Ship It(71)

THE PLAN IS in motion. now all I have to do is wait. I pick a chair in the enormous empty ballroom and pull it into the aisle so I have a direct line of sight to the doors in the rear. Then I sit backward in it, resting my chin on the back, and opening my phone. I take long breaths to calm myself as I check my Tumblr dash to see what the current chatter is about the show, the fans, me. Of course there’s still a healthy debate roiling about whether I’m the hero fandom needs or the loudmouth millennial activist that represents the worst of entitled internet culture.

I skim my messages—I’ve been too busy to reply to any, and I feel bad about letting them stack up, but I’ve been so busy. Not to mention, a cursory glance reveals that some are positive, some are thoughtfully critical, and many are hate-filled tirades and personal attacks. Definitely don’t have time for that. My follower count is up to 44,000, which is only a fraction of the numbers a typical episode of Demon Heart would get, I remind myself to keep it in perspective. But still, it’s at the point that I’m afraid to post anything. I had racked my brain, wondering if I had posted anything too personal on there that I should take down, but I rarely write anything about myself at all. Besides, if this goes well, I’ll be a hero, and if it goes poorly, well, I’ll delete my account and disappear back into the anonymity of rural Idaho.

But it cannot go poorly.

Just then, the rear doors open and Jamie walks in.

He stands in the doorway and stares at me, his arms stiff at his sides, his mouth curled into a snarl.

“You’re a goddamn psychopath,” he growls.

I knew he’d be angry, but I don’t think I was quite prepared for him to be this angry. I stand up and put my chair back in its place.

“Hi, Jamie, I’m glad you came,” I say.

“Change it back. Now,” he says, not moving from the doorway.

“You didn’t like it?” I ask innocently. “I honestly don’t think it looks that much different than any of your official publicity photos.”

“They’re making out, Claire. They’re practically playing tongue hockey.”

Okay, so Caty might have given me the password to Jamie’s Twitter account that she still had from when he needed her help changing the settings to privatize his DMs. She told him he needed a stronger password than PeterParker1976, but apparently he didn’t listen. And apparently he didn’t turn on two-step verification like she recommended, either, because it was super easy for me to get into his account, change his password, and then do whatever I liked. So the first thing I did was change his Twitter icon to a very convincing fan photo manipulation of Rico and Forest kissing. Then I drafted a bunch of tweets and saved them. Then I took screenshots of the whole thing and texted Jamie (his number also came from Caty), and said Meet me in Ballroom 6E or I start tweeting. It only took fifteen minutes for him to show up.

“You don’t know what you’re doing here, Claire. I could sue you.”

“Yeah, that’d look really good, wouldn’t it? ‘Showrunner sues teenage fan over Twitter hack.’”

He clenches his jaw. “Give me your phone right now,” he says and starts marching down the aisle toward me.

I whip out my phone, and, walking backward, I send the first saved tweet.

“First tweet published. Want me to keep going?” I say, and he stops marching and pulls out his phone to look at it.

The tweet reads, I love all the Demon Heart fans, and I can’t believe I’m so lucky to get to spend these conventions with you. Thank you for your outpouring of passion and support.

The likes and retweets are flooding in. He lets out a noise that approximates a growl.

“What are you going to do?” I say. “Tell people you’re hacked, that you didn’t mean that, that you would never tweet something like that?”

He throws his hands up. “No, of course not.”

“Because you wouldn’t. Tweet something like that. I know you wouldn’t because I’ve met you and you don’t really seem to like us all that much.”

He glares at me.

“Okay, so what do you want, Claire. What are your ‘demands’?” He puts air quotes around demands, says it like he’s talking to a child.

“I just want to talk this out, that’s all.” He’s being an asshole, but I knew he would be. How did I expect him to act, considering how I lured him here? I just hope that by the time I’m done, he can see where I’m coming from. I can feel the adrenaline pumping through my body, and it helps keep the anxiety away. Remember that Tess said you were the most confident person she’s ever met. Remember that.

“You think this is the right way to open a dialogue with me? Blackmailing me?”

“You didn’t leave me much choice, did you? I’ve been trying to ‘open a dialogue’ this entire trip; where have you been?”

“You literally have no idea how any of this works, kid.” I bristle at being called kid, but press on.

“So tell me.”

He starts down a row of chairs, away from me, but I don’t think he’s trying to leave. He can’t leave without getting what he came for. Good. Let’s have this out. “You think I’m solely to blame for everything you don’t like about Demon Heart? Do you know how many people work on this damn show?” he calls over his shoulder.