I'd Rather Die

Ch 1.

Mark sifted absently through the mass of papers on his desk, looking for anything that might catch his interest today. There were the usual reports – teens caught doing drugs, some girl had been raped and was pressing charges against a guy who claimed he was innocent, a new Indian restaurant was opening downtown in a few days…



Maybe I’ll check it out.



Hidden amongst various article outlines he found yet another note requesting a commemorative. Something about an elaborate funeral that was going to be held.



Mark snorted in disgust as he read over the details in the request. Not much to work with here. Name, age, where he died. No circumstances to go with it. This might make three lines of text. He shoved the sheet off to the farthest corner of his desk. If Gus wants a decent article on this, he’d better be ready to write the damn thing himself. I’m not going to, and we’re too shorthanded to be setting any of the others on it.



After a bunch of their best journalists had gotten stranded working a high-profile case in conjunction with the police, Mark was running low on writers who could do more than just hack out a story. For a small town paper, Mark thought they did a relatively good job of keeping the news new and informative, but doing so kept getting harder...



Especially since the dock scandal ended up with one of their writers dead and two MIA.

Mark stood, pushing himself away from the desk piled with papers. He wasn’t even an hour in and already he was feeling overwhelmed. This did not bode well for the rest of the day.



So what do I need to do today? Mentally he began a checklist. Chantelle asked for some more red pens. The copy machine’s broke – I’ll have to call someone to get that fixed. And then there’s those three kids... He sighed at the thought. The three interns were possibly the strangest combination to date. It felt, in a way, like the trio had been accidentally dropped off, like abandoned kittens.



Kittens that need to be told exactly what to write about or they’ll go completely off topic.



It isn’t like any of them display any real aptitude for this kind of writing. Strawberry’s got the makings of an author, not a journalist. She can’t get dragons and unicorns out of her head anymore than our resident punk can get her out of his mind. And that other girl… if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear she wasn’t speaking English. “Tough day already?” a voice asked.



Mark started. “What?” he asked intelligently. He turned around to see Cathy sitting with her legs crossed in one of the rolling chairs.



“I asked if you were having a tough day already,” the journalist too-patiently replied. “It seems that you’re out in the ozone today. What, the babies have you staying up at night explaining how to write without putting fantasy into the mix?”



“No, but they might as well be,” Mark muttered. “That Cindy girl – she drives me nuts. I can’t understand why the hell she’s doing her internship with us. It’s not like any of them really display any aptitude for writing, after all. At least, not writing nonfiction,” he amended at the disapproving look on Cathy’s face.



“They really don’t belong here,” she agreed, frowning slightly.



“Hey! Mark, check this out!” That was Davy, Mark was sure of it. The biker was probably the most enthusiastic writer on the newspaper’s staff, and it was a good thing. Davy had a great talent for writing articles that were interesting and very informative. It was a talent that Cindy, Bea, and Jack were sadly lacking in.



“What’s up?” Mark greeted his coworker genially.



“Well, it looks like we’ve got another death on our hands,” Davy told him, pointing at the computer screen. “I just got an email from Dylan.”

Mark leaned closer to the computer screen to read the email from Davy’s twin brother.



Davy, I hope you get this before you get too far into work for the day. We’ve just gotten another one of those weird deaths. I can’t believe how quickly people in this area take it into their heads to just go die. Makes me wonder why our population multiplies so well, if they just all end up killing themselves anyway. It’s been put down in the folder Jerek’s marked as the ‘Crazy Suicides.’ I think the latest was a drug dealer who came up here from Kentucky and refused to pull over when Autumn was chasing him. He drove off a bridge. Ryan and Kendel are looking at the body right now, doing all sorts of tests and such to see if he was high on something and that made him go off the edge. Literally.

Best,

Dylan



Mark suppressed a dry chuckle. Dylan had a very odd sense of humor, to say the least.



