Feeder
Page 25
“Yeah, we did,” Tapper cut in, glaring, and jerked his head at Maya. “Your girlfriend would never’ve let us live it down otherwise.”
“Besides,” Iara added, “heroes take care of each other.”
“And you’re kind of the worst swimmer on the team,” Maya added. “Um, no offense.”
“Lucky for you we were all there with superstrength and stuff,” Hawk added, grinning.
Lori’s phone buzzed in her pocket, a single long buzz for “yes.”
She looked at them all, her wonderful, imperfect, broken new friends.
“Lucky for me,” she said, and splashed over to pull Maya into a kiss as the ferries began honking at them.
FRIDAY
EPILOGUE
LORI
“I mean, she’s just gone,” Hawk said on the couch in Lori’s living room the next day, clicking on his phone. “Look, the entry for the god of good dragons is still Bahamut—”
“Appropriative,” Iara said from beside him, and elbowed him.
“Hey, I didn’t write it. But look, the evil one, which I’m pretty sure used to be Tiamat—”
“Or Takhisis, depending on which of the worlds you’re in,” Tapper added.
“Wait, worlds?” Hawk looked over at him. “D and D does space?”
“No,” Tapper snapped, “Dungeons and Dragons does not do space. Okay, there was Spelljammer, but that doesn’t count.”
“Anyway,” Hawk finished, “my point is that the evil dragon god is now some kind of snake thing called Falak.” He showed them his phone, where a fiery snake creature was visible next to a listing of armor class and hit dice. “The Leviathan wrote her out of existence completely. No religious stuff, no historical stuff, nothing.”
“Good,” Maya said, and took a bite of pizza.
“So why do we remember it?” Hawk asked.
“Our connection to the miracoral,” Iara said. “It lets us see the truth of the world, just as Lori’s tie to Handler does.”
“What about the building?” Tapper asked, and as everyone looked at him in confusion, he gestured irritably. “The one we broke into? It was the Lake Foundation, so what is it now?”
Iara brightened. “I investigated that yesterday. It is something called the Angler Institute.”
Lori dropped her pizza. “Really?”
Iara nodded, tapping on her phone. “They do studies of the miracoral to ensure that it is used safely and responsibly without harm, and they are also working on new medical treatments.”
“Hmm,” Lori said, and then a knock at the door interrupted her.
She got up, pulled it open, and was immediately engulfed in a hug. “Hey!” Jenn said after a long moment. “So everything is okay?”
“Um . . .” Lori’s phone gave one long buzz for “yes.” “Yeah.” She’d talked with Ben about what had happened, glossing over it enough for Ben to be okay with sometimes that is going to happen and try not to worry about it. “How are you?”
“Oh, man, I feel like such a tool!” Jenn shook her head. “The one time you need help, and I lose him in the stupid play area.”
So she didn’t remember. That was probably okay. “It happens,” Lori said. “Hey, these are some friends that I met from work.” She gestured to the others. “Guys, this is my friend Jenn.”
“Hey, Jenn,” said Ben, who was playing a video game with the headphones on, “do you want to see the Pokémon game I got on my new phone?”
“Totally,” Jenn said, and waved at everyone, who waved back. Behind Jenn’s back, Lori made desperate eye contact with everyone. She didn’t think anyone was going to start talking about Tiamat immediately, but . . . her phone buzzed.
Handler: Chilllllllllllll.
“Yeah, yeah.” Lori plonked down by Ben’s seat at the table, where several baby carrots sat studiously uneaten next to the crumbs that were all that remained of three pieces of pizza. “Our job is done, so we’re celebrating. Since you took care of Ben, you get a piece too, if you want.”
“Jenn, this is Sylveon,” Ben said, and held up his phone, which showed a deer-looking thing. “He can attack people with kisses, just like Maya and Lori!”
“Um,” Lori said, and grabbed a carrot desperately from his plate.
“Oh, really,” Jenn said, and looked from Lori to Iara, who pointed to Maya, who in turn raised her hand.
“Gardevoir’s got the kiss attack too,” Tapper said, “and since it’s psychic/fairy, it’s better for—”
“Noooobody caaaaares,” Maya said in a singsong voice, and Tapper shook his head, laughing to himself.
“Anyway, Maya is prettier,” Ben said magnanimously.
“Wooo!” Maya reached over and high-fived him.
Jenn smirked at Lori. “You could have told me.”
Lori found herself flushing. “I didn’t want to make it weird.”
“You’re my friend, dumbass.” Jenn poked her. “And now that your job is finished, we’re still going shopping, so you can impress your girlfriend.” She grinned at Maya, then lowered her voice. “Should we buy some flannel, or . . . ?”
