Page 2 of If I Stopped Haunting You

He stared at her, and a long silence settled between them. Pen looked out to the audience, to the few faces she recognized in the crowded hall. Her friend Laszlo had flown out to Seattle on a whim to see both her and Storm in their panel in what he claimed was a “momentous occasion.” He sat ramrod straight in the second row, shaking his head subtly, but before she could stop herself, her lips were moving.

“Get over your masochistic shit and write something with a soul for once.”

Pen would never know why she’d opened her mouth, never understood what had overtaken her in that moment, but the Prince of Horror had crossed a line, and she’d followed right after him. Maybe she was a self-destructive time bomb, and her clock had finally reached zero.

Maybe she just wanted to see how he’d react.

Her mother had always warned her that she wore her heart on her sleeve. And the publishing world had warned her it was a business, not an art, but she’d ignored both. She’d always thought that if she could just get her stories into the world, into the hands of readers like her, everything would sort itself out.

But that wasn’t how publishing worked.

Pen looked from Storm to the audience, her vision hazy as his fans started yelling at her. Someone was trying to quiet them down, and other panel members attempted to calm the crowd, to change the subject, but it was no use.

“Penelope—” Storm started.

Fuck.Why did she do this? She could feel it all slipping through her fingers—her career, her future, herlife.Swallowing, she looked out over the audience, unfamiliar faces glaring back at her. She’d hurt the boy they loved—the Prince of Horror.

“I asked: What did you just say?” Neil demanded into his mic.

Pen licked her lips as the crowd fell silent, waiting, and her vision blurred with tears. Oh god, not here. “I said,” she started, voice wavering, “write something with a soul.”

They glared at one another.

He worked his jaw, eyes focused on her.

“Maybe we should take a quick break,” the moderator offered.

But Pen had had enough. She was done pretending that she deserved a seat, that she was of their caliber.

Thathedeserved a seat.

This table was full of Indigenous authors who had paved their way, and what did Neil Storm or Penelope Skinner have to offer but a forgotten novel and some lousy, white-centered bullshit?

Pen pushed back from her seat, picking up the single copy of her only novel,The Lies They Told Us. She needed to leave the hall before she did anything else orsaidanything else. People yelled obscenities at her as she moved to leave. And then she heard it, muddled in with “bitch!” and “worthless!”

“Racist!”

Shewas racist? She almost laughed. They hadn’t known; even on a panel for Indigenous authors, they hadn’t known who she was. And by calling out Storm’s hypocrisy, she was racist? With anger she hadn’t felt in ages, she leaned forward and ripped her mic from the table.

“You know?” She threw up her arm, the book still clutched in her sweaty palm. She wanted to tell herself to stop, but she couldn’t. “I’m sorry my characters are too Native for you, or,” she said, narrowing her eyes on Neil Storm, “not Native enough. I’m sorry I’m only mixed, and I’m sorry that I look like a bagpiper and a scullery maid fucked in a castle.”

Pen didn’t know where she was going, and she should have put the mic down, but she only clutched it tighter and leaned away asone of the convention volunteers motioned for it. “Someday, I’m going to write the best fucking horror novel you’ve ever read, and the name Neil Storm will be forgotten forever.”

He grabbed his mic, standing. “You think it’s been easy for me?” She turned to leave, but his voice only rose. “You think I walked into this market and had it all handed to me? Sometimes, we have to give up titles and characters and entire books before we get what we want, before we can write what we want.”

She turned on him. “Well, I wrote what I wanted.”

“And look where that landed you.”

Nostrils flaring and nerves buzzing, she dropped the mic on the table and turned to go. He wasn’t wrong, fuck, he wasn’t wrong, but she needed to go before it got any worse.

“And that, folks, is my competition,” Neil said, returning to his chair with a heavy sigh.

She should have left.

Pen should have fled, but her book was still clutched in her hand, and there was no one to hold her back. Sliding her left foot behind her, she turned and chucked her book at the cocky bastard. She watched gleefully as it smacked into the side of his temple, and he flew out of his chair, yelling obscenities.

There was a twinge of guilt in her gut as she watched blood trickle down the side of his face, but Pen stamped it down as people rushed forward to help the Prince of Horror and she was dragged backward out of the room by convention security.