“What do you think?” Davy asked, leaning back in his swivel chair and staring up at Mark with his brilliant blue eyes. “Dylan’s got a hunch that all of these deaths are connected somehow, but I doubt that. He’s just been a cop a little too long and all the novels he likes to read are catching up with him.”



“I don’t know about that,” Cathy murmured, leaning in a little closer to the screen of the computer.

Davy shrugged. “Well, coincidence or not, we need to figure out where to put this latest death in the paper. These have been on the first and second pages for three days running already, so we need to mix it up. I don’t want anyone calling in, asking why we seem to be featuring a ‘dead driver of the day.’” He cast a sardonic glance at Mark who nodded.



“It’s up to you,” Mark said absently. He was still reading the line about how the driver had driven off a bridge.



Off a bridge... In his mind’s eye, he saw the docks, blaring yellow perimeter tape blocking off entry. The sun was just dipping down into the water, bleeding into the harbor. Silhouettes of officers stood together, near a formless lump that might once have been a human being. Humming echoed in his ears.



“Mark, you okay?” Davy asked, drawing him out of the memory. “You seem a little out of it today, man. It’s not even noon yet. You shouldn’t be this – this – ” he struggled to find a word to use, but for some reason it evaded him. He looked up to Cathy as if asking for some help.



“You shouldn’t be having such difficulty concentrating,” Cathy finished for him. “It’s not good. Take a break, Mark. You work twice as hard as the rest of us. We should give you a day off once in awhile.”



Mark grunted. He wasn’t really listening. His eyes were trained on that one line that had caught his attention: ‘He drove off a bridge.’ On impulse, Mark seized the mouse and hit the reply button on the computer.



“What’re you doing?” Davy asked. “I’m not complaining, mind, but man, you’re sitting in my lap.”



“Sorry,” Mark mumbled, not really paying any attention at all. His fingers flew across the keyboard as he typed a responding message.

Hey Dylan, this is Mark. Davy just showed the team the message you sent. I’m inclined to ask, which bridge did this psycho drive off of?

--Mark



Davy peeked over his shoulder as he was typing. “Any reason the bridge matters?” the biker inquired.



Mark shook his head slightly. “Call it morbid curiosity. There are only two bridges in Tessa.” He hit the send button and stood up again. “Let me know when he writes back, okay?”



“Sure man,” Davy said with a weird grin on his face. “I’ll let you know first thing.”



“Thanks,” Mark said offhandedly before retreating back to his desk and staring wearily at the mountain of paperwork that glared back at him.

Time to start actually doing work, he thought to himself as he sifted through the mess littering his desk. A few interesting articles found their way onto the left side of the desk, the side nearest the computer. The mostly uninteresting articles, or the ones that could afford to wait a day or three – they ended up on the right side of his desk, nearest the waste basket. At least I can turn the layout over to Chantelle, Mark reminded himself. She knows what she’s doing in that area. It’s wonderful that Davy found her… I have no idea how in hell I would have stayed sane so long if it hadn’t been for that wonderful woman, even if she does like attacking articles with red pen.



The sorting of papers usually didn’t take long, but he was distracted, and ended up having to re-read quite a few articles before he could make a decision where to put them. When the pile had diminished to a suitable height, he leaned back and sighed.



He knew there was a lot of work that he should be doing, but he couldn’t convince himself that it really needed doing at all. It was sad, really. All he wanted to do was go back to bed and sleep, for Christ’s sake!



It’s because you stayed up all last night chatting over email with Dell, Mark scolded himself. It’s pretty much all your fault that you’re tired as hell and not willing to put any effort into this work thing. At least get tomorrow’s paper set out. The little things can change on their own and if I ask, Chantelle will take care of that. She’s good like that.



He buckled down and set all the papers into their correct order, ignoring how weary he was and how low his eyelids drooped. As he placed the final article in its rightful place, he sighed a little bit. If it wasn’t for the fact that Dell has so much to unburden, I never would have stayed up all night listening to him. But the guy’s a nutcase! I’m surprised that he hasn’t been referred to a counselor yet. Maybe that’s yet another thing waiting for me to do…



“Mark,” came Davy’s voice. “The email from Dylan is here.”