“Hey,” Hawk said, “so, um, speaking of, did you two talk about Maya being, uh . . .” Iara elbowed him again. “You know, I was just trying to, okay, shutting up!”
“Oh, about Matt stuff?” Maya asked.
“We talked about Maya’s past history,” Lori said, and took Maya’s hand as she came back to her seat at the table, “and we are good.” They’d talked about it while Ben had been at day care—where a strangely relaxed Mister Barkin had had no recollection of Lori decking him and had been happy to take Ben back in the middle of the day.
“Okay, cool. That’s cool.” Hawk nodded. “I mean, I figured you’d be cool, because you’re chill, but, you know . . .” He shut up when Iara leaned over and kissed him.
As everyone talked and laughed, Lori’s phone buzzed again.
Handler: So hey btw
Lori: The Angler Institute?
Handler: Okay, putting reality back together is tricky.
Handler: Especially when the Leviathan has torn a great big hole in it.
Handler: Institute maaaaaay also be opening an on-site magnet school
Lori: A school for who?
Handler: Oh, you know.
Handler: Gifted kids with aquatic-animal-related powers and stuff.
Lori: Were you going to run this by me?
Handler: We could use the help, kid.
Handler: Tiamat wasn’t the only nasty thing crawling around this world.
Lori: Right. You’re still here.
Handler: :(
“Lori, you okay?” Maya asked, and reached over to stroke her arm. A smooth touch, warm and gentle and soft, and it still gave Lori goose bumps.
Handler: The Nix could use the help too.
Handler: Their families are safe now, but money’s tight for some.
Handler: I haven’t sent the invitation e-mail yet
Handler: Wanted to see if you were okay with it
Lori looked up at Maya and smiled.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I am.”
Then she leaned in and kissed Maya as all of their phones chimed to tell them they had new mail.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Every novel is a team effort, and this one is no different. Thanks to David Hale Smith, Liz Parker, and everyone at InkWell for continuing their amazing job with all of the legal stuff I will never understand, leaving me critical time to look up the biology and behavior of various sea creatures. Thanks to Annie Nybo and everyone at Margaret K. McElderry Books for being not just understanding but enthusiastic about a novel whose pitch was “anglerfish teen girl superhero” and for helping it be the best interdimensional anglerfish novel on the market. Thanks to Jenn, Ritzy, Adri, Cookie, and Cara for showing me where things clunked in the early drafts. Thanks to Karin for doing that and also being an awesomely supportive, nonplatonic life partner and also also soloing the boys on a lot of nights and weekends so
that I had time to write this.
Thanks to Greg Rucka for cuffing me gently on the head when I started overthinking things, to Matthew Inman at The Oatmeal for his wonderful write-ups of both the anglerfish and the peacock mantis shrimp, to Jason Portan at Rejected Princesses for introducing me to the wonderful legend of Iara, and to Sylvia Feketekuty for liking Starro more than anyone ever needed to.
Finally, thanks to everyone who doesn’t feel like they fit in, whether it’s because of how you look or how you think or who you’re attracted to or anything else. Thank you for being who you are. You may not fit in, but you don’t have to. Be you, as hard as you can, because you matter, and you have something to offer this world.
We are all in different places on our shared journey, and we might get there late.
But we’ll get there together.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PATRICK WEEKES was born in the San Francisco Bay Area and attended Stanford University, where he received a BA and an MA in English literature. By day, he works at BioWare, where he has worked on games in the Dragon Age and Mass Effect series. By night, he is the author of the Rogues of the Republic trilogy, as well as Dragon Age: The Masked Empire, a novel set in the Dragon Age universe.
Patrick lives in Edmonton in Alberta, Canada, with his wile Karin, his two Lego-and-video-game-obsessed sons, and lar too many rescued animals. In his spare time, he takes on unrealistic LEGO-building, projects, practices Kenpo karate, and embarrasses himself in video games. Follow him on twitter at @PatrickWeekes.
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MARGARET K. McELDERRY BOOKS
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2018 by Patrick Weekes
Jacket illustration copyright © 2018 by Will Stahle
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Weekes, Patrick, author.
Title: Feeder / Patrick Weekes.
Description: First edition. | New York : Margaret K. McElderry Books, [2018] | Summary: Lori Fisher hunts monsters, aided by an interdimensional creature called Handler, but when she stumbles across the Nix, a kidnapped group of mutant teens, she becomes the hunted.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017017802
ISBN 9781534400160 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781534400184 (eBook)
Subjects: | CYAC: Monsters—Fiction. | Ability—Fiction. | Brothers and sisters—Fiction. | Orphans—Fiction. | Science fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.W4284 Fee 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017017802