Girls Save the World in This One - Ash Parsons Page 0,31

of Tish in various makeup and costumes.

“Oh, I love her!” the woman says, swiping through more photos. “She’s amazing! Give her my card, tell her to email me saying I talked to you at the con, and I’ll give her an online discount code.”

Imani thanks her and slides the card into her jacket pocket.

Another woman wearing special effects makeup stumbles into the booth. Her skin is more sickly looking than actually necrotic, almost gray and with a sheen like she has a fever. On one side of her jaw there’s a large, oozing bite wound.

“That looks great,” Imani tells her.

The woman doesn’t acknowledge the compliment. She’s staring fixedly at pictures of legs and arms, covered with fake tattoos or flowered wreaths.

“She looks great,” Imani says, turning to the makeup artist. “Great work.”

The makeup artist shakes her head.

“I didn’t do it.” The makeup artist sighs. “I wish, though. Look at those edges. That’s next level.”

The bite prosthetic, torn meat and gore, is flexible, moving with the slight opening and closing of her jaw, undulating, almost, under the twitching of fine facial muscles.

The makeup artist moves forward, studying the effect.

“Who did your makeup?” she asks. “That looks real.”

She reaches out to the woman’s arm.

The woman with the bite effect jerks her arm away, violently. She stumbles back, confusion in her eyes.

She shakes her head, like she’s trying to clear it. Then she spins on her heel and runs away from us, pushing through groups of people, until she reaches the end of the aisle and turns out of sight.

“Ooooookaaaaaaay,” the makeup artist says.

We laugh a little, and shrug at her.

The makeup artist picks up a few brushes that fell out of her apron when the woman jerked away.

“I just wish really committed cosplayers would give you some sort of sign,” she says.

* * *

? ? ?

We leave the exhibit hall and go back up the escalators, then down the hallway that leads to both the hotel skyway and the smaller banquet rooms. We stop at the second banquet room for a session called “Apocalyptic Preppers.”

We all agreed it would be interesting, but Siggy was the one who really wanted to check it out. Which surprised me, but she’s really psyched to tell her dad about it. Harald isn’t a prepper, for the record, but he likes to watch that reality show about them.

We step into the back of the room and scan the audience, getting our bearings for a moment before deciding where to sit.

“It’s pretty bright in here,” Imani murmurs. “Compared to the rest of the con.”

She means there’s mostly white people in the banquet room.

I had just been thinking the same thing.

Siggy turns on a dime. “Let’s go to the author panel instead. That looked cool!”

“No, it’s fine,” Imani says. “Just, you know. Noticed.”

“Are you sure?” I ask, because I don’t ever want to be oblivious to my privilege in spaces where she feels . . . other.

I don’t know what to do sometimes, I feel helpless and angry, but pretending it isn’t there just so I can feel better is the opposite of the answer.

And it’s not about me. Not about my feelings at all.

“Thanks,” Imani tells us. “I’m good here.”

“Don’t worry,” Siggy reassures her. “If we need to run for it I’ll trip June.”

“Nice,” I say, laughing. “I see how it is. All together or . . . not, if there’s real danger.”

“Just keeping it real.” Siggy leans into me, though, giving me a little one-armed hug.

We choose a row in the back, near the doors, anyway.

Honestly, I don’t know what to think about preppers. Like, it’s cool to know how to do all this stuff? But it’s . . . well, the mind-set is maybe . . . um. Well.

Anyway, I’m glad we’re in the back.

But when it starts, it’s two relatively normal-looking