Mark skittered over to his coworker’s desk and clicked on the email from Dylan. It said:



Hey Mark. I figured Davy would show you guys the message. We have a little more information on the guy now. He was apparently some sort of dealer in the western areas of town, the lower class deal, you know. Autumn and her partner are going to check out the place he probably stayed at. They’re hoping to find something to explain why he drove off Stennar Bridge.

Yeah, STENNAR. He couldn’t have possibly hoped to survive the crash. The worst he would have gotten is a jail sentence for a while – I don’t know why he chose to commit suicide. It’s like he had something to hide…

Anyway, how’s the crew doing? Got any good stories that I’ll be interested in?

Dylan



Mark grimaced a little. Driving off Stennar bridge was suicidal. That bridge was the main reason for the tourists in Tessa. It was a beautiful stone structure that opened out onto a grand view of the lake. Unfortunately, the builder died before it was finished and it had remained unfinished. The arched supports were all fully constructed, but the walkway had been left about halfway completed so there was a gap in the center of the bridge.

A few rowdy teens had been fooling around on it sometime a few summers ago and one had fallen into the lake. Stennar bridge was high and situated over very rough waters. The kid had never come up.

It was pure madness to take a car onto the bridge. It had been built expressly for people to walk on. It wasn’t a car bridge at all…



The editor’s thoughts were chasing themselves all over the inside of his skull and it was giving him a headache. He wanted to go home, lie down, and sleep. Maybe if he took an hour or three he’d feel like facing the world again.



He checked his watch. Ten minutes until one o’clock. Had he really been here the whole morning already? Maybe time passed faster than he supposed.

Chantelle came over and whisked the neat stack of papers off of Mark’s desk. “You should probably go home and sleep,” she advised. “You were up all night with Dell, weren’t you?”



Chantelle was the only one apart from Mark who knew about Dell. It wasn’t a secret, precisely, but he just didn’t like to talk about it. Chantelle only knew because, among other things, Dell was her brother. She had actually talked them into meeting. Mark had earned a degree in counseling as a sort of side project in college, and after relocating to Tessa, had found there really wasn’t much of a use for it. So, he’d taken up journalism, which he’d enjoyed. Until now.

Mark rubbed his forehead. “Is it that obvious?” he questioned dully.



“When you’re falling asleep on your desk and you have pouches the size of my grandma’s purse under your eyes – yes it’s obvious,” Chantelle replied with biting humor. “Listen, go home and let me take care of things for the rest of the day. We have maybe two hours left. I can handle things until then.”



Mark didn’t want to go, but the offer was so tempting, and Chantelle offered… “As long as this doesn’t come back to haunt me,” he said, pushing himself back onto his feet. “I don’t feel like having a favor called in later when I may be just as tired as I am now.” I don’t think it’s possible to be more tired and still be awake.

“No favor-calling-in,” Chantelle replied firmly. “Now get your ass out the door and into you car to drive home. I want you out of this place pronto, mister.”



Mark laughed a little and raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, I’m going.”

His layout editor mock-glared at him until he picked up his briefcase and left the building.

My God today was long and it wasn’t even a full day – at least, not for me, thanks to Chantelle. That look she gives – it could freeze an ocean. Thank God she never really means it when it’s directed at me.



He began to doze off a little in the car and had to shake himself awake again. get home in one piece today, shall we Mark? he thought to himself. I don’t want to be the guy who gets picked off the highway in little palm-sized pieces, thank you very much.



The drive was really only about ten minutes, but when Mark pulled his car into his driveway and parked, it felt like he had been driving for hours. He climbed out of the trusty little Buick and patted it fondly on the roof before retrieving his briefcase and retreating inside his house.

Once inside, Mark dumped his briefcase on a dining room chair and pulled off his jacket, depositing that right next to the briefcase. Shoes followed and he loosened his tie before padding through the dining room into the living room and through that into the TV room where his computer resided. Unconsciously, Mark flicked the power for his laptop on and settled himself down in front of it, waiting for the screen to flicker to life. It did so with great reluctance and resisted all attempts from him to encourage it to go faster.



