Page 18 of All Superheroes Need PR
“I need the comms team to get started on a campaign to explain the, um ... the situation at the bar. I need the legal team to start drafting long-term contract amendments based on the generic contract Mr. Singkham sent us. This is the same base contract the large brands are using to work with the other Champions, so we need this tailored to our client and our work.
“I need ops to start looking into what hiring might need to look like for the next six weeks, because we’ll need to scale up but not so quickly that we can’t manage our work and onboarding simultaneously. Mr. Singkham mentioned potentially contracting space and seconding staff from the COE offices themselves since our space here isn’t bigenough. Dan, can you oversee that? And lastly, I need to see Jem and Margerie privately.”
As my team dispersed in a frenzied panic, I spent the next half hour going over the nauseatingly sparse countersigned contract copy Mr. Singkham had sent me. Neither Jem nor Margerie was particularly pleased.
“You signed this?” Jem said, holding up the sheet of printer paper. “This looks like a four-year-old put it together. It’s not even an original.”
“We’ll get an original Monday.”
Margerie huffed. “This seems sketchy.”
Yes. Yes, it did. “We know the proposal. There wasn’t anything in there for one person to do.”
“There were a few things in there one personmightbe seen as being potentially capable of doing alone.”
“What Margerie is so inelegantly saying is that he’s not a PR expert, and some of the ideas listed in the proposal were vague,” Jem said. “They could be interpreted to be jobs for a single individual.”
“Like what?” I counter, giving Jem a flat look.
“Social media management, to start.”
“That’s clearly a multiperson job. It’s listed in the description as needing a graphic designer, plus I already raised that with Mr. Singkham, and he said he understood ...”
“What about the personal assistant or the Lois Lane clause? Either of those could be interpreted, based on language, as being the responsibility of one person.”
“Even if he wanted a fake girlfriend to spruce up his brand, it clearly said in the proposal that this was a public speaking gig—someone to pose with him in photos and to make most of his speeches for him since he’s basically an asshole.” I hissed out that last part, face flaming as I tried to defend myself. “But the job requires another someone to actually write the speeches and yet another someone to liaise with journalists and media agencies, not to mention the someone who would be managing her or their joint social media pages. Lois Lane was justthe fancy name we gave the speaker of this house—because, unlike his name suggests, we don’t want it set on fire!”
Margerie laughed while Jem narrowed her eyes and slammed one angry finger down on the single-page contract. “What about the PA position? His personal assistant?Personal.Assistant?”
My face reddened. My stomach churned. “I ...”
“Jesus Christ, don’t tell me you signed a contract to be a PA for ten years,” Margerie wheezed.
Oh my God. It was what I had missed, I was sure of it. Panicking, I babbled, “Let me make a call.”
Mr. Singkham answered on the first ring, and he was strangely ... reassuring, promising me that having a PA was one amendment to the contract the Pyro wouldn’t mind striking or delegating to someone else.
I left the call pleased but still confused because there wasn’t anything else we could find. What did he want me to personally work with him on? I planned to ask him at some point during our Wednesday meeting and expel the sick feeling in my belly once and for all, but now, seated in the room across the table from the world’s newest Champion, the butterflies in my stomach transform ... balloon, growteeth.
No, maybe I won’t ask him today. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ten years from tomorrow. Not if he keeps doing what he’s doing, which is the same thing he’s been doing since my team and I showed up and filed into the boardroom to find him already seated at the table.
He’s staring right at me.
Right.
At.
Me.
His pink eyes bore into my skull like a damn drill. I can all but hear the shrill sound of the bit as it pummels through drywall to reach the brain stud behind it. Dark pink around the edges of the iris, his eyes bleed lighter and lighter pink the longer he stares.
“Ms. Theriot came up with the idea.” Margerie’s voice is like a cattle prod to the side.
I jerk and look up in time to see Mr. Singkham grinning huge from the head of the table. “The Wyvern. I like it.” He raps his fist on the tabletop twice. “What do you think, Mr. Casteel?”
Mr. Casteel tilts his head to the side and blinks. “Say it,” he says to me. It could only be to me because he hasn’t looked at anyone else since we walked into the room. At first I thought my hair was dancing or that I had boogers in my nose, but I didn’t find anything wrong the three times I excused myself to take a look at my face in the bathroom mirror.
“The Wyvern?” I repeat, trying to sound strong. My throat is dry. I glance at the water pitcher in the center of the table but don’t dare reach for it.
