being a good person, okay?”
Nodding, he continued on to the elevators, and Anna and Celia continued outside.
“Not a bad-looking kid,” Celia observed, smiling vaguely.
“I suppose,” Anna said, realizing she hadn’t actually thought much about Eliot over the last few days, beyond his superheroing. “We still going shopping for a prom dress tomorrow?”
“Yes. Is it all right if Bethy comes along? Girls’ day out?”
Anna’s first impulse was to argue. Bethy would talk too much and complain and she didn’t know anything about prom dresses. But she stopped herself, because really, having Bethy along might be kind of fun.
“Okay,” she agreed.
* * *
Among several news stories lost and buried amid the feverish reporting of the Executive and the battle at Horizon Tower was the report that Judge Roland had quietly resigned his position in the city court—and fled the country. The whereabouts of the criminal lowlife Jonathan Scarzen were also unknown. After his release, he, too, seemed to have fled. The Commerce Eye refrained from speculating that the two disappearances might be connected, and in refraining raised that exact possibility. The website Rooftop Watch had no such compunctions and praised the work of the superhuman vigilante Espionage in drawing attention to such activities when no one else could.
That was when Anna and Teia both realized that they had absolutely no control over what publicity they got. It was almost a relief.