Mark usually cursed and screamed at it to go faster, but he was in no hurry today, so he just leaned back and turned on the TV. It was on a weather channel and dull, soothing murmurs came from the speakers. The laptop yawned and the desktop came up. Mark absently clicked on the connection to his email and checked it.

There was an email from Dell in his inbox. He clicked on it. The text popped up on the screen.

It’s not working, Mark. Life is just not working. I need help. I need it. Someone help me. Come and help me. I’m going to go crazy.



Mark could feel the crazed-tension rising out of the words. He knew Dell well enough to know that this wasn’t quite normal. Dell didn’t send emails like this. Either they were too happy to be real or they were so depressing they made Mark feel like crying. This quick, sharp voice just wasn’t quite the Dell Mark knew.



But it may be that he was in a hurry or something, Mark pointed out to himself. I sound short and formal when I have a point I need to get across quickly. Maybe it’s the same with Dell…



Except Dell doesn’t write like that.



It was true. The collection of emails Mark had from Dell were all typed in the same format: no capitals, no periods or any sort of punctuation other than semi-colons separating halfway formed thoughts. Dell’s emails were difficult to dissect sometimes. But then again, that was just part of how Dell was. But this one was different.



Which means this probably isn’t from Dell. Then who is it from?



Mark checked the sender. It was Dell’s email address… Briefly Mark wondered if Chantelle had sent the email for Dell, but thought better of it. Chantelle marked everything she did. She would have signed the email with ‘From Chantelle’ at the very least. Besides, everything he knew about the sunny aide made it rather unbelievable that she would write something like this, even as a prank. Perhaps especially as a prank. She knew how seriously he took everything.



Mark felt like he was in some sort of mystery novel or something. Just hang it all, he decided finally. I don’t want to deal with this right now. It’s just some stupid thing. I’ll take care of it later. Just need to write Dell back, ask what’s going on and then see what happens from there.



He hit the reply button and typed a quick note to Dell, ending it with:



nice to see you’ve finally picked up English like the rest of us use. I’ll see what I can do.

Mark



He wondered a little bit if Dell might take that sentence the wrong way, but then decided that even if he did, it could be fixed pretty easily. Dell wasn’t exactly quiet when he felt he’d been slighted.



After hitting the ‘send’ button to get rid of the email, Mark turned off the laptop, curled up in his puffy leather recliner and leaned his head back to go to sleep. He drifted off very quickly and into a realm of crazy, twisted dreams.



*****



He was a monkey king and ruled the land of monkeys with a scepter made of braided banana peels. All the monkeys of the kingdom had to bow down before him or he would order their tails chopped off. One unruly black monkey refused to bow down so Mark the Monkey King had the guards seize him and ordered them to cut the black monkey’s tail off. The black monkey looked up then, and instead of a monkey’s face, Mark found himself looking right at Dell. He watched the monkey guards come forward with their monkey wrenches and start beating the black monkey. Watched it get smaller, and smaller, and smaller until only Dell’s face was left, floating in midair.



He woke up breathing hard, entirely soaked with sweat. What inspired that? he had to wonder. Why was he having dreams about Dell? Wasn’t it enough that the guy’s problems spilled over into Mark’s own life whenever they got a little tad bit out of control?



“Apparently not,” Mark muttered as he sat up in the chair. It was dark out, so it must have been late. He glared out the windows, eyes mere slits in the bright light from the streetlamps. “He has to waltz in and take over my mind as well as screwing with my everyday life.”



He’d begun to regret ever having agreed to help Chantelle’s brother out with his problems. It wasn’t the first time he’d been woken up by a dream about Dell and it probably wouldn’t be the last. Dell had a bad habit of getting caught in his mind.



