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I cursed and followed the sound of the voice, the band and my brothers following behind me, Luna too.
Priscilla had commandeered most of our green room now for her crew of bodyguards. She stood in the middle of them, protectively, her hands poised in front of her like a graceful statue, glittering a smile at all of us. When she saw Luna, the edges of her mouth twitched downwards. “And girl, too.”
I decided to get straight to the point. “Erm, hello. Nice to meet you. What the fuck is going on here?”
Priscilla smiled as if I’d asked that in a much politer way and swept her arms out into the air as if unveiling a grand monument to her own greatness. “Well, thank you,Needleheadcrew, and Luna, for letting me share your stage tonight. Brocks, I’m glad you’re all here to hear this. This may not come as a surprise to you, but, since Apollo has stepped down as the CEO ofBrock Industries, I’ll be taking up that post. You’ll be relieved to know I have no personal grudge against any of you. So you can consider that slate wiped clean. Stay out of my way, and I’ll stay out of yours. Alright? Wonderful.”
Before I could formulate a thought, never mind a sentence, Priscilla pushed forwards through the small crowd towards the exit door. At the same time, venue security finally showed up – that’ll teach me not to bring my own security team – and faced off with Priscilla at the door.
Airily, she trilled: “Don’t worry, darlings. I’m making my own way out. I don’t need escorting, thank you very much.”
The venue security followed after her, anyway, presumably to make sure that she really was gone.
Then, the green room was silent.
I, as usual, decided to break it. “Did we... er... did we actually manage to vanquish Apollo?”
Forest looked just as stunned as most of us. “Yeah. I think he’s... gone. I mean, he stepped down as the CEO. That’s big. I can’t imagine he intends to keep up his campaign against us with his own personal means.”
I sighted Luna, who was still smiling, which was slightly disconcerting. Then I saw the bruises on her arms, and I rushed over. “Who did this to you?”
She shrugged and wrapped her arms around me. “Priscilla’s guards. I followed Apollo’s security up to his private booth. He was going to storm the stage and shut down the concert. And then... I talked to him.”
The cogs in my brain were whirring. “You... talked to him? What did you say?”
“We just kind of chatted about how really, he’s been being manipulated all along by Priscilla. That his problems aren’t really with you four, but with all of the expectations he’s had foisted on him since he was born, basically.”
I was malfunctioning. “Just... you just... you just... chatted with him?!”
Luna frowned, confused. “Yeah. Shouldn’t I have?”
But I couldn’t get the words out. “You... you... you...”
Jude stepped forwards behind me. In his deep, smooth voice he spoke for me. “I think what Sylvester is trying to say, is thatwedidn’t really manage to vanquish Apollo, after all.” He stepped forward until he was next to me, until I could see that he was grinning with the kind of cheesy grin I rarely saw from my stoic and serious eldest brother. He held his hand out to point towards Luna. “You did. You vanquished him.”
Luna’s eyes widened. “Oh.”
Winston burst out laughing from across the room. “Oh, man! Our greatest enemy, just vanquished with the power of... actually having a fucking five-minute chat about his issues. Luna, you might be insane for trying to have a conversation about feelings with Apollo, but turns out you’re a goddamn genius.”
From somewhere in the green room, Forest had managed to locate a bottle of champagne. “A toast! To getting rid of Apollo, hopefully for good, and to Luna Black, for somehow managing to Jedi mind-trick him into quitting as the CEO of his own goddamn company.”
“Hear hear!” Winston began handing out glasses.
Luna looked totally bewildered by the realization that she had almost single-handedly taken down our greatest nemesis, a man who had been plaguing us with constant psychological torment for years now.
Behind her, Felix sprang through the door looking like he’d possibly napped through the entirety of the concert. He made a beeline for Reed’s arms, and the two of them began gratuitously making out as the champagne was poured and handed out.
“Oh yeah.” Forest suddenly seemed to remember that Reed, Petey and Mark were there, too. “And of course, toNeedleheadfor your, er, awesome concert...”
I snorted. “Don’t pretend to know anything about music, Forest.”
Reed separated from Felix’s lips long enough to add: “Thanks though, for the afterthought.”
When the champagne was in the hands of everyone gathered there, I decided to put Forest out of his misery and take over the proceedings. “Alright, gang. To vanquishing Apollo Brock, to Luna Black who vanquished him, and toNeedlehead’s reunion and hopeful continued collaboration! Cheers!”
A chorus of cheers swept over the room and we all took a glug of the champagne. Except, of course, Luna, who just smiled and tipped a little bit of it onto the floor as a gesture.
As the noises of our celebration faded, a much larger, louder noise started to filter through into the green room. It was the noise of thousands of people bellowing, singing, cheering...