“Well, goodnight, wherever you are,” Mark grumbled as he rearranged himself on the recliner, stretching out a little. “I’m actually planning on sleeping tonight, thank you very much.” With that, the editor closed his eyes and drifted back into sleep, this time with no dreams that he remembered upon awakening. That was the way he liked it.



*****



“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Chantelle chirped as Mark strode into the office. He was feeling much more awake today than yesterday and smiled at her. She smiled back and bustled about, doing the little tasks that made her irreplaceable.



“Oh, before I forget – ” Mark stopped her, asking what stories she’d put the crazy trio of junior writers on.



“Bea’s going to be writing about that new fashion store that’s opening the twentieth,” Chantelle said, a little frown pulling at the corner of her lips as she tried to remember off the top of her head what each was doing. “I think Jack wanted to do something about the kids who skate and bike down at the park.”



It’s like they think we’re a high school newspaper or something, Mark moaned inwardly. You’d think after two weeks they’d have gotten the idea, but apparently they haven’t.



“And Cindy?” he asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.



“Cindy seems to think that all these suicides lately are connected. She wants to do a piece on that,” Chantelle said mildly. “I warned her that she’d have to go around and find out all the details and actually get her perfect little hands dirty, but she seemed convinced that that was all she was going to do.”



“Well, it’d make a decent story if she could figure out a way to write it so that dragons and faeries don’t find their way into the mix,” Mark pointed out. “The other two bother me a little, but I’ll let them write those pieces to see how they do. Maybe there’s hidden talent and it just needs a little time to uncover itself.”



Though I doubt that’s likely, Mark thought, and judging from the look on her face, Chantelle doesn’t think it’s all that plausible

either.



*****



“Here it is,” Cindy said in her high, chirpy voice. “I finished it.”



Mark looked up from the paperwork on his desk. For a moment he stared blankly at the young woman and then snapped out of his apparent trance. “Finished what?”



“That article I said I’d write for you,” the young woman replied briskly. “You know, the one on all the people dying around here. It’s, like, so sad, you know? And sort of creepy in a way, too.” She was sounding more and more like a schoolgirl than a professional writer every minute, Mark thought.



“Well, let me see it, then,” he said, reaching out his hand for the article.



“Here it is.” She handed over a few pages of type and crossed her arms, smiling like she thought she was the queen of the world. Who knew, maybe she really thought she was.



Mark accepted the packet of papers and began to read the story. He was blown away almost at once. It was much better than he’d anticipated. Cindy, it seemed, did have some talent for writing informatively, but more than that, she had Davy’s gift for capturing an audience from the start. He scanned the rest of her notes and other bits of information she had provided and looked up at her.



“You wrote this by yourself?”



“Well,” she blushed a little, “not all by myself. I had a little help in some things. Davy helped me write out the beginning because he said mine wasn’t quite interesting enough. Maddie helped me choose which headline I wanted to use. I had three set up and couldn’t decide.” She brightened up a little. “But the rest of it is entirely my own work. Dylan sent me a little information for some of it over email. I got the names and ages of the four people who have died within the month. He mentioned something strange seems to be going on with it, but can’t put his finger on it quite yet.”



Cindy looked hopeful and Mark couldn’t take it. He looked back down at the packet, wanting to find something to criticize in it. But he couldn’t. There was nothing in the entire article that was out of place, boring, untimely or – anything.



“You did a good job,” Mark said finally. “In time you’ll learn how to fix up a good beginning and the best way to select a headline. But for now,” he paused, thinking a little, “for now this is good.”



Cindy glowed as she accepted the papers back and rushed off to make copies of the article for Mark’s desk. Mark slumped back into his swivel chair as she zoomed off. Chantelle strode by his desk and paused at the look on his face.



“What’s up?” she inquired, leaning down over his desk. “Did the little cub bite off more than she could chew?”



Mark shook his head. “No,” he sighed. “Though I wish she had. The article itself is brilliant. Here.” He pushed the sheaf of papers over towards her, a combined set of outline drafts, heading selections, note cards, side comments and the all-important final draft. “It’s actually quite disturbing after you’ve read it.”



Chantelle sat down in a chair next to Mark’s desk and pulled the papers forward. Barely three lines in and she looked up, face an expression of mild shock. “She drank bleach? And this Foster guy –” she referred back to the article. “Why the hell would anyone burn himself to death?”



He shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. Looking at it from an editor’s point of view though, it is impressively done. She had help from Davy and Maddie in a few minor things, but the writing is really all her own. She did a good job with it. Maybe too good.”



Chantelle flipped through the writing, back into the notes. “She doesn’t have any sources listed.”

Mark nodded. “I know. I figured that out about halfway through. It doesn’t look like she’s talked to anyone about this, but that can’t be, considering the wealth of information she’s garnered. It’s one of the things I’ll have to ask her about. Although, besides that… I’m not sure why I feel so iffy about putting her article into the paper. I almost feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop before I do anything about it.”



Chantelle sat down in a chair next to the side of Mark’s desk. “Well, I can’t help you there, laddy buck,” she said. “I can say, maybe it’s a good thing you’re feeling so ‘iffy,’ as you put it, about publishing Cindy’s article. She may be a good writer, but it doesn’t mean she’s really ready to take her place on the shelf with the seasoned journalists. I don’t really know how to say it, but you catch my meaning, right? They’re a bit young and you remember what happened to the last couple of journalists who went into difficult spots to get interesting articles.”



Mark nodded. He did remember. The last three journalists that had been going off to find good article fodder had turned up missing or dead. That was the reason the crazy trio of young writers were here. To replace Arnold, Schim and Dot. If he put Cindy’s article into the paper, would it make her more eager to go out and find more stories that could possibly end up putting her in the path of danger?



“I think you hit the nail on the head, Chantelle,” Mark admitted. “I’m not ready to lose another journalist in such a short period of time. It’s been months, but it still hurts. It’ll be years before I’m ready to walk down by the docks again.”

“Yeah, me too,” Chantelle said, a small sigh escaping her. “I miss them too, Mark.”



‘Miss’ doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel about it. Arnold, he was my brother in everything but blood. God, he made work enjoyable. Schim was a total dork, but he made it interesting here. And Dot – he couldn’t even finish thinking the thought.

Dot had been his everything. If she’d been around for another few days, Mark would have proposed to her. He’d been planning to do so on her birthday. It had been six short days away from her birthday when she went out to investigate the dock scandal. The team may have done the impossible by discovering the human trafficking, but it didn’t make them invincible. She had never come back.



“Listen, Chantelle,” Mark said, a little harsher than he’d intended to. “Can you look after the babies for me? I don’t want to be around them right now. Get Jack started on his skateboard project and send Bea and Cindy off to write something about the fashion store at the mall. I really don’t care what kind of articles they put out right now. I just need to get Cindy’s mind off of the article she wrote. I don’t think I’m going to let it get published. Maybe later. Not now.”

Chantelle – bless her – nodded and walked off to where the three newbies had congregated, huddling around one desk and laughing softly every once in a while.



Mark watched her walk off. I am not going to publish that article, Cindy. Sorry girl, but this isn’t the type of thing you should be investigating. Davy would be on it, except we need him for layout. Maddie doesn’t go outside the office. Chantelle sticks around here with me and I’m not going out to find things out about these deaths. Sorry, it’s just not going to happen. I’m not going to lose another promising journalist because of some hot story. The last time we sent writers after someone else’s secrets, they vanished. I won’t do it again. Not so soon. Maybe I’ll have to get you writing about fashion crimes with Bea. But no more stuff about the dead people around Tessa. Got it?



He hadn’t realized that he had stood up and begun walking over to the newbies’ table until he was standing right over them. Um, awkward.

“’Sup bro?” Jack asked in his deep baritone voice.



Mark raised an eyebrow as he looked down at the young man. Jack seemed to be a law unto himself. Instead of the ‘neat and tidy’ appearance that was supposed to be dress code around the office, Jack was wearing a baseball cap on backwards, pants halfway to his knees and a baggy t-shirt that could have hid a circus in it.



“You do know you’re breaking dress code, right?” he replied coolly.



“Didn’t stop me before,” Jack pointed out, “and it ain’t gonna stop me now. I gotta be my own person, man.”



Mark would have grimaced at the bad impersonation of a gang-speak style if it wouldn’t have encouraged Jack. The kid seemed to live to make people uncomfortable, so Mark just ignored the voice and concentrated on speaking like he was talking with a civilized human being. Which, it seemed, Jack was not.



“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Mark growled. “Did Chantelle come over here and speak with you three already?” he inquired.



Bea looked up and nodded. “Yeah, she did. Said something about going with Cindy to the mall later to check out the new fashion store.” Her high pitched, breathy voice seemed more fitting for an animated chipmunk than a young woman, and it took him a moment to decipher her words. She gave him a crooked smile. “It’s going to be really interesting.”



“Yeah right,” Mark heard Cindy mumble under her breath. Bea didn’t seem to catch the negative energy her ‘partner’ was radiating and kept on spewing grand stuff about how fun this article was going to be to write.



“And where are you going to be going?” Mark asked Jack.



“Down t’ the ring,” Jack said, stretching his arms out to the side. “I’m gonna go speak t’ my homies and see if I kin git ‘em in the paper. Couple of ‘em are real good ‘boarders, ya know, man.”

Mark pointed out that the newspaper was read by people who wanted to find out what was going on in their world, not by kids at skateboard parks.



“Not gonna write anythin’ on ‘em!” Jack exclaimed in surprise. “I’m just gonna git ‘em a pic in the paper an’ let ‘em have their fifteen-mins of fame, ya know.”



“See if you can pick up a decent story while you’re down there,” Mark ordered. “If you can’t, I’ll see to it that Chantelle assigns you a beat to pick up until you find articles that are of value to the public.”



“Sure thing, man.” Jack brushed off the editor with ease, like he hadn’t even really been listening. Who knew – maybe he hadn’t been.

“Cindy – can I talk to you quickly?” Mark asked.

The strawberry-blonde looked slightly surprised, but nodded, breaking away from the others to follow him partly out of earshot.



“Where are your sources for the article you wrote?” Mark asked, not bothering to put any introduction to his question.



A strange look crossed her face – defensive, and maybe a touch apprehensive as well. “They said they’d prefer to remain anonymous. I can’t compromise my sources – it’s unethical.”



He felt like ordering her to reveal them anyway, but knew that really, that wasn’t the proper thing to do. It didn’t stop him from wanting to, though. He nodded slightly. “Just make sure to put in something, though. It can’t sound like you’re all-knowing or that you made it up.”

Cindy nodded and made a move back towards the desk where her fellow interns were chatting animatedly.



He let her go and wandered back to his desk. Mark almost didn’t believe the time his watch displayed. Amazing how quickly the day had gone by. There was another hour left before they could close up shop and go home. The afternoon workers came in about a half hour after the morning workers left. If any stories came in during that period of time, they’d end up in the mailbox or on the answering machine or in somebody’s email.



“There’s an hour left,” Mark announced to the staff. “You can start to wrap up your projects and get ready to go pretty soon.” He stalked over to Davy’s desk and pulled up a chair next to the journalist.



“How’re things going?” Davy asked without looking at him from the computer screen.



“Can’t complain too much. The kids are going to be breaking up. Jack’s going down to the ring to take pictures of his friends doing stunts on the equipment there. Bea and Cindy are going to the new fashion store and are going to write an article on that.”



“I thought Cindy already wrote an article.” Davy stopped typing and looked at Mark with a frown. “She did a pretty damn good job on it, too. Did she show it to you?”



“Yeah, she did,” Mark said.



“So why –”



Mark cut Davy off. “First, she doesn’t have any sources – something I think you might have picked up on. Second, she’s not adult enough to be covering stories like this one. I don’t want it to get published in the paper because if it does, Cindy might decide she’s immortal. She’s not. They weren’t.”



He didn’t have to say the names for the biker to know who he was talking about. They hung in the air, unspoken, like lead weights.



Davy nodded a little, but he was still frowning. “Keep in mind that Cindy’s her own person, Mark,” he advised. “The only reason she’s here instead of writing novels in some beat-up shack and living off of the profits is because she wanted to do something difficult.”



Mark must have looked a little surprised, because Davy said, “Don’t be surprised. She’s a stubborn one, that girl. I talk to her sometimes and she makes me wonder if the Hindus are really right. She knows enough about the world to have lived through it a few times herself.”



Mark shook his head. “That’s not the point,” he began but Davy cut him off.



“Sure it isn’t,” the journalist commented sarcastically. “You’re just doing a moral duty, right? Protecting innocent little ones from being gobbled up by crazy things?”



“When you put it that way –” Mark argued.



“Bull and shit. You put Cindy’s article in tomorrow’s paper. She won’t do anything rash, Mark. She’s at least as grown up as Chantelle is. You trust Chantelle’s judgment, don’t you?”



“I don’t see how this changes anything,” the editor growled.



“It does,” Davy pointed out, “because you’re finally seeing that Cindy isn’t Dot and won’t go get herself killed by investigating something alone when she should have taken a partner.”



Mark winced.



“You’ve got to get over it,” Davy scolded. “I know you were madly in love with her and everything but you’ve got to get over it!” He sighed and rubbed a hand through his short black hair. “Look,” he said more quietly. “Dot was great. I know it, you know it. Cindy isn’t Dot and she won’t make the same mistakes that those three did. Besides,” he added wryly, “I don’t know why you’re being so protective of little Cindy. She’s young enough to be your daughter after all.”



He had to duck as Mark hurled a paperclip at him.

“I don’t plan on losing anyone else, is all,” Mark corrected him firmly.



“Fair enough,” Davy conceded. “Now back off, bugger, so I can finish this article. I have a few more things to go over before I turn it in.”

Mark nodded and stood up, Davy already looking at the computer screen and letting his fingers fly

across the keyboard again.



*****



It was about fifteen minutes until four o’clock when the phone rang. Mark picked it up and asked who was there.



“Hey Mark, this is Bill.”



Mark lifted an eyebrow. “What’s cooking, then?” he asked, wondering why Bill was calling him after hours.



“Just wanted to ask if you planned on getting that article put in the paper for tomorrow. The one that James found in your trashcan. The one by –”

There was muffled noises in the background as Bill put his hand over the phone to ask someone who had written the article. Mark waited patiently, wondering how on earth he was supposed to talk his way out of this one.



“The one by Cindy Reet,” Bill finished, coming back onto the phone. “You want that one published, right?”



“No, Bill,” Mark said firmly. “I don’t want that one to go into the paper. It’s not important and it was just a trial paper for Cindy.”

A paused. “Are you sure?” James inquired. “I mean, did you even read it? It’s outstanding. Reminds me of Davy’s work, really. But there’s a definite flavor to it which must be ‘Cindy.’ You got that, right?”



Yeah, Bill, I picked up on it. That article is decidedly Cindy, as you put it. But no, you cannot talk me into putting it into the paper.

“Yes, Bill. I read the damn article. Now put it back into my trash can where James found it. What was that guy doing looking through my trash, anyway?”



“You sure you read it?” Bill asked. “I mean, not trying to put any pressure on you, but it’s awesome…” He trailed off. “Okay, I guess I’ll hold it then.”



“Good man.”



“See you later.”



“Bye.”



Click! The phone went off.



And the chances of Bill just ‘holding it,’ as he put it, are negative numbers. That’ll definitely be in the paper tomorrow. Looks like you got your big break, Cindy girl. I just hope Davy was right when he said you had a bit more of a solid head on your shoulders than Dot did. I’m not going to be losing anyone else, dammit.